一位老板非要开除女秘书的原因【笑焖你】

两个礼拜前是我四十岁的生日。

那天早 上我的心情还不错。

我想吃早餐的时候，我老婆一定会高兴地的跟我说“亲爱的，生日快乐”，搞不好还会准备一个礼物送给我呢！ 结果她不但没有跟我说“生日快乐”，就连“早安”也没一句。 我想，算了。老婆就是这样，可能我的小孩会记得吧。 结果小孩来吃早餐的时候，也是什么都没说。

来到公司的时候，我觉得很沮丧。 当我要走进办公室的时候，我的秘书珍娜对我说：“早安，老板，生日快乐！” 我顿时觉得好了一点，至少还有人记得。 工作到了中午，珍娜敲敲我的门说：“你知道吗？今天天气不错，而且又是你的生日，不如我们到外面用餐吧，就我跟你。” 我说：“这是我今天听到最好听的话，走吧！” 我们没有到我们平常用餐的地方，反而去了郊外一个比较私人的地方。 我们点了两杯马丁尼，好好地享受了一顿午餐。

在回去的路上，她说：“今天真的是美好的一天。我想我们不一定要回去公司吧？” 我说：“我想不用吧。” 她说：“那不如去我家吧。” 到了她家之后，她说：“老板，如果你不介意，我想到房间换件比较舒服的衣服。” “当然！” 我兴奋地说。

于是她进了房间，几分钟之后，她拿了一个大生日蛋糕出来，接着走出来的是我太太和小孩，以及我的一群朋友，他们全部唱着“生日快乐”歌，而我则坐在沙发上一丝不挂……  

引用

翻譯練習

在翅膀的博客上看到一篇東東．她說有空譯給大家看．等她有空還不如煮一頓我喫呢．反正在這陣子翻譯成習慣．順手拿來做個練習．老師們看了請拿刀子斧砍殺．別客氣．

 

I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.

我最近见到一位多年没见的老朋友。我们曾经在一起攻读PhD。虽然彼此学科不同，但都是研究科学的。她后来放弃了研究院的学习，转而到哈佛法学院。现在她在一所很重要的环境组织里任资深律师。我们交谈的话题渐渐地落到了她当初为什么会放弃研究院上。她回答使我怵然惊愕──她说，研究院让她自觉很笨。她甚至在数年间每天都经受着这样自卑的折磨，之后，她终于选择去干点别的。

I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it; sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way.
Let me explain.

我曾将她想象为我所认识的人中最聪明伶俐的一个。她后来的事业成就其实也佐证了这一点。这使我无法理解她对我说出那样的一番话。之后我曾一直在思考这件事，直到第二天，一时间我顿然开窍。科学，也曾使我自觉很笨。然而，那只是我已经习惯其中而已。习惯其中，事实上，是我在主动找寻机会去领受笨。我甚至不知道如果失去这种感觉将何以自恃。我甚至想，那本来就应该是那样的。

让我解释一下。

For almost all of us, one of the reasons that we liked science in high school and college is that we were good at it. That can't be the only reason – fascination with understanding the physical world and an emotional need to discover new things has to enter into it too. But high-school and college science means taking courses, and doing well in courses means getting the right answers on tests. If you know those answers, you do well and get to feel smart.

当我们在读高中和大学的时候，绝大多数人之所以喜欢科学是因为我们擅长此道。这不可能是唯一的理由，也可能是因为沉迷于对物质世界的了解，以及一种对新知识渴求的情绪促使我们对科学趋求越深。然而，在高中和大学中，科学意味的是选修科目，而在学科中的成绩表现就意味着答对试卷。只要你掌握了那些答案，你就成功了并自感聪绝。

A Ph.D., in which you have to do a research project, is a whole different thing. For me, it was a daunting task. How could I possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant discoveries; design and interpret an experiment so that the conclusions were absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and see ways around them, or, failing that, solve them when they occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat interdisciplinary and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I pestered the faculty in my department who were experts in the various disciplines that I needed. I remember the day when Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years later)
told me he didn't know how to solve the problem I was having in his area. I was a third-year graduate student and I figured that Taube knew about 1000 times more than I did (conservative estimate). If he didn't have the answer, nobody did.

这种情形在一个需要你做研究企划的PhD学生身上是完全迥异的一件事。以我为例，那时候科学对我来说简直是一件令人忧闷的苦差。我要近乎孤立地架构那些能引向重大发现的议题，要设计和解释一个具有绝对说服性结果的实验，我要预测困难，并预则当这些困难出现时可能有的相应解决办法，又或者，无能为力。我的博士研究企划是有点跨学科的。每当我深陷困挠的时候，有时我会去缠着我们系的老师们，他们都是能从许多方面给予我适值所需的指导的专家。我还记得那天，当Henry Taoube（两年后他获得了诺贝尔奖）告诉我，对于我在他所从事的领域碰上的难题，他也不知道如何解决。我那时只是一个三年级研究生。据保守估计，Taube当时比我所了解要多一千倍。如果连他都不能回答，那就无人可问了。

That's when it hit me: nobody did. That's why it was a research problem. And being my research problem, it was up to me to solve. Once I faced that fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days. (It wasn't really very hard; I just had to try a few things.) The crucial lesson was that the scope of things I didn't know wasn't merely vast; it was, for all practical purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.

那就是我顿然开窍的时刻，无人可问。那也是为什么它是一个研究困难。而作为我的研究困难，即我堪当去解决者。一但我领悟到这个事实，我只用了数天就解决了那个问题。（其实它原来也不真的那么难，我也只是作了几种尝试就解决了。这里有一个很深刻的启示，那就是那个我所未知的领域与其说很大，毋宁说是无穷的。认清这一点并不让人气馁，反而令人解脱。如果，我们的无知是无止境的，那我们在事情的过程中可以做的仅仅是尽力而为、不计结果了。

I'd like to suggest that our Ph.D. programs often do students a disservice in two ways. First, I don't think students are made to understand how hard it is to do research. And how very, very hard it is to do important research. It's a lot harder than taking even very demanding courses. What makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown. We just makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown. We just don't know what we're doing. We can't be sure whether we're asking the right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result. Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for grants and space in top journals. But apart from all of that, doing significant research is intrinsically hard and changing departmental, institutional or national policies will not succeed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty.

我认为我们的博士课程总是会从两个方面令学生们感到挫折。首先，我认为学生们并没有被告知去做一项研究有多难；甚至，被告知去做一项重要的研究有多么多么的困难。那甚至比要上所有的必修课程都要困难很多很多。它之所以那样的困难是因为研究总是困囿在未知之中；而我们使之困扰也是因为研究总是困囿在未知之中。我们就是不清楚自己正在做的是什么。总是直到得到答案和结果那一刻，我们才确知我们是不是问对了问题或做对了实验。诚然，需要在学刊上获得认同和刊发的竞争使科学变得更困难。而除了这些之外，要做一项有意义的研究本身就是困难的；在院系乃至国家框架内不断调整的政策也未能减轻其固有的困难。

Second, we don't do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don't feel stupid it means we're not eally trying. I'm not talking about `relative stupidity', in which the other students in the class actually read the material, think about it and ace the exam, whereas you don't. I'm also not talking about bright people who might be working in areas that don't match their talents. Science involves confronting our `absolute stupidity'. That kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our efforts to push our way into the unknown. Preliminary and thesis exams have the right idea when the faculty committee pushes until the student starts getting the answers wrong or gives up and says, `I don't know'. The point of the exam isn't to see if the student gets all the answers right. If they do, it's the faculty who failed the exam. The point is to identify the student's weaknesses, partly to see where they need to invest some effort and partly to see whether the student's knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level that they are ready to take on a research project.

其次，我们并没有很好地教育我们的学生如何去成为“有成果的笨”。也就是说，如果我们还没自觉笨，那么就意味着我们就还没真的在努力。我这里谈的不是所谓的“相对笨”──那种你在课堂上通过努力阅读资料，认真思考，在考试中拿个优等就能豁免的“笨”。我这里所谈的，也不是关于某些聪人可能正好在不适合他们发挥才能的位置上工作。科学要求我们去面对自己“纯粹的笨”。那种笨是一种存在的事实，是一种内在固有的，它在于我们的努力推动我们进入无知。当指导教师小组一直逼问到那个学生开始回答“我不知道”的时候，初审和论文评议才有了正确的意义。评议的目的可不是为了要看一看到底学生有多少的答案是正确的。如果他们要那样做的话，那就是评议的老师不称职了。实质上，评议的目的是为了找出学生的不足之处，并且看看在哪些方面他们需要投入一些努力，又或者，看看在哪些方面，该学生是没有足够的水平去应付他准备去承担的任务。

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.

“有成果的笨”意味着一种伴随着选择的无知。关注重要问题的做法使我困于变成无知的情况中。在科学里，其中一件美妙的事是它允许我们在其中拙足踞步、错误反复，而又在每一次学到一些新东西时自觉良好。这也无疑会使那些惯于得到正确答案的学生深感困厄。毫无疑问，合理的信心和情绪调节是会对上述困难有帮助的，而我认为，对于那些正在从“学习别人曾经发现的知识”转变为“寻找自己的发现”的学生，在他们这个转型时期，科学教育可以为减轻他们的困难提供更多的帮助。在成为“笨”中我们越感惬意，我们就能意气风发对进入越深的未知领域，我们也越有机会发现重要的新知。

 

ps.　若人求知，求愛亦同，都是一件難事．只是放棄求知的容易．求愛，對某些人，一生成癮．出離心有多種教授．只是，我們不願意，也捨不得修．總想著過去未來那些歡樂，卻苦了，今朝今夜．

有空翻译成中文给大家看, 很有意思

The importance of stupidity in scientific research Martin A. Schwartz

Department of Microbiology, UVA Health System, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA

e-mail: maschwartz@virginia.edu

Accepted 9 April 2008

I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.

I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it; sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way.
Let me explain.

For almost all of us, one of the reasons that we liked science in highschool and college is that we were good at it. That can't be the only reason – fascination with understanding the physical world and an emotional need to discover new things has to enter into it too. But
high-school and college science means taking courses, and doing well in courses means getting the right answers on tests. If you know those answers, you do well and get to feel smart.

A Ph.D., in which you have to do a research project, is a whole different thing. For me, it was a daunting task. How could I possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant discoveries; design and interpret an experiment so that the conclusions were absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and see ways around them, or, failing that, solve them when they occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat interdisciplinary and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I pestered the faculty in my department who were experts in the various disciplines that I needed. I remember the day when Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years later)
told me he didn't know how to solve the problem I was having in his area. I was a third-year graduate student and I figured that Taube knew about 1000 times more than I did (conservative estimate). If he didn't have theanswer, nobody did.

That's when it hit me: nobody did. That's why it was a research problem. And being my research problem, it was up to me to solve. Once I faced that fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days. (It wasn't really very hard; I just had to try a few things.) The crucial lesson was that the scope of things I didn't know wasn't merely vast; it was, for all practical purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.

I'd like to suggest that our Ph.D. programs often do students a disservice in two ways. First, I don't think students are made to understand how hard it is to do research. And how very, very hard it is to do important research. It's a lot harder than taking even very demanding courses. What makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown. We just makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown. We just don't know what we're doing. We can't be sure whether we're asking the right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result. Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for grants and space in top journals. But apart from all of that, doing significant research is intrinsically hard and changing departmental, institutional or national policies will not succeed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty.

Second, we don't do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don't feel stupid it means we're not eally trying. I'm not talking about `relative stupidity', in which the other students in the class actually read the material, think about it and ace the exam, whereas you don't. I'm also not talking about bright people who might be working in areas that don't match their talents. Science involves confronting our `absolute stupidity'. That kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our efforts to push our way into the unknown. Preliminary and thesis exams have the right idea when the faculty committee pushes until the student starts getting the answers wrong or gives up and says, `I don't know'. The point of the exam isn't to see if the student gets all the answers right. If they do, it's the faculty who failed the exam. The point is to identify the student's weaknesses, partly to see where they need to invest some effort and partly to see whether the student's knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level that they are ready to take on a research project.

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.