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  3. Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch

Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch

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问题     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 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".
The author wants to prove with the example of Isaac Newton that______.
选项 A、inquiring minds are more important than scientific experiments
B、science advances when fruitful researches are conducted
C、scientists seldom forget the essential nature of research
D、unpredictability weighs less than prediction in scientific research
答案A
解析 从文章第1段的内容可知，在实践中，科学与其说是依赖有准备的实践，不如说是依赖实验观察者有准备的头脑。艾萨克·牛顿爵士通过对苹果落地现象进行推理，发现了万有引力定律。多少个世纪以来许多地方一直都有苹果坠落，成千上万的人看到苹果落地。而牛顿多年来一直对月球和行星绕轨道运行的原因感到好奇。“苹果向下跌落到地上而不是向上飞到树上的这一事实回答了牛顿长期以来对月球和行星所持的疑惑。从第2段的内容可知，有多少人会考虑过苹果飞落到树上的可能呢?牛顿这样做了，因为他不是在打算预言什么。他只是对此感到奇怪。他的大脑乐于接受那些无法预言的东西；不可预知性是探索的一个重要特性。如果没有无法预言的东西，你就不会去研究。据此可知，作者引用艾萨克·牛顿的例子是想证明——虽然科学依赖实验，但它更依赖实验观察者的心理准备状态，不可预知性是探索的一个重要特性。A项与文意相符，因此A项为正确答案。
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