2011年考研英語特訓：看閱讀背單詞(3)

　　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 larger 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 also 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。”

　　譯文

　　在實踐中，科學與其說是依靠事先準備的試驗還不如說是依靠觀察實驗者的有準備的頭腦。據稱艾薩克·牛頓爵士通過蘋果落地，發現了萬有引力。多少個世紀以來，蘋果一直在許多地方落下，成千上萬的人看見它落地。但多年來牛頓一直對月球和行星繞軌道運行的起因感到好奇。是什么使它們各就其位?它們為什么不從天上掉下來?蘋果朝地下掉落而不是往樹上飛這一事實，回答了牛頓長期以來對月球和行星那些較大的天上果實所存的疑問。

　　有多少人會考慮過蘋果向上飛到樹上的可能性?牛頓考慮過，因為他不想對任何事情進行預測。他只是在不斷思考。他的思想對不可預測的事情有所準備。不可預測性是研究的本質不可缺少的一部分。如果沒有不可預測的事物，就沒有研究。科學家們在撰寫千篇一律、枯燥乏味的論文供專業期刊發表時往往忘記這一點，而歷史上這樣的例子比比皆是。

　　在和一些科學家，特別是較為年輕的科學家們交談時，也許會得出這樣一種印象，即他們認為“科學方法”，可以取代想象思維。我參加過不少研討會，會上某一位科學家總被問到，他對繼續進行某項實驗的合理性有何想法。那位科學家皺皺眉頭，看看圖表，然后說“數據仍不夠充分”。“這點我們知道，”預算辦公室人員說，“但你的意見如何?還值得往下做嗎?”“你認為我們的結果可能會如何?”那位科學家大為震驚，他沒有料到別人會讓他預測。

　　當然這些就等于說，那位科學家已經成為自己論文的犧牲品，他所提出的種種斷語不容置疑，以致他不僅自以為是，而且使工商管理人員深信無疑。如果試驗完全按照科學期刊報告中陳述的那樣，照計劃不折不扣地去設計完成，那么，管理人員就認為，研究的結果可以美元，美分計，這完全符合邏輯。審計人員也完全有理由相信，確切知道自己的目標并知道如何使其實現的科學家們根本沒必要三心二意，一直眼睛盯著現金記錄卡，另一只眼睛則盯著顯微鏡。如果像科學家寫論文所反映的那樣，渴求規律性和與某種標準模式的一致性，那么管理人員歧視研究人員中的“標新立異者”而贊賞“善于合作者，”即思想上也較為循規蹈矩的人，也是無可指責的。