Gao Xiaoshan Sayings
On June 29, 2002, the first law on popular science in my country - " Science and Technology Popularization Law of the People's Republic of China " was officially promulgated and implemented. Today, 20 years later, under the theme of the National Science Day of "Welcome the Twenty National Congress and Popularization of Science to the Future", various science popularization activities have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Whether it is the government, institutions or individuals, they are working hard to improve the scientific literacy of the whole people.
Since its establishment in 2016, Gaoshan has been firmly walking on the road of scientific exploration and popularization of science for 6 years. travels around the world's important scientific centers, visits scientific experts, and learns and disseminates the latest scientific knowledge.
Over the past six years, hundreds of enthusiastic scientists and outstanding classmates have stood with us.
The epidemic broke out at the end of 2019. Gao Shan launched the popular science public welfare live broadcast on the entire network, using 49 charity live broadcasts to popularize science virus-related scientific knowledge in the epidemic, with 23.04 million online learnings.
At the end of 2020, the alpine science popularization program " Scientific Relativity " was launched on the Lizhi Podcast. The 16 most human-style science celebrities come to chat with everyone every week, and the topics range from "scientists are crazy about love" to "space travel", "AI immortality" and...all.
In 2021, the new science popularization knowledge column "25℃ science " was launched, and 21 top scientists were invited to scientifically interpret the current hot issues for the public, so that the scientific knowledge of "cold" and "hard core" "stepped off the altar" and was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
2022 World Reading Day, the " Alpine Science Classic " Public Welfare Science Popular Science Reading Project is officially launched, and it is planned to invite more than 100 scientists and social talents to introduce a classic science book to the public every week. Up to now, more than 60 teachers have led to reading 23 classic books.
We have been taking action to do popular science.
The goal of the mountain is to "let influence influence influence influence". We eagerly hope that more people will come to the second mountain of life and work together to spread science and improve the scientific literacy of the people.
The following content is selected from the sharing of Professor Wu Ji, Professor Wu Guosheng , and Su Meng in the 11th issue of Gaoshan Science Classic. Regarding popular science, teachers have something to say~
Is scientists not doing their job in popular science?
Wu Guosheng (Director of the Department of History of Science at Tsinghua University and Director of Gaoshan Academy) : Carl Sagan There were several controversies during his lifetime. The first one was that people thought that he was not doing his job in popular science. Have you ever been condemned like this?
Wu Ji (former director and researcher of the National Center for Space Science) : Hahaha, that's not, but I have indeed done some popular science in the past two years, including writing science fiction novels. But the theme is still not leaving the theme of (cosmic space) . (for example, it was written in one of my novels) After we leave the earth, we look back and observe the earth. What changes will happen, etc., it is a bit like science fiction.
When I am very busy with work or very tight tasks, doing this will indeed cause problems. The reason I have time to do it now is because I have stepped down from the leadership position and have not directly undertaken particularly important tasks. , so I think I still have to let more people know about my experience, my experience, and my ideas, especially teenagers. This is also an obligation.
Wu Guosheng: You are a relatively positive idea. Carl Sagan was not evaluated as an academician of the American Academy of Sciences back then. Later people said that he could still be evaluated with his academic level. It should be that he did popular science every day. If he did too much, others would think that he would definitely not do his job properly. I heard this from the side, and there is a bit of gossip in it.
But the responsibility of scientists is not limited to scientific research. If you still have the energy to do popular science education for the public and let more people understand science, it is also a very important task in itself.
is not evaluated as an academician. It does not mean that Sagan is not good. But of course, at that time, many people still had obvious prejudice against scientists. For example, his ex-wife (also an academician) , a very famous biologist. Once someone asked her, the new theory you proposed is very good. Can you write something for us to popularize it? As a result, she said disdainfully, "You should look for my ex-husband."
So there is such a problem not only in China, but also in the United States. means that scientists are vulnerable to unfair treatment when doing popular science.
What kind of popular science is good?
Wu Guosheng: Su Meng, you are investing in aerospace . It is definitely not possible if you don’t do popular science, right? Otherwise, how can you “scam” people to pay for this?
Su Meng (Founder and CEO of Origin Space) : I think these two are not contradictory. First of all, I think popular science is part of the "right business", and it is even the responsibility of scientists, or part of the social attributes of scientists.
I also did scientific research before. Doing research and then writing papers, I found it quite interesting. I enjoyed this scientific research process myself, but after a long time, you will find that I will begin to hope that more people will have a scientific spirit and scientific understanding.
Scientific exploration of will bring people a sense of spiritual pleasure, and I hope everyone can feel this way.
In the process of cognizing nature, whether from an individual or from the perspective of the entire civilization, when humans expand the cognitive boundaries, there will be some very complex emotions in it. I especially hope to share such emotions, precious things that cannot be seen outside of knowledge, and preserve them so that more people can experience it.
In my opinion, If a person does not have some understanding of the world in his short life, and does not feel something beyond common sense and imagination brought by science, I will feel very sorry.
And what I want to spread is not how big the sun is, how far the earth is, or what conceptual things are. These are very important, but in fact, what we really explore is As a person, we are observing the world, and this world is actually much bigger than you want.
Wu Ji: Some people think that popular science is not very advanced because it is true that popular science is done well and not well. Carl Sagan is the best, and I don’t think he has done anything better than him.
If you only explain nouns, it is also considered popular science, but this is a very boring thing, and it is also very simple, just read the draft accordingly.
But if in addition to the explanation of nouns, also brings your own understanding of scientists, life, and the world, it may be a better science popularization. If you can do this to this extent, you must do it and don’t miss the opportunity.
Why is it important to do popular science?
Wu Ji: Maybe my understanding is not that deep.For China, (citizens) has very low scientific literacy.
Regarding citizen scientific literacy, I have done a survey before, which is to give you a table to answer some questions, such as "Why does the sun rise from the east?" "Why does it rain?" and so on. A person's scientific literacy is judged based on the accuracy of the answer. I remember this value should be 10%, while the result in the United States is 20%. So relatively speaking, the scientific literacy of our country's citizens is still relatively low.
Because the launch site is generally in some remote places, I have been to some remote mountain villages because of this. Once, in a mountain village near the Xichang launch site, I met an old lady with a child holding a big rooster. I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was going to do rituals because someone at home was sick.
He was holding a big rooster and he would definitely kill the big rooster, so you can imagine how heavy the superstitious colors are in remote mountain villages. Although they watch rocket launches every day, science has not penetrated into their hearts, and they still believe in traditional and superstitious things.
Therefore, if we want to improve the quality of people's scientific literacy, be able to understand the world, and build China better in the future, or let's put it more vulgarly and build our hometown better, it requires scientific knowledge. It is not well built by killing a chicken or something, and it will never be well built.
If you give him a noun explanation and tell him a formula, it will definitely be useless and cannot educate him. So we have to tell them stories and convey these theories and humanities behind science. The more you mix with, the more likely it is to bring him to a new realm.
It is great and important to do a good job in popularizing science.
About "Galaxy Academy"
Galaxy Academy (GASA) is a learning organization that takes "scientific rejuvenation" as its vision, "let the scientific spirit benefit the nation" as its mission, takes "no education, seek knowledge and exploration" as its concept, and takes "public intentions and great use, intellectual life" as its consensus, guiding entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and well-known people from all walks of life to learn science, and at the same time spreads the scientific spirit and scientific knowledge to the society. (What kind of place is Gaoshan Academy?)
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