I'm going to try and explain why it is that perhaps we don't understand as much as we think we do. I'd like to begin with four questions. This is not some sort of cultural thing for the time of year. That's an in-joke, by the way.
我會試著解釋為何 我們知道的東西很可能並沒有我們自以為知道的多 我想從四個問題開始,不是那種今年流行的文化問題 對了，剛剛那句是個圈內笑話
But these four questions, actually, are ones that people who even know quite a lot about science find quite hard. And they're questions that I've asked of science television producers, of audiences of science educators -- so that's science teachers -- and also of seven-year-olds, and I find that the seven-year-olds do marginally better than the other audiences, which is somewhat surprising.
不過這四個問題，事實上 即使是很懂科學的人也會覺得很難應答 我拿這些問題去問科學節目製片人 問那些有科學教育背景的觀眾 也問教科學的老師還有七歲孩童 我發現七歲孩童答得比其他人好 這是有些令人驚訝
So the first question, and you might want to write this down, either on a bit of paper, physically, or a virtual piece of paper in your head. And, for viewers at home, you can try this as well.
第一個問題，我建議你把問題記下來 抄在紙上，或想像中的紙上 坐在電腦前的你也可以試著作答.
A little seed weighs next to nothing and a tree weighs a lot, right? I think we agree on that. Where does the tree get the stuff that makes up this chair, right? Where does all this stuff come from?
種籽很輕，而大樹很重，是嗎?我想我們都同意吧，大樹用來製成椅子的東西是從哪來的? 對吧?這些東西都是怎麼來的?
(Knocks)
(敲椅聲)
And your next question is, can you light a little torch-bulb with a battery, a bulb and one piece of wire? And would you be able to, kind of, draw a -- you don't have to draw the diagram, but would you be able to draw the diagram, if you had to do it? Or would you just say, that's actually not possible?
問題二，你能否點亮一個小燈泡 只用1個電池、1個燈泡、和1條電線? 那你能畫出上述問題的圖解嗎?不用真的畫 但如果需要的話， 你能畫出來嗎? 還是你會說 這個不可能?
The third question is, why is it hotter in summer than in winter? I think we can probably agree that it is hotter in summer than in winter, but why? And finally, would you be able to -- and you can sort of scribble it, if you like -- scribble a plan diagram of the solar system, showing the shape of the planets' orbits? Would you be able to do that? And if you can, just scribble a pattern.
第三個問題，為什麼夏天比冬天熱? 大家應該都同意夏天比冬天還熱 但為何如此?最後，你能不能 簡單的勾勒出 太陽系的平面圖... 呈現出行星軌道執行的形狀 你可以畫得出來嗎? 你畫得出來的話，就把形狀畫出來
OK. Now, children get their ideas not from teachers, as teachers often think, but actually from common sense, from experience of the world around them, from all the things that go on between them and their peers, and their carers, and their parents, and all of that. Experience. And one of the great experts in this field, of course, was, bless him, Cardinal Wolsey. Be very careful what you get into people's heads because it's virtually impossible to shift it afterwards, right?
好，孩童對事物的概念不是老師教的 老師時常這麼以為，但實際上概念來自於常理 來自於孩童對周遭世界的體驗 來自於他們跟同伴彼此交流 還有跟保姆、父母親、所有人交流的經驗 這個領域中的一個專家，對了，願他安息 就是渥西主教，他說要你將東西放進其他人的鬧袋裡的時候要小心 因為那些東西幾乎不會再改變，對吧?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I'm not quite sure how he died, actually. Was he beheaded in the end, or hung?
我不太清楚他的死因，真的 他最後上了斷頭臺?還是被吊死?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Now, those questions, which, of course, you've got right, and you haven't been conferring, and so on. And I -- you know, normally, I would pick people out and humiliate, but maybe not in this instance.
現在回到那四個問題，大家都知道是什麼問題了 你們彼此之間也沒有討論答案 我平時習慣點人站起來回答讓他丟臉 不過這次就不點了
A little seed weighs a lot and, basically, all this stuff, 99 percent of this stuff, came out of the air. Now, I guarantee that about 85 percent of you, or maybe it's fewer at TED, will have said it comes out of the ground. And some people, probably two of you, will come up and argue with me afterwards, and say that actually, it comes out of the ground. Now, if that was true, we'd have trucks going round the country, filling people's gardens in with soil, it'd be a fantastic business. But, actually, we don't do that. The mass of this comes out of the air. Now, I passed all my biology exams in Britain. I passed them really well, but I still came out of school thinking that that stuff came out of the ground.
種籽可以很重，基本上所有的這些 99%都來自於空氣 我相信有85%的人，或許在你們TED會比較少 會說木材來自於大地，而有些人 也許你們中的一兩位， 可能結束後會來找我爭論 說木材其實是來自於大地 若是如此，那我們就會有讓卡車跑來跑去 把人們的花園都填上土，那會是很棒的生意。 不過實際上我們不會那麼做 因為木材的材料大部分其實是從空氣中來的 我在英國唸書時考生物每考必過 我的成績很好，但畢業後 還是以為木材來自於大地
Second one: can you light a little torch-bulb with a battery bulb and one piece of wire? Yes, you can, and I'll show you in a second how to do that. Now, I have some rather bad news, which is that I had a piece of video that I was about to show you, which unfortunately -- the sound doesn't work in this room, so I'm going to describe to you, in true "Monty Python" fashion, what happens in the video. And in the video, a group of researchers go to MIT on graduation day. We chose MIT because, obviously, that's a very long way away from here, and you wouldn't mind too much, but it sort of works the same way in Britain and in the West Coast of the USA. And we asked them these questions, and we asked those questions of science graduates, and they couldn't answer them. And so, there's a whole lot of people saying, "I'd be very surprised if you told me that this came out of the air. That's very surprising to me." And those are science graduates. And we intercut it with, "We are the premier science university in the world," because of British-like hubris.
你能用一枚電池和一根電線點亮燈泡嗎? 是，你可以，我會示範怎麼做。 不過，現在有個壞訊息 本來有個影片要給大家看 可惜在這邊聲音放不出來 所以我就口頭描述一下的，用巨蟒劇團的表演方式， 影片內容是這樣的，在影片裡有一群研究員 在畢業典禮那天去麻省理工學院 為什麼是麻省理工呢?因為它離這裡很遠 大家也就不會太介意 不過場景設在英國結果也差不多 或是設在美國西岸 我們問了麻省理工的畢業生這四個問題 這些理工科畢業生也答不出來 而且還有很多學生表示 “我很驚訝你說木材是從空氣中來的 ”這真的讓我很吃驚“，那些理工的畢業生這麼說 我們用”我們是全球第一的理工大學“來作影片的結尾。 因為英國人很傲慢
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And when we gave graduate engineers that question, they said it couldn't be done. And when we gave them a battery, and a piece of wire, and a bulb, and said, "Can you do it?" They couldn't do it. Right? And that's no different from Imperial College in London, by the way, it's not some sort of anti-American thing going on.
我們拿第二個問題去問碩士畢業的工程師們 他們說這不可能做得到 我們拿了電池、電線、和燈泡 問他們”你能做到嗎?“，他們沒辦法，是吧? 順道一提，倫敦的帝國學院的情況估計也差不多如此 我們不是在做什麼反美的事
As if. Now, the reason this matters is we pay lots and lots of money for teaching people -- we might as well get it right. And there are also some societal reasons why we might want people to understand what it is that's happening in photosynthesis. For example, one half of the carbon equation is how much we emit, and the other half of the carbon equation, as I'm very conscious as a trustee of Kew, is how much things soak up, and they soak up carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
雖然聽來頗像。問題的關鍵是我們花了很多錢 來教育大眾，我們應該正確地來做這件事。 其中也有一些社會因素 讓我們想使大眾瞭解光合作用如何運作 例如，有一半的碳儲量是人類排放的 而另一半碳儲量 我相當關切，身為皇家植物園的受託管理人
That's what plants actually do for a living. And, for any Finnish people in the audience, this is a Finnish pun: we are, both literally and metaphorically, skating on thin ice if we don't understand that kind of , here's how you do the battery and the bulb. It's so easy, isn't it? Of course, you all knew that. But if you haven't played with a battery and a bulb, if you've only seen a circuit diagram, you might not be able to do that, and that's one of the problems.
是植物吸收多少二氧化碳 植物就是以此維生的 如果在場有芬蘭人，這是芬蘭話的雙關語 我們無論在實際上或隱喻上，都是如履薄冰 要是我們不明白那些事 電池和燈泡只要這要做就行 很簡單，不是嗎?你們都懂了 但要是你沒有親手碰過電池和燈泡 如果你只看過電路圖 你可能就做不出來，這是個麻煩
So, why is it hotter in summer than in winter? We learn, as children, that you get closer to something that's hot, and it burns you. It's a very powerful bit of learning, and it happens pretty early on. By extension, we think to ourselves, "Why it's hotter in summer than in winter must be because we're closer to the Sun." I promise you that most of you will have got that. Oh, you're all shaking your heads, but only a few of you are shaking your heads very firmly.
那麼，為何夏天比冬天熱? 我們從小就知道，離熱的東西太近 你就被燙到，這真很有效的教育方法 很小的時候大家就學到了 延伸這個論點，我們覺得夏天比冬天熱 一定是因為我們離太陽比較近 我相信大多人都懂了 哦，大家都在搖頭 不過只有幾個人搖得很堅定
Other ones are kind of going like this. All right. It's hotter in summer than in winter because the rays from the Sun are spread out more, right, because of the tilt of the Earth. And if you think the tilt is tilting us closer, no, it isn't. The Sun is 93 million miles away, and we're tilting like this, right? It makes no odds. In fact, in the Northern Hemisphere, we're further from the Sun in summer, as it happens, but it makes no odds, the difference.
其他人只是這樣子搖而已，好吧 夏天比冬天熱是因為太陽的輻射線 傳播得比較多，地球傾斜的關係 如果你以為是朝太陽的方向傾斜，那就錯了 太陽離地球1億5千萬公里，地球傾斜角度大略如此 傾斜不是差別所在，在北半球 夏天時我們離太陽更遠 跟傾斜沒有關係
OK, now, the scribble of the diagram of the solar system. If you believe, as most of you probably do, that it's hotter in summer than in winter because we're closer to the Sun, you must have drawn an ellipse. Right? That would explain it, right? Except, in your -- you're nodding -- now, in your ellipse, have you thought, "Well, what happens during the night?"
好，問題四是畫出太陽系的平面圖 如果大家相信，大多數可能都相信 夏天比冬天熱是因為地球離太陽較近 大家應該都畫了橢圓形 對吧?這就能解釋了吧? 除非，你點頭了，你畫了個橢圓形 你有想過，「夜晚又是怎麼回事」?
Between Australia and here, right, they've got summer and we've got winter, and what -- does the Earth kind of rush towards the Sun at night, and then rush back again? I mean, it's a very strange thing going on, and we hold these two models in our head, of what's right and what isn't right, and we do that, as human beings, in all sorts of fields.
澳洲和美國這邊，澳洲是夏天 這邊是冬天，難道說 地球在晚上會衝向太陽 然後再衝回來?這實在很奇怪 我們腦中有兩種思考模式，對的和錯的 身為人類，我們在很多領域都這樣思考
So, here's Copernicus' view of what the solar system looked like as a plan. That's pretty much what you should have on your piece of paper. Right? And this is NASA's view. They're stunningly similar. I hope you notice the coincidence here.
左邊是哥白尼畫的太陽系平面圖 跟你們紙上畫的差不多，對吧 右邊是NASA的版本，兩張圖非常相似 我希望大家注意其中的巧合 要是你知道人們有錯誤觀念
What would you do if you knew that people had this misconception, right, in their heads, of elliptical orbits caused by our experiences as children? What sort of diagram would you show them of the solar system, to show that it's not really like that? You'd show them something like this, wouldn't you? It's a plan, looking down from above. But, no, look what I found in the textbooks. That's what you show people, right?
你會怎麼做 在他們腦中，楕圓形的軌道 是他們兒時經驗教的嗎? 你會給他們看什麼樣的太陽系示意圖? 證明太陽系不是他們想的那樣 你會給他們看這種圖嗎? 這是俯瞰的平面圖 可是並非如此，瞧瞧我在教科書裡找到的 你會給他們看這種圖對吧?
These are from textbooks, from websites, educational websites -- and almost anything you pick up is like that. And the reason it's like that is because it's dead boring to have a load of concentric circles, whereas that's much more exciting, to look at something at that angle, isn't it? Right?
出自教科書 出自教育網站 你找得到的幾乎都是這種圖 會以這種視角呈現是因為 只有一堆同心圓太死板無趣 從這種視角看太陽系比較新鮮刺激 不是嗎?
And by doing it at that angle, if you've got that misconception in your head, then that two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional thing will be ellipses. So you've -- it's crap, isn't it really? As we say.
因為弄成這種視角 如果你腦中有了這種誤解 用二度空間來呈現三度空間就會變成橢圓形 這真是糟糕，可不是嗎?
So, these mental models -- we look for evidence that reinforces our models. We do this, of course, with matters of race, and politics, and everything else, and we do it in science as well. So we look, just look -- and scientists do it, constantly -- we look for evidence that reinforces our models, and some folks are just all too able and willing to provide the evidence that reinforces the models.
因此，我們尋求證據來增強我們的心智模式 我們用這種方式處理種族、政治、所有事 當然也用這種方式處理科學，我們只觀看 是科學家在這麼做，我們不斷尋求證據 來增強我們的心智模式，有些人很有辦法 也樂意提供證據來增強那些模式
So, being I'm in the United States, I'll have a dig at the Europeans. These are examples of what I would say is bad practice in science teaching centers.
所以我現在人在美國，就會說歐洲人的壞話 這些圖片都是我認為不良的科學教育
These pictures are from La Villette in France and the welcome wing of the Science Museum in London. And, if you look at the, kind of the way these things are constructed, there's a lot of mediation by glass, and it's very blue, and kind of professional -- in that way that, you know, Woody Allen comes up from under the sheets in that scene in "Annie Hall," and said, "God, that's so professional." And that you don't -- there's no passion in it, and it's not hands on, right, and, you know, pun intended.
類似教學中心，這些圖取自法國維葉特科博館 以及倫敦科博館的迎賓翼展示區 你看看這些東西建成的模樣 有很多玻璃隔板，藍光色調，弄得很專業似的 那種方式，就像是伍迪艾倫從床單裡冒出來 在《安妮霍爾》戲中的那一幕 他說“老天，這真是太專業了” 這其中沒有熱情，沒有動手參與，是嗎 這是個雙關，不過也有好的教學方法
Whereas good interpretation -- I'll use an example from nearby -- is San Francisco Exploratorium, where all the things that -- the demonstrations, and so on, are made out of everyday objects that children can understand, it's very hands-on, and they can engage with, and experiment with. And I know that if the graduates at MIT and in the Imperial College in London had had the battery and the wire and the bit of stuff, and you know, been able to do it, they would have learned how it actually works, rather than thinking that they follow circuit diagrams and can't do it. So good interpretation is more about things that are bodged and stuffed and of my world, right? And things that -- where there isn't an extra barrier of a piece of glass or machined titanium, and it all looks fantastic, OK?
我舉一個例子，離這裡很近，舊金山探索館 在那裡所有的東西，展示品之類的 都是用孩子能懂的日常用品做成的 都可以動手玩，孩子們可以專心玩好好體驗 我知道麻省理工畢業生 以及倫敦帝國學院畢業生 手上有電池電線點亮燈泡的話 他們會明白其中的原理 而不是覺得他們照著電路圖來做是做不到的 好的教學方法不是 沉溺陶醉在自己世界裡對吧? 那些東西也不該被隔著 用玻璃或是鈦製品隔開 看起來很漂亮就好，好嗎?
And the Exploratorium does that really, really well. And it's amateur, but amateur in the best sense, in other words, the root of the word being of love and passion.
舊金山探索館在這點做得非常好 看上去很業餘，但業餘得很對頭 也就是說，根本的出發點是出自愛和熱情
So, children are not empty vessels, OK?So, as "Monty Python" would have it, this is a bit Lord Privy Seal to say so, but this is -- children are not empty vessels.
所以，孩童不是空瓶子 用“巨蟒劇團”的說法 就是有點像英國掌璽大臣會說的 意思是說孩童不是空無一物的瓶子
They come with their own ideas and their own theories, and unless you work with those, then you won't be able to shift them, right?
他們生來就有自己的想法和理念 如果你沒從這些地方著手，就改變不了他們 對吧?
And I probably haven't shifted your ideas of how the world and universe operates, either. But this applies, equally, to matters of trying to sell new technology.
我大概沒有改變大家的想法 對於世界和宇宙到底如何運作 不過這些道理同樣可以用在推銷新科技上也
For example, we are, in Britain, we're trying to do a digital switchover of the whole population into digital technology [for television].
例如，在英國，我們試著把全部的電視 都換成新科技的數位電視
And it's one of the difficult things is that when people have preconceptions of how it all works, it's quite difficult to shift those.
有個難題是 人們對事物運作的方式一旦有了成見 就很難去改變
So we're not empty vessels; the mental models that we have as children persist into adulthood. Poor teaching actually does more harm than good.
我們不是空瓶子，我們保有心智模式 從幼年到成年一直都存在 不良的教學是弊多於利
In this country and in Britain, magnetism is understood better by children before they've been to school than afterwards, OK? Same for gravity, two concepts, so it's -- which is quite humbling, as a, you know, if you're a teacher, and you look before and after, that's quite worrying. They do worse in tests afterwards, after the teaching.
在美國和英國，在磁力知識上 孩童在就學前學得比較好 重力知識也一樣，兩個不同概念，這實在可悲 如果你是個老師，看見受教前和受教後的差別 實在令人憂心，學童在受教後考得更差
And we collude. We design tests, or at least in Britain, so that people pass them. Right? And governments do very well. They pat themselves on the back. OK?
我們都是共犯，我們設計測驗方式 至少在英國是這樣，好讓人們能通過考試 政府也幫了不少忙，他們推波助瀾 懂嗎?
We collude, and actually if you -- if someone had designed a test for me when I was doing my biology exams, to really understand, to see whether I'd understood more than just kind of putting starch and iodine together and seeing it go blue, and really understood that plants took their mass out of the air, then I might have done better at science. So the most important thing is to get people to articulate their models.
我們都是共犯 如果有人替我設計測驗 在我要考生物的時候 讓我能真正明白，明白我是否真的懂了 不是隻在澱粉中加入碘液 看著反應呈現藍色 而且能真正明白植物是從空氣中茁壯的 我的科學可能就會學得比較好 所以，最重要的是要讓人們能表述清楚他們的模型
Your homework is -- you know, how does an aircraft's wing create lift? An obvious question, and you'll have an answer now in your heads. And the second question to that then is, ensure you've explained how it is that planes can fly upside down. Ah ha, right.
回家作業是，機翼是怎樣幫助飛機起飛的? 這問題很好懂，大家心中也有答案了 注意事項是 你要確保自己能解釋為何飛機頭向下的時候也能飛， 對吧
Second question is, why is the sea blue? All right? And you've all got an idea in your head of the answer. So, why is it blue on cloudy days? Ah, see.
問題二，海為何是藍色的? 大家心中應該都有答案了 那麼，為什麼陰天時海還是藍的?看吧 (笑聲) 我一直想在美國講這句話
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I've always wanted to say that in this country. (Laughter) Finally, my plea to you is to allow yourselves, and your children, and anyone you know, to kind of fiddle with stuff, because it's by fiddling with things that you, you know, you complement your other learning. It's not a replacement, it's just part of learning that's important. Thank you very much. Now -- oh, oh yeah, go on then, go on.
最後，我希望大家能讓自己，還有孩子 以及任何你認識的人，去動手接觸事物 因為親自接觸了事物，你知道的 你就補足了其他方面的學習不足，這不是替換 這只是學習中很重要的一部分 謝謝大家 那麼，噢，沒關係，繼續吧
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
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