“无用”研究大有用处

Almost eight decades ago, the American educationalist Abraham Flexner published an essay entitled The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge. In it, he argued that the most powerful intellectual and technological breakthroughs usually emerged from research that initially appeared “useless”, without much relevance to real life.

近80年前，美国教育家亚伯拉罕•弗莱克斯纳(Abraham Flexner)发表了一篇题为《无用知识的有用性》(The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge)的论文。他认为，最强大的知识和技术突破通常来自于最初看来“无用”、与现实生活没太大关系的研究。

As a result, it was vital, Flexner said, that these “useless” endeavours should be supported, even if they did not produce an immediate payback, because otherwise the next wave of innovation simply would not occur. “Curiosity, which may or may not eventuate in something useful, is probably the outstanding characteristic of modern thinking,” he declared. “It is not new. It goes back to Galileo, Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton, and it must be absolutely unhampered.”

因此，弗莱克斯纳说，至关重要的是，这些“无用的”努力应得到支持，即使没有立刻带来回报。这是因为，若非如此，下一波创新根本不会发生。“也许会、也许不会最终带来有用之物的好奇心，很可能是现代思维的突出特点，”他宣称，“这种好奇心不是新鲜事，可以追溯到伽利略(Galileo)、培根(Bacon)和艾萨克•牛顿爵士(Sir Isaac Newton)的时代，而且绝对不应受到阻碍。”

It is a powerful point to ponder, particularly as Donald Trump’s new administration gets to work. When Flexner wrote those words in 1939, he knew that he was grappling with an epoch-making period: not only had the US just experienced a long depression but Europe was on the brink of war.

这是一个值得思考的强有力的观点，尤其是在唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的新政府开始运转时。当弗莱克斯纳在1939年写这些话时，他知道他正面对一个划时代的艰难时期：不仅美国刚刚经历过一段长期萧条，而且欧洲正处于战争边缘。

All of this understandably made it hard to justify spending money on “frivolous” research. But Flexner was committed to the cause: in 1929, he persuaded a wealthy American family, the Bambergers, to use some of their largesse to fund the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton to support exactly this kind of “undirected” research.

可以理解的是，所有这一切都使得花钱做“无用”研究难以得到支持。但是，弗莱克斯纳致力于这项事业：1929年，他说服富裕的美国班伯格家族(Bambergers)把他们慷慨捐款中的一部分捐给了普林斯顿高等研究院(IAS)，支持这种“没有导向的”研究。

And it paid off: brilliant Jewish scientists fleeing from Nazi Germany, such as Albert Einstein, congregated at the IAS to explore undirected ideas. And while some of these, such as Einstein’s own work developing his earlier theory of relativity, did not initially seem valuable, many eventually produced powerful applications (albeit after many decades).

此举获得了回报：诸如阿尔伯特•爱因斯坦(Albert Einstein)等逃离纳粹德国的才华横溢的犹太科学家，聚集在IAS探索没有导向的想法。尽管其中一些研究——例如爱因斯坦对他早期相对论的研究——最初看来并无价值，但许多研究最终产生了强大的应用价值(尽管是在几十年之后)。

“Without Einstein’s theory, our GPS tracking devices would be inaccurate by about seven miles,” writes Robbert Dijkgraaf, the current director of the IAS, in the foreword to a newly released reprint of Flexner’s essay. Concepts such as quantum mechanics or superconductivity also seemed fairly useless at first — but yielded huge dividends at a later date.

“没有爱因斯坦的理论，我们的全球定位系统(GPS)跟踪设备的精度将降低大约7英里，”IAS的现任院长罗伯特•迪克格拉夫(Robbert Dijkgraaf)在最新出版的弗莱克斯纳论文重印版的前言中写道。量子力学或超导性等概念起初也看似相当无用——但在日后却产生了巨大红利。

This point might seem familiar. Most books about innovation today stress the importance of blue-sky thinking and serendipity — look, for example, at Obliquity by my colleague John Kay. But the reason why the IAS is re-releasing Flexner’s essay now is that scientists such as Dijkgraaf fear this core principle is increasingly under threat.

这一点似乎让人感觉很熟悉。如今，大多数关于创新的书籍都强调蓝天思考(blue-sky thinking，指不受现实条件约束的自由思考——译者注)和偶然性的重要性，比如我同事约翰•凯(John Kay)的那本《迂回》(Obliquity)。但眼下IAS重新出版弗莱克斯纳这篇文章的原因是，迪克格拉夫等科学家担心这条核心原则会越来越受到威胁。

That is partly because the Trump administration has released a projected budget that threatens to slash funding for the arts, science and educational groups. But the squeeze — and concern — pre-dates Trump. Back in 1964, Dijkgraaf points out, the US Federal research and development budget was about 2.1 per cent of GDP. Last year it was around 0.8 per cent, half of which was earmarked for defence spending. Meanwhile the budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has tumbled 25 per cent in the past decade.

部分原因在于，特朗普政府已公布了一份预算计划，可能会大幅削减对于艺术、科学和教育集团的拨款。但是，早在特朗普上台之前，就有这种挤压和担心。迪克格拉夫指出，在1964年，美国联邦研发预算约为国内生产总值(GDP)的2.1%。去年，这一比例约为0.8%，其中有半数用于国防开支。同时，过去10年美国国立卫生研究院(National Institutes of Health,简称NIH)的预算下降了25%。

Some rightwing voices might argue that this is no bad thing; many Republicans believe that research is better funded by business or philanthropists than by government. But one striking fact about the past century is how much American innovation originated in NIH and federal projects; Silicon Valley would never have boomed were it not for the fact that state funding enabled the development of the World Wide Web, for example. Right now there is little evidence that business will plug the gap; on the contrary, business has accounted for just 6 per cent of US spending on basic research in recent years, partly because shareholder pressure makes it hard for businesses to spend money on research that does not produce a swift return.

一些右翼声音可能会认为，这不是坏事;许多共和党人认为，研究最好由企业或慈善家、而不是政府来资助。但是，过去一个世纪的一个惊人事实是，美国创新在很大程度上源于NIH和联邦项目;例如，若不是国家资助使万维网(World Wide Web)的研发成为可能，硅谷永远不会兴旺发达。现在没有什么证据证明企业将弥补差距;恰恰相反，近年来，企业仅占美国基础研究支出的6%，部分原因是股东压力使得企业很难把资金花到不会产生快速回报的研究项目上。

*** ***

Some scientists hope that private sector benefactors could get involved, as they did in Flexner’s day. A few billionaires have indeed jumped in: look, for example, at how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting medical research. But benefactors often want to tie their money to specific research goals, directing studies into a particular problem or challenge (such as, say, developing a specific vaccine or clean energy). And universities tend to be increasingly wary of boundary-busting research — in today’s academic world scientists are under pressure to specialise in rigid disciplines if they want to win grants and tenure.

有些科学家希望私营部门的捐助者能够参与进来，就像弗莱克斯纳所处时代那样。少数亿万富豪确实加入了：比如说，看看比尔及梅琳达•盖茨基金会(Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)现在是如何支持医学研究的。但是，捐助者往往希望将资金用于具体的研究目标，将研究指向特定问题或挑战(例如开发特定疫苗或清洁能源)。大学往往越来越不敢从事突破边界的研究——在当今学术界，如果科学家想要获得资助和终身职位，他们就有压力要专门研究严密学科。

Hence the reason Flexner’s essay needs to be reread, not just by government officials and business leaders but by scientists and voters as well. Justifying seemingly “useless” research is never easy; in today’s cash-strapped world it is doubly hard. Now, more than ever, civic-minded billionaires need to swim against the tide; and maybe even recruit some modern-day Einsteins to take this fight forward.

因此，弗莱克斯纳的文章不仅政府官员和商界领袖有必要重读，科学家和选民也有必要重读。替“无用的”研究辩护绝非易事;在今天资金紧张的世界中，此事难上加难。现在，热心公益的亿万富豪比以往任何时候都更需要反潮流而行;甚至可能需要招募一些现代的爱因斯坦式人物，把这场战斗推向前进。