All activities related to people with feudal superstitious thoughts and behaviors, such as gods, witches, fortune tellers and Mr. Feng Shui, and people with feudal superstitious thoughts are feudal superstitious activities, including drawing lots, divination, fortune telling, divination, exorcising ghosts, watching Feng Shui and treating diseases with water.
In the national quality, the more ignorant and superstitious things there are and the less scientific elements there are, the more difficult it is for science to overcome ignorance and superstition. Only by arming people's minds with scientific ideas can the muddy water of ignorance, superstition, pseudoscience and anti-science have a foothold, society can be stable and families can be happy. As a lyric says: "There is never a savior, nor does it rely on gods or emperors. It is up to us to create human happiness. "
The basic requirements of scientific attitude are earnest and meticulous, objective and fair, and seeking truth from facts. The scientific attitude is to directly oppose all forms of fraud, forgery and bullying. Nowadays, the society especially needs a scientific attitude.
The scientific method requires seeking truth from facts. Seeking truth from facts, we must be able to discard the false and retain the true, which is not easy, because there are deliberate forgeries, such as creating false images and spreading false information. Another reason is that you don't have materialistic epistemology, scientific methods and basic scientific knowledge, and you have preconceived prejudices, so it is easy to believe that the performance has not been strictly proved.
Because people are influenced by images and imagination stored in their brains when recognizing images, the speed of recognition is limited, and they can't always make correct judgments based on what they see. Hearing is false, but seeing is not necessarily true. The internal causes of many phenomena need scientific analysis and reasoning to make a correct judgment.
Natural science workers use precision instruments to carry out repeatable and comparable experiments under strict control, and at the same time compare, analyze and synthesize the results of other related experiments. On this basis, they build models, form assumptions and laws, conduct strict logical reasoning, prediction, simulation and error analysis with digital methods, and then verify them through experiments in order to get a correct understanding.
New discoveries established by scientific methods and repeated by other scientists under the same conditions can generally be recognized as objective truths by the scientific community relatively quickly.
Superstition is a common phenomenon and has existed for a long time. It begins with people's fear of unknown natural forces, and then they are uneasy about social unrest and rapid changes, so they use superstitious activities to pray for good luck and avoid disasters.
After the Revolution of 1911, superstitions advocating ghosts and gods prevailed in society. Ling Xue Society published Ling Xue Congzhi, and Wushan Society published Ling Xue Yaozhi. At that time, feng shui, fortune-telling, divination, calligraphy, chanting, practicing, alchemy, luck, meeting the gods, telling ghosts, all kinds of strange things were rampant throughout the country. Under the leadership of Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, New Youth magazine held high the banner of scientific democracy, strongly criticized and countered superstitious activities, and ushered in the May 4th New Culture Movement.
In the period of social change, people don't understand the trend of social development, can't control their own destiny, or get rich, or go bankrupt, which are mysterious and unstable. Without spiritual support, people feel and look forward to the afterlife in this life, seeking psychological comfort with religious beliefs or superstitious activities. The prevalence of superstition now is similar to that after the Revolution of 1911, and both have certain social roots.
Pseudo-science is that some people use the broad masses' lack of scientific methods, scientific attitude training and ignorance of specific scientific's knowledge to promote superstitious ideas under the banner of science. Often more deceptive and harmful.
To break the superstition of Chinese people, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of spiritual civilization, and those who cheat with superstitious activities will be punished by law and condemned by public opinion; We should vigorously popularize education and scientific knowledge and cooperate in various fields. This is a long-term systematic project, and popularizing education and scientific and technological knowledge is the fundamental measure, so we should always make unremitting efforts.
In 20 13, 100, an open letter signed by more than one academician was published in China Science Journal, which aroused widespread concern from all walks of life. Once published, this letter entitled "Returning to the Scientific Spirit and Rejecting Vulgar Superstition-An Open Letter to the Intellectuals in China" immediately became the focus of public opinion. Li, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, appealed: "The society should explain the scientific truth clearly through popular science propaganda, improve people's scientific quality and expose all kinds of cheating in time. In particular, it is necessary to prevent middle-aged and elderly people, patients with chronic diseases who have not recovered for a long time, and people with heavy superstitions from being deceived. "
Return to the scientific spirit and reject vulgar superstition;
"The recent exposure of the' pseudo-master Wang Lin' incident has aroused public concern and discussion about the phenomenon of' pseudo-master'. At the same time, to the public's disappointment and anxiety, some senior government officials, famous entrepreneurs, cultural and sports stars and other public figures are deeply involved, which has contributed to pseudoscience.
A considerable number of them are highly educated and even influential in the intellectual circles. Faced with the phenomenon of "superstition" in social life, they not only do not resist, but pursue it without question, blindly follow it, and even spread it through the internet, which is embarrassing.
One of the deep-seated reasons for the popularity of "pseudo-masters" is the lack of scientific spirit and scientific belief.
According to the results of the eighth national survey on citizens' scientific literacy (20 10), the proportion of Chinese citizens with basic scientific literacy is 3.27%, which is only equivalent to the level of developed countries in the late 1980s and far lower than that of the United States (25%) and China (8.93%).
We believe that having certain scientific knowledge does not mean having corresponding scientific literacy. In the current historical period, whether citizens have scientific spirit and belief, whether they can analyze problems with scientific thinking and whether they can solve problems with scientific methods are important criteria to measure whether citizens have scientific literacy.
Intellectuals are the elite group of society, and their values and behavior patterns have a certain guiding role for the general public, especially the younger generation. As an influential group, intellectuals are not only an important force in building an innovative country, but also an example class that can influence the public and teenagers' attitude towards science. Only when the scientific literacy of Chinese people is solid can the national scientific and technological innovation activities reach a certain height and breadth, and the national scientific and technological innovation forces can achieve sustainable development and growth.
Therefore, it is urgent to advocate intellectuals to take the lead in improving scientific literacy and resist vulgarity and superstition.
As researchers, today, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of National Science Popularization Day, we unite to appeal to the national intellectuals through China Science Newspaper, Science Newspaper and Science Network:
Return to the scientific spirit and regain the scientific method; Improve your own scientific literacy, resist vulgarity and superstition, and do your duty to advocate the scientific spirit of the whole people and build an innovative country!
We advocate that intellectuals unite with people from all walks of life, set an example, strive to improve scientific literacy, be advocates of scientific spirit, and be disseminators of scientific knowledge and methods! Through the power of example, we will strive to become a bridge between science and the public and make due contributions to the early realization of the national "innovation-driven development" strategy! "