當科學遇上管理： van Kampen 談《The danger of science management》
1999年，荷蘭理論物理學家Nico van Kampen寫了一篇題為《科學管理的危險》（The Danger of Science Management）的文章。文章不長，語氣辛辣，充滿了一個老派學者對日益官僚化的科研體系的不屑。
他開門見山地說：
「自從法蘭西斯·培根以來，無數書籍討論過『科學方法』。結論是：這種方法並不存在——或者至少沒人知道它長什麼樣子。沒有藍圖，沒有手冊，能保證你做出科學發現。」
但「科學管理」這套體系，卻建立在三個荒謬的「公理」之上：
- 存在一套可以按圖索驥的科學方法；
- 委員會會議能決定這套方法是什麼；
- 政治家和官僚有能力判斷科學的好壞。
Van Kampen當時擔心的，是這種管理方式會把科學推向「集郵」——只做安全的、保證有產出的研究，而扼殺那些不可預測的、需要靈感的、真正開創新領域的探索。
他大概沒想到，四分之一世紀後的今天，他的警告聽起來不像杞人憂天，更像一份精準的預言。
他警告的事情，今天一件件成真。但他的文章仍然只有少數人讀過，他的名字仍然只在統計力學的小圈子裡被記得。科學管理還在繼續，委員會還在開會，官僚們還在看文件，年輕的研究者還在為了「可預測的成果」放棄那些真正瘋狂的想法。
也許這就是預言的宿命：它存在的意義，不是為了被聽進去，而是為了在事後證明——曾經有人看見過這一切。
The danger of science management
科學管理的危險
Ever since the days of Francis Bacon numerous books have been written, innumerable words have been spoken about “the scientific method”. The conclusion is that there does not exist such a method, or at any rate nobody knows one. There is no blueprint, no manual for making scientific discoveries. Science management, however, is based on three axioms: (1) Such a method exists; (2) It can be determined in committee meetings; (3) Politicians and bureaucrats are able to judge about it.
自弗朗西斯·培根時代以來，無數書籍被寫就，不計其數的文字被用於討論「科學方法」。結論是：這樣的方法並不存在，或者至少沒人知道它是什麼。沒有藍圖，沒有手冊，能保證你做出科學發現。然而，科學管理卻建立在三個公理之上：(1) 這樣的方法存在；(2) 它可以在委員會會議中被決定；(3) 政治家和官僚有能力對其做出判斷。
When I used the word “based” I did not imply that the managers are aware of these starting points. Science management is one of those institutions that grow gradually without anybody realizing where it is going. But it is clear that without these axioms, either tacit or explicit, the idea of science management is up in the air. I want to argue: (a) That they are in contradiction with reality; (b) That the consequences are fatal to science.
當我使用「建立在」這個詞時，我並非暗示管理者們意識到了這些前提。科學管理是那種逐漸生長、卻沒人意識到它將走向何方的制度之一。但很明顯，沒有這些或隱或顯的公理，科學管理的想法就懸在空中。我想論證的是：(a) 它們與現實矛盾；(b) 它們的後果對科學是致命的。
Great discoveries are often made by chance. That is in their nature because the reason why they are important is that nobody expected or could expect them; that is why they open up new avenues. Experiments that confirm existing ideas are useful, but an experiment that has an unexpected outcome leads to novel insights — for example Michelson and Morley. In the same way important theories are important because they contain a new element, something of which no-one had thought and which sometimes has a hard time getting accepted — for example Darwin. And the situation in which the new idea comes up are unpredictable: Kekulé sat dozing in front of his fireplace, Poincaré stepped into an omnibus, Wallace was lying in bed with malaria. There are no directives or travel guides for making discoveries. A road map for trail-blazing research is a contradiction in terms.
偉大的發現往往是偶然做出的。這正是它們的本質，因為它們之所以重要，就在於沒有人預期到、也沒有人能夠預期到它們——這正是它們開闢新路徑的原因。那些證實既有想法的實驗是有用的，但一個帶來意外結果的實驗會引領全新的洞見——例如邁克生和莫雷。同樣地，重要的理論之所以重要，是因為它們包含了一個新元素，某個從未有人想過、有時甚至難以被接受的東西——例如達爾文。而新想法出現的場景是無法預測的：凱庫勒坐在壁爐前打盹，龐加萊踏上一輛公共馬車，華萊士因瘧疾躺在床上。沒有指南或旅行手冊能幫助你做出發現。為開創性研究繪製路線圖，這個說法本身就自相矛盾。
Now you will object that I am selecting a few cases but this is not the way it always goes. — Sure, that is right but that confirms that no rules exist. You are talking about discoveries of a magnitude that do not often occur. — Sure, but these are the life-blood of science. I might also have answered that I have mentioned a few prominent examples, but that the same holds on every level. But what I really want to answer is the following.
現在你可能會反駁說，我挑選的只是幾個案例，科學並不總是這樣運作的。——當然，你說得對，但這恰恰證明了沒有規則存在。你也許會說，你談論的是那種不常發生的大發現。——當然，但這些正是科學的生命線。我也可能回答說，我只舉了幾個突出的例子，但同樣的道理適用於每一個層面。但我真正想回應的是以下這一點。
Every science requires inspiration and perspiration. The ratio of them varies in the various sciences, but both are indispensable. Without perspiration science turns into mysticism, without inspiration it becomes stamp collecting. Science management, with its arsenal of proposals, research programs, evaluation committees, schedules, and reports, has the effect of shifting the emphasis toward stamp collecting, since inspiration is inherently unable to be fitted into such schemes. How would a present day manager look at a proposal of Darwin to work for twenty years on a theory that nobody else believes in? How should Rutherford have to formulate a request for funds for discovering the atomic nucleus? At present one cannot afford to sit back and let one’s thoughts roam “in an embryonic fashion”, nor can one do a speculative experiment. The money goes to the safe investigations that are guaranteed to produce a result, which may be of value but does not open new vistas.
每一門科學都需要靈感與汗水。兩者的比例在不同的科學中各有不同，但兩者都不可或缺。沒有汗水，科學會變成神祕主義；沒有靈感，科學就變成了集郵。科學管理，憑藉其提案、研究計畫、評估委員會、時間表和報告這整套工具，其效果正是將重心轉向集郵，因為靈感在本質上無法被塞入這樣的框架。今天的管理者會如何看待達爾文那份「花二十年時間研究一個沒人相信的理論」的提案？拉塞福該如何撰寫一份發現原子核的經費申請書？如今，你無法負擔那種「讓思緒以胚胎形式漫遊」的奢侈，也無法做一個投機性的實驗。經費流向那些安全的、保證有產出的研究——這些研究也許有價值，但不會開闢新視野。
The danger is that this kind of research will prevail as the ideal of science, that the researchers themselves will not know better anymore. One of my colleagues once reported on what he called a dangerous experiment; the danger turned out to be that it might produce some other result than he had mentioned in his proposal as the expected outcome — in other words, the danger that he would find something new rather than satisfy the science policy makers.
危險在於，這種研究方式會成為科學的理想，研究者們自己也將不再知道還有別的可能。我的一位同事曾報告他所謂的「危險實驗」；結果發現，所謂的危險是：這個實驗可能會產生與他在提案中預期不同的結果——換句話說，危險在於他會發現新東西，而不是滿足科學政策制定者。
A scientific method that no-one knows cannot be found by a committee either. Already Multatuli formulated the theorem that the intelligence of a meeting is less than that of each of the participants. Moreover, the participants, in order to decide about a research proposal, would have to be endowed with at least the same expertise as the proposer. Actually the need to arrive at a conclusion causes the committee to gravitate to the lowest level, the level on which simple concrete arguments dominate. That gives them a safe feeling and avoids difficulties. Of course the proposer tailors his proposal accordingly. In this way the evaluation committees, whether or not it is their intention, contribute to the trend towards mediocrity and to the banishing of imagination. Moreover, who is able to let his imagination run when someone is looking over his shoulder at all times?
一個沒人知道的科學方法，委員會也無從發現。早在很久以前，穆爾塔圖利就提出一個定理：一群人的智力低於其中任何一個人的智力。此外，委員會成員若要對一個研究提案做出判斷，他們至少需要具備與提案者同等的專業知識。事實上，得出結論的需要會導致委員會向最低層次靠攏，向那些簡單具體的論據占主導的層次靠攏。這讓他們有安全感，避免了困難。提案者自然也會相應地調整他的提案。這樣一來，無論有意與否，評估委員會都助長了走向平庸的趨勢，放逐了想像力。更何況，當有人隨時在背後盯著你時，誰還能放飛想像？
All this is even more true when bureaucrats are involved in science management. The tragedy of the bureaucrats is that they have to concern themselves daily with things beyond their understanding. In order to talk about them nonetheless they create an ersatz reality consisting of documents. Chained to their offices in the way Plato’s prisoners were chained in their cave, they take these shadows as reality, although everyone knows how those documents are manufactured. A professional science manager told me that the way a proposal had been written was enough for him to judge whether or not it was a good proposal, even without any understanding of the contents. Why don’t editors of journals possess this clairvoyance? It would save them a lot of work, although Pauli and Onsager would not be accepted while Velikovsky and Capra would.
當官僚介入科學管理時，這一切就更為嚴重。官僚的悲劇在於，他們每天不得不處理那些超出他們理解範圍的事務。為了能夠談論這些東西，他們創造了一個由文件組成的替代現實。如同柏拉圖洞穴中被鎖鏈束縛的囚犯，他們被困在辦公室裡，把這些影子當作現實，儘管每個人都知道那些文件是如何製造出來的。一位專業的科學管理者曾告訴我，一份提案的寫法就足以讓他判斷這是否是一份好提案，即使他完全不了解內容。為什麼期刊編輯沒有這種超能力？那會省下他們很多工夫，雖然這意味著包立和昂薩格不會被接受，而維里科夫斯基和卡普拉反而會。
An even more grotesque consequence of the urge to judge without knowledge of the material at hand is the suggestion to count the number of publications (why not weigh them?) or to consult the Citation Index. Imagine that I would judge the scientists in my field in this manner — Prigogine would be on top! The fatal influence of these improper criteria I have experienced personally. I used to tell my students that one should not write a publication unless one had really something to say, but nowadays it is hard to maintain it with a straight face. They know the modern adage: publish or perish. Yet I refuse to accept that the aim of science is to get into the Citation Index. Nor is practical usefulness its aim; the common drivel about usefulness is stimulated by the desire for a simple criterion, which can be handled by laymen such as ministers and members of parliament. Moreover, if you look a bit more carefully you realize that all applications became possible thanks to pure research, as was emphasized recently by Casimir. Does a minister ever read such things?
這種在對材料無知的情況下做出判斷的衝動，還有一個更荒謬的後果，那就是建議計算發表論文的數量（為什麼不稱一稱它們的重量？）或者查閱引用索引。想像一下，如果我這樣評價我領域裡的科學家——那普里戈金會排在第一名！這些不當標準的致命影響，我個人深有體會。我過去常告訴學生，除非真的有話要說，否則不應該寫論文，但如今我很難板著臉堅持這個說法了。他們知道現代的格言：發表或滅亡。然而，我拒絕接受科學的目的是進入引用索引。實用性也不是它的目的；那些關於實用性的陳詞濫調，其背後是渴望一個簡單的標準，一個能被部長和議員這類外行掌握的標準。更何況，如果你稍微仔細觀察，就會意識到所有的應用之所以成為可能，都歸功於純粹的研究——正如最近卡西米爾所強調的。部長們會讀這些東西嗎？
† The article is transcribed from P. H. E. Meijer’s Views of a Physicist: Selected Papers of N G van Kampen (World Scientific Publishing Company; reprint edition 2000). Disclaimer: I did not ask for a permission to use the copyright material. The article can easily be accessed on Google Books.
¹ Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker, 1820–1887) is a towering figure in Dutch literature.
† 本文轉錄自 P. H. E. Meijer 編《一位物理學家的見解：N. G. 范·坎彭論文選集》（World Scientific Publishing Company；再版 2000 年）。免責聲明：我未請求許可即使用了受版權保護的材料。該文章可在 Google Books 上輕鬆查閱。
¹ 穆爾塔圖利（Eduard Douwes Dekker，1820–1887）是荷蘭文學中的一個巨擘。
—— 中英對照 · 完 ——
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