逍遙大汉至
画界之独孤求败
我的“理科男”一文，在海外网络上引起激烈讨论，其中旅居美国的科学家李持先生的见解最全面，我在这里把他给我的信登出来，可以帮助检讨我文章的一些过激，也把一些事实披露给年轻人。附上李持先生画的素描，可以看到他的造型艺术功底，令人敬佩。
第一篇：
I strongly disagree with you. There is nothing in science and engineering education that restrict a person's creativity and imagination. In fact many good scientists and engineers are also good in literature, music, or visual art. Of course, there are narrow minded scientists but there are also narrow minds artists.
After seeing your drawings and paintings I developed a deep admiration for your talent and artistic expression. However, I disagree your way to label Chinese male as low in imagination and creativity, high in jealousy. I studied fine art in the 1970s when I was not even allowed to go to high school after graduating from middle school in 1971 because I was classified as born to a bad family, my parents were professors. Working in a factory in Beijing during the day and studying both math/physics/chemistry and drawings at night for a couple of years, I did well in both fine art and science. The reason I decided to take the science route was due to the fact art in China was so subjective and no criteria what was right and what was wrong. I got in one of the best universities in China in 1977 and later came to US to continue study in 1981.
Pursuing my science and engineering training I got my PhD in polymer physics in 1988 and started to work for one of the American automobile companies right after graduation. Over the years I used both my engineering training and artistic intuition in developing vehicles. I became a chief engineer for one of the compact suv programs and put my passion for beautiful shapes/forms to create new products supported by good engineering feasibility.
Over the years, I have published 32 scientific papers and got 24 US patents. Although I did not have any formal training in fine art but I continue to have deep passion for it. Visiting museums and galleries has been a life long hobby. I respectively reject your one sided opinion of "Chinese science male".
I am sorry I left China many years ago and now have trouble to type quickly in Chinese.
我的回信：
我完全同意你说的事实，而且非常希望结交你这样的朋友。
但是，你肯定没有看清我说的问题，是针对中国现在文理分科（高中开始）的系统影响下的状况，你自己的经历，以及很多世界上杰出的科学家，都为我的说法提供了正面的例子，也就是我希望看到的将来的中国科学家应该具有的综合素质。
我绝对没有专业或学科歧视的意思，反过来，非常尊崇有创新的科学家和发明家。
你的出色的素描作品，也证实了一个伟大科学家同时可以掌握的艺术技巧以及创造力。
谢谢你写信给我！
第二篇：
Unfortunately I was not even allowed to attend high school in 1971. At that time, there was no divsion between science track and humanity track either. Most of the universities at that time, however, followed the Russian model of technical education, rather than the western model of general education popular in Chine before 1949. Nevertheless, if you look the 77/78 graduates, many of us have passions for both disciplines.
我的回信：
Now we are on the same page！ 当然，艺术界里文化知识局限的问题其实更严重！但是文理分科，直接影响了对社会具有更直接影响力的最普遍民众和国家的领导阶层的素质，直接关系到决策和未来，我由是觉得更有必要一说。至于文科学生，他们和在西方的文化人不一样，他们基本上只是文秘一类的职位，可有可无，更不要说艺术家了，很多人的知识结构还在小学程度。
第三篇：
The fundamental issue started in 1951 when Chinese communist party started blindly copy the Russian model of education and divided the good universities such as Tsinghua, JiaoTong into technical schools, eliminated humanity classes in science and engineering curriculum. I grew up in the Tsinghua campus and could personally observe the cultural gap between the old generation of professors who graduated before 1950 and those who got their education after 1952. Simply put, even their styles of hand writing were dramatically different. As you said, the narrow mindedness has also been wide spread among humanity and art students as there was no requirement for fine art students to study ancient Chinese or European literature. The foreign language students never touch art or music. There has been a completely lack of general education, like what we have here in US and Europe, that emphasize on the character building and culture enhancement up to today. Dividing high school students into science and humanity certainly made it worse.
Although many current Chinese leaders are science/engineering graduates, they are still far superior in their logical thinking and planning skills for the better of the nation than many US politicians. I felt compelled and disguised to watch the political debates lately. What a shame of these idiots in the lack of basic common senses and scientific knowledge, they do not know humanities either. Basically the matureness of American public remains at the 8th grade.
Another interesting case is Japan where I lived and worked as a chief engineer for a US automaker for three years. Japan has a general education model and a balanced science/humanity education from secondary schools all the way through universities. Unfortunately the culture of "hell of college entrance exam" suffocated imagination and creativity of its young minds for too long. It appeared to me the narrow mindedness was due to the way their education system force fed so much materials into the young mind when it is still fragile, so they end up with identical copies of "injection molded" mind for the population.
我的回信：
毕竟您更见多识广，看到的问题，不仅仅是中国的，也有美国的，和日本的。我们的确应该思考，怎样的教育系统，才能培养有综合素质的人才，尤其是国家的管理和决策人才。我的文章，确实过激，就我现在人微言轻，还有机会拨动一下很多人的神经，让人们去想一想这样的问题，还是值得的。当然，我也希望这篇文章早点作废，早点被事实唾弃。
第四篇（有一些私人的内容根据李先生的建议删了）：
I really like the soul searching discussion with you. We are the very few really think what is the fundamental issues of a nations future related to its value and education systems. Nothing is perfect, even the Russian system produced top notch scientists and artists in its native country. Unfortunately when it was copied into China, it overemphasized math and science and ignored humanity and art. The "hell of college entrance exam", similar to Japan, further damaged young Chinese children, sufficating their imagination and creativity.The US has a highly polarized, two track education system. For the elites, it has the best in the world education represented by the Ivys, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech. For the poor, the education system produces shamful products and causing the wisdom of the population remains at about 8th grade level.
My son is a high school senior this year. ...Although my son, as the winner of Siemans Award for AP, excels in math and science but he also loves literature, philosophy, history, and art. .... When we talked to the students on (a technology-university)campus, we were surprised to find more than half of the undergrads are Asians. Here in the USA, there is no government to force kids to be technical but many Chinese parents still have the mentality of over emphasizing math and science, ignoring humanity and arts. Old habits die hard.
他的最后一段话，我太同意了。
绝大多数教育，一如绝大多数产品，考虑的是绝大多数人的需求，必须有所平衡。美国教育的成功，也在于更多的允许个性的发挥。其实中国也有“因材施教”的传统。对人文教育的重视自高考后已经开始，还在继续。