Culture Wars in the Lab
Gad Yair
Culture Notes
1 Culture matters when it comes to science. An uncomfortable and regrettable incident at Duke University in January sent shock waves through the scientific community when a professor and program administrator suggested that her Chinese students “commit” to speaking English in professional settings. Although the administrator later apologized, the incident continues to reverberate.
文化对于科学至关重要。今年一月，杜克大学发生了一起令人不安、深感遗憾的事件：一位教授兼课程负责人建议她的中国学生“承诺”在专业场合讲英语，此事在科学界引起了轩然大波。尽管该负责人后来道了歉，但事件仍在持续发酵。
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2 Cultural misunderstandings like this are growing as campuses internationalize. In recent interviews with scientists at Harvard, MIT, Boston University and other institutions, I found that respondents embrace diversity in their workplaces but also raise concerns about puzzling behaviors of their international students. They say that cultural diversity in research settings is crucial but point out that some international students are “too obedient” or “hard working yet lacking in originality.” Without training in cultural sensitivity, they are often surprised and occasionally make errors of communication.
随着校园的国际化，类似的文化误解越来越多。最近我采访了哈佛大学、麻省理工学院、波士顿大学和其他机构的一些科学家，发现他们愿意接受工作场所中的文化多样性，但同时也对国际学生一些令人费解的行为表示担忧。他们表示，科研环境中的文化多样性至关重要，但也指出，一些国际学生“过于听话”或“勤奋有余但原创不足”。由于未受过文化敏感性方面的培训，他们时常感到惊异，偶尔还会在交流中言语失当。
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3 We scientists must learn to work together with our differences and appreciate that we are as culturally unique as any other cultural group. Indeed, most scientists are unaware of the intricate ways by which cultural elements enter their lab, for they do so in subconscious ways. Culture affects the way scientists perform and document their work in laboratories, respond to reviews, and talk with their students. Scientists, after all, are bearers of culture — just as their international students are. For an effective meeting of minds, we need to understand how cultures actually form them.
我们作为科学家，必须学会在差异中合作，并认识到我们与其他任何一个文化群体一样，在文化上是独一无二的。实际上，大多数科学家并未察觉到文化元素是以怎样的复杂方式渗透进实验室的，因为这种渗透会在潜意识层面发生。文化影响着科学家在实验室中从事科研、记录工作、回应评议以及与学生交谈的方式。毕竟，科学家和他们的国际学生一样，都是文化的承载者。为了有效地交流思想，我们需要了解文化是如何塑造思想的。
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4 Cultures differ in their conceptions of truth and instill different perceptions of reality. They even affect the way we think — and international students bring these attributes into American laboratories and classrooms and challenge American professors. These encounters may create frustrating relationships and unproductive communications for both sides, as the Duke example illustrates. This is why scientists need to understand such differences. They need to learn to embrace the cultural richness foreign students bring while showing them how to make the most of American customs and American science.
不同的文化对真理的理解不同，对现实的感知也有差异。不同的文化甚至影响了我们的思维方式──国际学生则将这些特性带入美国的实验室和课堂，对美国的教授们构成挑战。这样的碰撞可能会使双方关系受挫，也无法促成富有成效的沟通，杜克大学的例子就说明了这一点。这就是为什么科学家需要理解这些差异。他们需要学会接纳外国学生带来的丰富的文化内涵，同时向他们展示如何善用美国的习俗和美国的科学。
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5 My study of German and Israeli science, for example, shows the two cultures differ in crucial aspects that affect scientists and their intellectual styles. Notwithstanding those cultural differences, scientific collaborations can create win-win situations. In a forthcoming paper in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology titled “Hierarchy versus Symmetry in German and Israeli Science,” I expose how those two sets of cultural values predetermine scientific practices and intellectual styles.
例如，我对德国和以色列科学界的研究表明，这两种文化在影响科学家和他们的学术风格的一些关键方面存在差异。尽管存在这些文化差异，科学的合作仍然可以创造双赢。在即将发表于《美国文化社会学杂志》的一篇题为《德国和以色列科学界中的等级制与对称性》的论文中，我揭示了这两套文化价值观是如何决定科学实践和学术风格的。
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6 Part of our problem is that culture is a taboo topic. Most scientists claim that “science is science.” They presume that cultural differences are irrelevant in science. However, upon reflecting on their concrete practices, most of my interviewees admit that culture affects the way they think, organize, teach and interact. They also suggest that culture unconsciously defines their scientific priorities. German culture, for example, instills habits that support rigorous and methodical incremental science. Israeli culture, in contrast, equips scholars for engaging in bold, innovative leaps.
问题的根源部分在于文化是一个禁忌话题。大多数科学家声称“科学就是科学”。他们假定文化差异在科学中是无关紧要的。然而，在反思了自己的具体做法之后，我的大多数受访者都承认，文化影响着他们思考、组织、教学和互动的方式。他们还认为，文化在不知不觉间确定了他们科学工作的重点。例如，德国文化所培养的习惯支持严谨的、有条理的渐进式科学。相比之下，以色列文化使学者们得以进行大胆的、创新的飞跃。
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7 The differences are systematic. In recent talks about “Fire and Ice,” I presented these contrasting intellectual styles through interviews with 144 Israeli and German scientists. The Germans, suggested respondents, are orderly, exacting, formalistic, systematic, well organized, rigorous, strict, punctual and disciplined. In Germany, they explained, emotions are not allowed into the lab. In Israel they are.
这些差异是成体系的。在最近关于“火与冰”的研讨中，通过对144名以色列和德国科学家的访谈，我展示了两国科学家截然不同的学术风格。受访者认为，德国人崇尚秩序、精益求精、注重形式、依循体系、组织严密、做事严谨、要求严格、遵时守纪。他们解释说，在德国，是不允许带着情绪进入实验室的。而在以色列，则是可以的。
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8 Respondents suggested that in contrast with German soberness, the Israeli intellectual style is creative, entrepreneurial, open, disorderly, flexible, courageous, associative and intuitive. While describing their “unruly” intellectual style, Israeli scientists often employed an emotional “language of fire” in contrast with German “cold cognition.” “Science burns in my bones,” said one Israeli.
受访者认为，与德国人的冷静相比，以色列人的学术风格是：富有创意、开拓进取、开放自由、不受约束、灵活多变、勇气十足、善于联想、直觉行事。以色列科学家在描述他们“不拘一格”的学术风格时，经常使用一种情绪化的“火一般的语言”，这与德国人的“冷静认知”形成鲜明对比。“科学在我的骨子里燃烧。”一位以色列科学家这样说道。
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9 As a mathematician explained, “Israeli scholars think with flashes and insights.” A neurobiologist agreed, stating that Israeli scientists often succeed thanks to “brightness” rather than by hard work. Those cultural tendencies explain the success of Israel as the “Start-Up Nation.” However, those cultural tendencies also explain its challenges in pushing forward creative inventions and engaging in long-term planning.
正如一位数学家所解释的那样，“以色列学者的思考灵光闪现、具有洞见”。一位神经生物学家对此表示赞同，他说以色列科学家的成功往往得益于他们的“聪颖”而非勤勉。这些文化倾向解释了以色列作为“创业之国”的成功所在，但同时也解释了为何以色列在推进发明创造、参与长期规划方面面临挑战。
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10 Notwithstanding the difficulties of the cross-cultural collaborations of “ice with fire,” respondents affirmed diversity. They suggested that those cultural differences provided for win-win encounters. Each side has strengths, they said; each side suffers from deficiencies. By combining their cultural habits, German and Israeli scientists advance beyond their independent capabilities. True, German-Israeli scientific collaborations also have a political justification in correcting for the past trauma of the Holocaust. Scientists on both sides report that, as a consequence, they do better science.
尽管“冰与火”的跨文化合作存在困难，但受访者仍对文化多样性持肯定态度。他们认为这些文化差异提供了双赢的机遇。他们说，双方自有优势，也各有不足。通过结合双方的文化习惯，德国和以色列的科学家们超越了各自单独的能力。诚然，德以科学合作也存在政治上的正当性──借此弥合过去大屠杀留下的创伤。双方科学家都表示，合作的结果是让自己在科学上更加精进了。
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11 As campuses become global, scientists and administrators would do well to learn these lessons. Cultural diversity might be a boon for science, but for collaborations to succeed we ought to embrace diversity and make the most of our cultural differences.
随着校园的全球化，科学家和管理者应当吸取这些教训。文化多样性可能对科学大有裨益，但要使合作成功，我们应该拥抱多样性、最大限度地利用好我们的文化差异。
Does Rice Farming Lead to Collectivist Thinking?
David Biello
Culture Notes
1 Rice farming still shapes the personalities of people in southern China, according to new research from a group of psychologists. The cooperation required to plant, tend and harvest rice makes those born in southern China think more communally than those born in northern China, where the primary crop is easier-to-farm wheat. The study purports to help explain why some Asian cultures remain more communal despite growing as rich as their European and more individualistic peers.
一组心理学家的最新研究表明，水稻种植仍然影响着中国南方人的性格。中国北方的主要作物是更容易种植的小麦，与北方人相比，南方人在种植、照料和收割水稻中需要合作，这使得他们更具集体思维。这项研究自称有助于解释，为什么某些亚洲文化与欧洲等更具个性的其他文化同样富庶，却保留着更强的群体意识。
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2 “Rice farmers form cooperative labor exchanges, and the irrigation systems create commons dilemmas that villagers have to solve — things like dredging the common canals and coordinating common flooding times,” explains cultural psychologist Thomas Talhelm, who led the study and is currently completing his PhD at the University of Virginia. “I set out to test people from all over China and see whether cultural differences I had seen fell into the historic outlines of rice and wheat farming in China.”
“稻农们形成了合作性的劳动交流，村民们必须解决灌溉系统带来的有关共有资源的问题，比如疏浚共用的运河、协调集体浇灌稻田的时间。”文化心理学家托马斯?塔尔赫尔姆解释说。他是这项研究的负责人，当前正在弗吉尼亚大学攻读博士学位。“我着手对来自中国各地的人群进行测试，看看我观察到的文化差异是否符合中国水稻和小麦种植的历史轮廓。”
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3 The study sprang from Talhelm’s time spent teaching in the southern city of Guangzhou. There he found that people often avoided conflict. “When I was in the narrow aisles of my local supermarket, and people inevitably bumped into me, I noticed that they would tense up, look at the floor and shuffle away quietly,” he recalls.
这项研究源自塔尔赫尔姆在广州这座南方都市的执教经历。在那里，他发现人们往往避免与别人发生冲突。他回忆道：“当我走在当地超市狭窄的过道里时，人们不可避免地会碰到我，我注意到他们会紧张起来，低头看着地板，然后悄悄走开。”
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4 But Talhelm had a very different experience once he moved north to Beijing, including being praised for his skill at speaking Mandarin Chinese by a museum curator at the direct expense of his roommate who was also attempting to communicate. “It seemed that people in the north were more brash, more direct,” Talhelm says.
但北上北京之后，塔尔赫尔姆的经历就大不一样了。曾有一位博物馆馆长夸奖他的普通话说得很好，却直接批评了他那同样试图参与交谈的室友。塔尔赫尔姆说：“北方人似乎更鲁莽，更直接。”
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5 As part of his psychology studies back in the US, Talhelm decided to explore whether the differing agricultural needs of ancient China were reflected in cultural differences between north and south today. To do that, he and a team of Asian colleagues surveyed nearly 1,200 Chinese college students from the major ethnic group in China: the Han. The Han students were drawn from five provinces and one municipality ranging from north to south: Liaoning, Beijing, Sichuan, Yunnan, Fujian and Guangdong. In short, the researchers found that, as the paper publishing the findings in Science on May 9 puts it: “People from provinces with a higher percentage of farmland devoted to rice paddies thought more holistically.”
作为自己在美国所做的心理学研究的组成部分，塔尔赫尔姆决定探索中国古代的不同农业需求是否反映在当今的南北文化差异中。为此，他和一组亚洲同事调查了近1200名来自中国主要民族──汉族的中国大学生。这些汉族学生来自由北至南的五个省份和一个直辖市：辽宁、北京、四川、云南、福建和广东。简言之，研究人员发现，正如5月9日发表在《科学》杂志上的论文所述：“来自稻田面积占农田面积比例更高省份的人，思考问题会更全面。”
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6 Stop for a moment and test yourself. Here is a list of three items: Without thinking too much, which two go together? Bus, train, tracks.
先暂停一下，测测你自己。这里列出了三项：公交车、火车、轨道。无需细想，哪两项是一起的？
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7 If you picked bus and train because they are both vehicles, then according to social psychologists, you favor “abstract” or “analytic” pairings. People from most modern and more individualistic cultures favor this choice, a group that has been dubbed WEIRD (for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) by psychologists.
如果你选择公交车和火车，理由是它们同属车辆，那么根据社会心理学家的说法，你偏向于“抽象型”或“分析型”配对。大多数来自现代文化和更注重个人主义文化的人都偏向于这种选择，这个群体被心理学家们戏称为“奇异一族”（WEIRD，意指来自西方工业化民主社会、受过良好教育、生活富足的人群）。
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8 On the other side, if you picked train and tracks because a train travels on tracks, then you favor “relational” or “holistic” pairings, a thinking style that embraces contradiction, according to psychologists.
另一方面，如果你选择火车和轨道，理由是火车在轨道上行驶，那么根据心理学家的说法，你偏向于“关系型”或“整体型”配对，这是一种包容矛盾的思维方式。
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9 The Chinese college kids did not answer just one such question, but eight (like this alternate set of three: carrot, dog and rabbit) along with 12 random questions designed to keep participants from guessing what the psychologists were testing for specifically. The results were tallied, resulting in a percentage score that reflected more analytic (0 percent) or totally holistic (100 percent), controlling for gender — because women generally are found to think more holistically than men.
中国大学生们不只回答了一个这样的问题，而是八个（比如这道包含三个词的备选题目：胡萝卜、狗、兔子），同时为了防止受试者猜测心理学家测试的特定用意，还设有12道随机题。测试结果经统计，得出了反映更偏向分析型（0％）或完全整体型（100％）的百分比分数，并考虑了性别因素──因为一般来说，女性比男性更具整体型思维。
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10 Regardless of where the students were currently living (for example, a kid from Fujian currently studying in Beijing), Chinese men and women who grew up in areas that traditionally farm rice thought more holistically.
不管这些学生目前在哪里生活（例如，一个家在福建的学生目前在北京求学），在传统的水稻种植区长大的中国男性和女性思考问题都更具整体性。
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11 The rough dividing line in thinking styles and farming techniques is carved by the Yangtze River through the center of modern China. The river also splits China’s major language dialects, among other cultural differences. The finding also held at the level of bordering cities. A sample of 224 people from two neighboring cities in Anhui Province — Bozhou, which devotes only 2 percent of its land to rice, and its neighbor Huainan, where 67 percent of its land is used to grow the Chinese staple — found the same effect. The people of Huainan thought more holistically.
长江，横贯现代中国的中部区域，在思维方式和农耕技术上刻下了一条大致的分界线。除其他文化差异外，长江还分隔了中国的主要方言。这一发现也适用于相邻城市。在来自安徽省内的两个邻市──亳州和淮南的224人的样本中，也发现了同样的结果。亳州市只有2%的土地用于种植水稻，而邻市淮南则有67%的土地用于种植水稻。淮南人的思维方式更具整体性。
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12 Talhelm and his colleagues further verified the finding with other tasks. For example, they had some study participants draw a diagram of a person and his or her set of friends, each person represented as a circle — a task known as a sociogram. People from rice provinces were more likely to draw themselves as smaller than their friends (as do the Japanese, according to prior research) than people from wheat provinces. Wheat provincials drew their personal circles roughly 1.5 millimeters bigger than their peers, which compares with Europeans who draw their circles 3.5 millimeters bigger and Americans who draw their circles an average of 6 millimeters bigger.
塔尔赫尔姆和同事们通过其他测试任务进一步验证了这一发现。例如，他们让一些受试者画一个自己与一组朋友的关系图，每个人用一个圆圈来表示──这个任务被称为“ 社会关系图”。与来自产小麦省份的人相比，种植水稻省份的人更有可能把自己的圆圈画得比朋友的小（据之前的研究，日本人也是如此）。而小麦省份的人画出的代表自己的圆圈要比他们同伴的大1.5毫米左右，欧洲人画的大3.5毫米，美国人画的则平均大6毫米。
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13 “The question of how rice culture is passed down is the real mystery of this study,” Talhelm says, noting that rice culture persists even as the majority of people stop directly farming rice. “Is it values? Is it parenting? Is it schooling? Is it institutions? I suspect it’s a little of all of it.”
“水稻文化是如何传承的，这是这项研究真正的未解之谜。”塔尔赫尔姆说。他指出，尽管大多数人不再直接参与水稻种植，但水稻文化依然在延续。“这是因为价值观吗？是父母的教养方式吗？是学校教育吗？是制度吗？我猜每样都有一点。”
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14 This “rice culture” theory purports to explain the differences between the WEIRD and the East or why Japan, South Korea and southern China, among other parts of Asia remain less individualistic than their modern peers in Europe despite similar levels of economic development, Internet penetration or employment by private industry. Provinces historically devoted to growing rice seem to have lower divorce rates than those historically devoted to growing wheat — more evidence in favor of the idea.
这一“水稻文化论”旨在解释“奇异一族”和东方人之间的差异，或者说解释为什么日本、韩国和中国南方等亚洲地区，尽管在经济发展水平、互联网普及率或私营企业的就业情况方面均与欧洲类似，但与欧洲国家相比，个人主义程度却相对较低。支持此观点的另一证据是：历史上以种植水稻为主的省份似乎比以种植小麦为主的省份离婚率更低。
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15 If true, the impact of rice culture should also be found in people from places like Indonesia or west Africa, which have similar divides between rice and wheat culture. Talhelm says he has also found similar cultural differences in people from rice regions in India. Similarly, the prevalence of wheat farming may explain why European cultures are so WEIRD, as noted by psychologist Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia in a perspective on the study also published in Science on May 9. In other words, the W in WEIRD may not be “Western” but rather “wheat.”
如果情况确实如此，那么在来自印尼或西非等地的人们身上，水稻文化的影响也应有迹可寻，这些地方也有类似的水稻与小麦文化之分。塔尔赫尔姆说，在来自印度水稻产区的人们身上，他也发现了类似的文化差异。同样，英属哥伦比亚大学的心理学家约瑟夫?亨里奇在5月9日的《科学》杂志上发表的一篇文章中指出，小麦种植的盛行或许可以解释为什么欧洲文化如此“奇异”。换句话说，WEIRD（“奇异”）中的W可能不是“西方（Western）”，而是“小麦（wheat）”。
16 But it is not clear if rice culture will persist as more and more Chinese cluster in cities and lose any connection with rice (or wheat) farming. As it stands, Talhelm and his colleagues’ study showed that rice culture persisted whether people grew up in the countryside or a big city. In other words, ancient farming practices may shape the thinking of modern descendants living in a sprawling, crowded city. Or, as Talhelm says: “Most of my Chinese friends have told me the findings fit with their experiences in China.”
但是，随着越来越多的中国人聚集在城市中，并与水稻（或小麦）种植不再有任何关联，目前尚不明确水稻文化是否会持续下去。就当前而言，塔尔赫尔姆和同事们的研究表明，无论人们是在农村抑或在大城市长大，水稻文化依然存在。换句话说，古代的农耕习俗可能会影响生活在杂乱拥挤的城市里的现代后裔的思维方式。或者，正如塔尔赫尔姆所说：“我的大多数中国朋友跟我说过，这些发现与他们在中国的经历相吻合。”