The latest lecture of "Smart Space Station lecture series" was held in the 92 Cafe on the second floor of the Datong Student Activity Center, Peiyang Park Campus recently. Organized by the Communist Youth League of Tianjin University (TJU) and the Student Association of Science and Technology of TJU, the lecture invited Professor Wang Kai as the speaker to deliver a speech named "Scientific Spirit Bred by Eastern and Western Culture" about scientific spirit and culture.  

At the beginning of the lecture, the Mr. Wang posed a question: What is science?  

He first explained the development of science in China and western countries separately to the audience. In Chinese, the word "science" has two meanings: first a social career which scientists and researches pursue; the other one is a value judgement, namely, science is a standard used to describe whether something is reasonable or not. Then, Mr. Wang traced the path of science in China. Science was not officially acknowledged and popularized until neoteric days in China. In those days, Chinese people learnt modern science from Japan, even the Chinese lexical item of Chinese character for "science" came from the Japanese, which can be demonstrated by the Chinese translation of various disciplines including philosophy and economics. Mr. Wang explained the reasons behind this with intriguing examples. He said China's learning of science from Japan was because at that time, China's lack of western-language translators meant learning from the west would be difficult to carry out, while our neighbor country Japan had introduced western learning much earlier than we had and developed dramatically. The scientific spirit emerged quite late in China.  

However, in western countries, the initial buds of science sprouted in an earlier stage of history. Since freedom, liberty and contractual spirit became the core aspects of western values, science has achieved a higher position in western culture. From their perspective, science is not the product nor the proof of high IQ, instead, they hold the view that science is a path to freedom and humanity. Without the pursuit for science, one cannot be called a free man, which contrasts distinctively with China, where humanity and ties of kinship may be put before science. 

After his explanation of "science", Mr. Wang kept raising questions to inspire thought amongst his audience: What is innovation and why is innovation different to creativity or invention? In his opinion, creativity is the generation of new ideas and invention is the creation of new products that have never existed before; while innovation means taking risks, using new processes, methods or models that provide value to others.  

Mr. Wang said that eastern and western cultures laid the foundation of scientific values and spirit, and now we can also build a culture that can support these values. How to build such culture? For college students, the answer is through general education. He also mentioned that there was a misunderstanding in science that it requires the separation of science and humanity, whereas in actuality humanity is an important part of science instead of a contrast to science. 

At the end of the lecture, Mr. Wang wished all the students could find the courage to conquer difficulties, the insight to break conventions, the resolution to persist in what they believe is right and that they could always find a proper way to solve their problems.  

By: CHEN SHUPEI 

Student Editor: HU CAILING 

Editors: QIN MIAN and CHRISTOPHER PETER CLARKE