评论丨诺奖得主：科学对文明进步起着不可估量的推动作用

Editor's note: Randy Schekman is 2013 Physiology or Medicine Nobel Laureate. This is his speech at the TV forum "Science in an uncertain world" jointly held by the CGTN Think Tank and the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Welcome to my friends in Beijing, where it's now Tuesday morning. My name is Randy Schekman. I'm a professor of molecular and cell biology and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. I'm pleased to welcome, to begin the forum that you are participating in. I have had many very productive visits to China. Before the beginning of the pandemic last year I went to China six times, and I've been in several meetings of the World Laureates Association, including one that was recently held virtually in Shanghai. I look forward to the end of the pandemic so that I will be able to come back and visit China again.

欢迎各位北京的朋友，那边现在应该是周二上午。我是兰迪·谢克曼，是加州大学伯利克利分校分子和细胞生物学系教授和霍华德·休斯医学研究所研究员。我很高兴为今天的论坛致欢迎词。我去过中国很多次，每次都收获颇丰。在去年疫情开始之前，我到过中国六次。我参加过几次世界顶尖科学家协会举办的会议，其中一次是近期在上海通过网络形式举行的。我期待着疫情早日结束，这样我就可以再次到访中国。

Public acceptance of vaccination: That is a very serious issue in this country and elsewhere. There are many different conspiracy theories that have been circulating from ill-informed sources. Some of them believe that there are negative reactions. Some of them have made up negative reactions such as this claim that vaccination is somehow connected to autism. That is simply not true. But people believe these things – there are anecdotal examples of people who become ill after they're vaccinated, but it's very rarely proven that the vaccine had anything to do with the illness. Then there are some people who would think that the companies, the major pharmaceutical companies are looking to just make billions of dollars – or influential people like Bill Gates may have caused the virus so that he could make more money. Bill Gates has so much money. There's no reason that he'd ever want more money than this.

疫苗的公共接受度：这是美国和其他国家都面临的一个严峻问题。现在流传着很多缺乏依据的阴谋论。有些称疫苗有副作用，有些还捏造出了一些副作用，比如说疫苗和自闭症有一定的关系。这是完全错误的。但人们会去相信这些说法。有个别人在接种疫苗后生病了，但极少有证据能够证明疾病和疫苗有关。还有一些人认为大型制药公司指望靠疫苗赚取数十亿美元，也有人说是比尔·盖茨这样有影响力的人制造了病毒以从中牟利。比尔·盖茨的钱已经够多了，根本没有理由想要更多。

So all these things are just, frankly, ridiculous. And I think people need to look to respected authorities to recognize who has the knowledge of the facts in this case. In the U.S., it's someone like Anthony Fauci and in China there are equally leaders of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who are recognized authorities in epidemiology and who can be counted on to make a factual statements about these things. And people should simply learn who are the ones who have the knowledge and to ignore those who are making up things.

所以这些说法，老实讲，都非常可笑。我觉得人们应该听取有声望的权威人士的意见，以此辨别谁对这个问题的判断符合事实。在美国，权威人士就是安东尼·福奇这样的人；在中国，中国科学院里同样也有公认的权威流行病学专家，他们对这类问题的说法都是真实可信的。人们需要了解谁才是掌握专业知识的人，同时忽略那些捏造事实的人。

The benefits of science in medical advances are incredible. In the past 20 years, through our deep understanding of the human body, we have very effective treatments now for heart disease and increasingly powerful techniques to stall the development or advance of cancer. These diseases are still the major killers in the world, but we made such progress on it. And it's all because of a deep insight into the chemical and biochemical reactions in the cells of our body. This is done by people who spend their lives studying these details. Scientists generally only care about trying to prove or trying to support a view or to attack some other theory with more evidence. This process of scientific discovery is what has allowed civilization to advance in the last several centuries. And why people would choose to reject that in favor of people who know nothing is really hard to understand. 

科学对医学的发展起着不可估量的推动作用。过去20年里，随着我们对人体的了解不断深入，我们已经研究出针对心脏病的高效疗法，延缓癌症病程发展的手段也越来越强大。这些疾病仍是全人类的主要健康杀手，但我们在应对方面已经取得了进展。这一切都要归功于对人体细胞的化学和生化反应的深入了解，背后是倾注毕生心血进行相关研究的人。总的来说，科学家关心的只是用更多证据证实某些观点或反驳某些理论。正是这种科学发现的过程在过去数百年里推动了文明的进步。为什么人们会选择无视科学，而去相信那些一无所知的人，这实在难以理解。

I'd like to know from my friends in China what the young people feel their prospects are in taking positions either in universities or in research institutes or in the biotechnology companies. In the U.S., especially now with the pandemic, job opportunities in academic science will be very limited because universities have lost a lot of money. On the other hand, the job opportunities in biotechnology and in the pharmaceutical industry are growing dramatically. This pandemic will actually be a boost for those industries. Now, unlike in the past, many of my graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, want to go into biotechnology. They're less interested in going into academic jobs. So what I would like to know in China is if the same thing is true there. Are there many opportunities and academic jobs?

希望中国的朋友们介绍一下中国年轻人的看法，他们认为在大学、研究机构或者生物技术公司工作的前景如何？在美国，特别是在目前的疫情期间，学术领域的工作机会是非常有限的，因为大学遭受了巨大的经济损失。但另一方面，生物技术和制药领域的就业机会大幅增加。这次的疫情实际上推动了这些产业的发展。和过去不同，如今我的不少研究生和博士后研究员都希望投身生物技术领域，而对学术工作不太有热情。所以我想了解一下，中国的情况是否也是如此。中国的学术领域有很多工作机会吗？ 

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