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  3. Scientists are supposed to change their minds. 【F1】Having adopted their views on scientific questions based on an objective eval

Scientists are supposed to change their minds. 【F1】Having adopted their views on scientific questions based on an objective eval

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问题     Scientists are supposed to change their minds. 【F1】Having adopted their views on scientific questions based on an objective evaluation of empirical evidence, they are expected to willingly, even eagerly, abandon cherished beliefs when new evidence undercuts them. So it is remarkable that so few of the essays in a new book in which scientists answer the question in the title, "What Have You Changed Your Mind About?" express anything like this ideal.
    Many of the changes of mind are just changes of opinion or an evolution of values. One contributor, a past supporter of manned spaceflight, now thinks it’s pointless, while another no longer has moral objections to cognitive enhancement through drugs. Other changes of mind have to do with busted predictions, such as that computer intelligence would soon rival humans’. 【F2】Rare, however, are changes of mind by scientists identified with either side of a controversial issue. There is no one who rose to fame arguing that a disease is caused by sticky brain plaques and who has now been convinced by evidence that the plaques are mostly innocent bystanders, not culprits. But really, we shouldn’ t be surprised.【F3】Supporters of a particular viewpoint especially if their reputation is based on the accuracy of that viewpoint, cling to it like a shipwrecked man to floats. Studies that undermine that position, they say, are fatally flawed.
    In truth, no study is perfect, so it would be crazy to abandon an elegant, well-supported theory because one new finding undercuts it. 【F4】But it’s fascinating how scientists with an intellectual stake in a particular side of a debate tend to see flaws in studies that undercut their dearly held views, and to interpret and even ignore "facts" to fit their views. No wonder the historian Thomas Kuhn concluded almost 50 years ago that a scientific paradigm falls down only when the last of its powerful adherents dies.
    The few essays in which scientists do admit they were wrong—and about something central to their reputation—therefore stand out.【F5】Physicist Marcelo Gleiser of Dartmouth breaks ranks with almost every physicist since Einstein, and with his Own younger self, in now doubting that the laws of nature can be unified in a single elegant formulation. Gleiser has written dozens of papers proposing routes to the unification of gravity and quantum mechanics through everything from superstrings to extra dimensions, but now concedes that "all attempts so far have failed." Unification may be esthetically appealing, but it’s not how nature works.
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答案人们认为，科学家基于对实验证据的客观评估、就科学问题形成自己的观点之后，一旦出现动摇这些观点的新证据，他们会欣然地，甚至急切地抛弃原先珍视的观念。
解析     本文共四段，主要讲科学家很少会因为自己的观点被新证据动摇而改变他们的观念。第一段讲人们错误地认为，科学家会轻易改变观念。第二段讲鲜有科学家改变自己对某一争论性问题的观点。第三段指出科学家竭力维护自己观念是错误的。最后一段讲可贵的是，有几位科学家能够抛却对自己声望的考虑，勇于承认错误。
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