考研英语阅读命题思路透析和真题揭秘(52)

Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments. Sir Isaac Newton supposedly discovered gravity through the fall of an apple. Apples had been falling in many places for centuries and thousands of people had seen them fall. But Newton for years had been curious about the cause of the orbital motion of the moon and planets. What kept them in place? Why didn't they fall out of the sky? The fact that the apple fell down toward the earth and not up into the tree answered the question he had been asking himself about those lager fruits of the heavens, the moon and the planets.

How many men would have considered the possibility of an apple falling up into the tree? Newton did because he was not trying to predict anything. He was just wondering. His mind was ready for the unpredictable. Unpredictability is part of the essential nature of research. If you don't have unpredictable things, you don't have research. Scientists tend to forget this when writing their cut and dried reports for the technical journals, but history is filled with examples of it.

In talking to some scientists, particularly younger ones, you might gather the impression that they find the "scientific method" a substitute for imaginative thought. I've attended research conferences where a scientist has been asked what he thinks about the advisability of continuing a certain experiment. The scientist has frowned, looked at the graphs, and said "the data are still inconclusive." "We know that," the men from the budget office have said, "but what do you think? Is it worthwhile going on? What do you think we might expect?" The scientist has been shocked at having even been asked to speculate.

What this amounts to, of course, is that the scientist has become the victim of his own writings. He has put forward unquestioned claims so consistently that he not only believes them himself, but has convinced industrial and business management that they are true. If experiments are planned and carried out according to plan as faithfully as the reports in the science journals indicate, then it is perfectly logical for management to expect research to produce results measurable in dollars and cents. It is entirely reasonable for auditors to believe that scientists who know exactly where they are going and how they will get there should not be distracted by the necessity of keeping one eye on the cash register while the other eye is on the microscope. Nor, if regularity and conformity to a standard pattern are as desirable to the scientist as the writing of his papers would appear to reflect , is management to be blamed for discriminating against the "odd balls among researchers in favor of more conventional thinkers who "work well with the team. "

在实践中，科学的进步依赖于做实验，但更依赖于实验的观察者有所准备的头脑。艾萨克·牛顿爵士通过苹果落地发现了万有引力。多少个世纪以来，苹果一直在许多地方落到地面，也有成千上万的人看到过苹果落地。但多年来牛顿一直对月球和行星绕轨道运行的起因好奇不已。是什么力量使它们处于现在的位置呢？它们为什么不从天上掉下来呢？苹果向下落到地面不是向上飞到树上，这一事实回答了他长期以来一直对天空中更庞大的物体--月球和行星所存有的疑问。

多少人会考虑过苹果向上飞到树上的可能性呢？牛顿考虑过，因为他不想对任何事情进行预测。他只是怀有好奇心。他的头脑在随时准备思考不可预测的事。不可预测性是科学研究不可或缺的一个重要特征。如果没有不可预测现象的产生，就无所谓科学研究了。科学家们在为科学杂志撰写千篇一律的报告时常常忘记这一点，而历史上这样的例子却比比皆是。

在和一些科学家，特别是青年科学家交谈时，你可能会产生这样一种印象：他们认为用所谓的"科学方法"可以代替创造性思维。我出席过一些科研会议，会上有人问一位科学家继续某项实验是否是明智之举。那位科学家皱了皱眉，又看了看图表，然后说："数据还是不够充分。"预算部门的人说："这点我们知道，但你的意见如何？你觉得值得做下去吗？你觉得我们可以期待什么呢？"这位科学家感到很震惊，他没有想到人们会让他做出预测。

当然，这几乎等于说：那位科学家成了他自己论文的受害者。他所提出的种种论断是如此不容置疑、如此一致，以至于不仅他自己相信了自己的结论，而且也说服了工商界的管理者相信其正确性。假如实验完全按照科学杂志登载的科学报告所陈述的那样按事先的计划去规划和实施，那么，管理层期待研究能够产生可以用金钱衡量的结果是符合逻辑的。审计人员也完全有理由相信，确切知道自己的目标并知道如何实现这一目标的科学家们根本没必要用一只眼盯着现金计数器的同时，还要用另一只眼睛盯着显微镜。如果像他们的论文所反映的那样，科学家也想看到规律性和与某种标准模式的一致性，那么如果管理人员歧视研究人员中的"标新立异者"，而赞赏"善于合作"墨守成规的人，那也是无可指摘的。