37. How to Avoid Foolish Opinions（怎么样防止愚蠢的见解）
1. To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind is prone1, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error.
1、要防止大家常常产生的各种愚蠢的看法，并无需过人的天分。立几条简单的规则就能使得你防止荒唐的错误，虽然不可以防止所有错误。
2. If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don't is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles2, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet. Aristotle, however, was less cautious. Ancient and medieval authors knew all about unicorns3 and salamanders; not one of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them because he had never seen one of them.
2、假如事情可以通过察看来解决的，那你就亲自察看好了。亚里斯多德觉得女性的牙齿比男性少，其实非常简单，仅需请亚里斯多德夫人张一张口来让他数一数，他本是可以不犯这一错误的。他没那样做，由于他觉得他了解。自以为懂而实质并不懂是一种致命的错误，大家都易犯这种错误。我一个人相信，刺猬吃黑甲虫，由于大家告诉我，它们是如此的。但假如我要写一本论述刺猬习性的书的话，那样在我未亲眼看到一个刺猬享受这种倒胃口的食品之前，我是不会动笔的。然而，亚里斯多德却不够小心。古时候和中世纪的作家谈起独角兽和火蛇来如数家珍，但他们中没一我认为，由于自己从未见过这类东西的任一种而有必要防止对它们作武断的讲解。
3. Many matters, however, are less easily brought to the test of experience. If, like most of mankind, you have passionate4 convictions on many such matters, there are ways in which you can make yourself aware of your own bias5. If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously6 aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If someone maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage7 controversies8 are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution9 is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.
3、但，很多事情是不那样容易用经验宋检验的。假如像大部分人那样，在此类事情上执迷不误，那样有很多办法可以使你一个人认识到我们的偏见。假如某种与你相左的见解使你生气，那样这就是一种征兆，说明你潜意识地感到，你没法给我们的想法以充分的原因。假如有人坚称，2加2等于5，冰岛是在赤道上，你只能感到同情而不是愤怒，除非你对算术或地理知之甚少，以致他的看法动摇了你的立场。最激烈的争沦是对那些双方都没充分证据的事物的争论。迫害仪发生于神学范围，而不见于算术范围，由于在算术中有常识，而在神学中仅有看法。因此当你发现你一个人对不一样的建议气恼时，你必须要警惕；通过检验你或将发现，你的信念并无足够的依据。
4. A good way of ridding yourself of certain kinds of dogmatism is to become aware of opinions held in social circles different from your own. When I was young, I lived much outside my own countryin France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. I found this very profitable in diminishing the intensity10 of insular11 prejudice. If you cannot travel, seek out people with whom you disagree, and read a newspaper belonging to a party that is not yours. If the people and the newspaper seem mad, perverse12, and wicked, remind yourself that you seem so to them.
4、使你一个人摆脱某些教条主义的一种好办法是去知道与你不一样的社会集团所持的建议。我年轻时常居住在海外在法国、德国、意大利和美国。我发现，这大大能够帮助消弥井蛙之见。假如你没办法远行，那就找些与你建议相左的人，读一读不是你们党派的报纸。假如这类人和报纸看，上去疯狂、荒谬和恶劣，那样请提醒你一个人，在他们看来，你可能也是这样。
5. For those who have enough psychological imagination, it is a good plan to imagine an argument with a person having different bias. This has one advantage, and only one, as compared with actual conversation with opponents; this one advantage is that the method is not subject to the same limitations of time and space. I have sometimes been led actually to change my mind as a result of this kind of imaginary dialogue, and, short of this, I have frequently found myself growing less dogmatic and cocksure through realizing the possible reasonableness of a hypothetical opponent.
5、对于那些想象力丰富的人来讲，假设与看法不一样的人进行辩论，不失为种好办法。较之与对手进行面对面的谈话，这种方法有一个好处，可以说是唯一有哪些好处：它不会遭到时间和空间的限制。有时，因为这种假想的对话，结果，我真的改变了我的想法。而有时虽然未能真的改变怎么看，我也常发现自己因认识到假想对手可能有道理而变得不那样武断或自以为是了。
6. Be very wary13 of opinions that flatter your self-esteem. Both men and women, nine times out of ten, are firmly convinced of the superior excellence14 of their own sex. There is abundant evidence on both sides. If you are a man, you can point out that most poets and men of science are male; if you are a woman, you can resort that so are most criminals. The question is inherently insoluble, but self-esteem conceals15 this from most people. We are all, whatever part of the world we come from, persuaded that our own nation is superior to all others. Seeing that each nation has its characteristic merits and demerits, we adjust our standard of values so as to make out that the merits possessed16 by our nation are the really important ones, while its demerits are comparatively trivial. Here, again, the rational man will admit that the question is one to which there is no demonstrably right answer. It is more difficult to deal with the self-esteem of man as man, because we cannot argue out the matter with some non-human mind. The only way I know of dealing17 with this general human conceit18 is to remind ourselves that man is a brief episode in the life of a small planet in a little comer of the universe, and that for aught we know, other parts of the cosplaymos19 may contain beings as superior to ourselves as we are to jelly-fish.
6、对于那些迎合你自尊心的建议，要十分小心。无论男女，十有八九都确信自己这一睦别优越。双方都有充分的证据。假如你是个男性，你可以指出，大部分诗人和科学家是男士；假如你是个女性，你可以回敬说，大部分的罪犯也是男的。这问题本来就讲不了解，但自尊心让大部分人看不到这点。大家大伙，不管来自世界何地，都相信我们的民族是最棒的。鉴于每个民族都有其固有些优缺点，大家常常试图通过调整价值标准来扬长避短，以便证明大家民族所具备的优点是真的要紧的，而缺点则是相对无关紧要的。在这里，理智的人会第三承认，这种问题没一个明确的答案。而作为人类的人的自尊心则更难应对了，由于大家不可以同某种非人类的看法去进行辩论，以求得结论。我所了解的处置这种人类常见具备的自负的唯一方法是提醒大家自己：人类只是宇宙一角中一个小行星的整个经历中的一个短暂的插曲，或许，宇宙的其它地方可能有某种生物远胜于大家，就像大家远胜于水母一样。
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