雅思阅读第037套P3-Accidental Scientists
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 onthe following pages.
Accidental Scientists
A A paradox lies close to the heart ofscientific discovery. If you know just what you are looking for, finding it canhardly count as a discovery, since it was fully anticipated. But if, on theother hand, you have no notion of what you are looking for, you cannot knowwhen you have found it, and discovery, as such, is out of the question. In thephilosophy of science, these extremes map onto the purist forms of deductivismand inductivism: In the former, the outcome is supposed to be logicallycontained in the premises you start with; in the latter, you are recommended tostart with no expectations whatsoever and see what turns up.
B As in so many things, the idealposition is widely supposed to reside somewhere in between these twoimpossible-to-realise extremes. You want to have a good enough idea of what youare looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value, and youwant to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternativeoutcomes. Scientific discovery should, therefore, have an accidental aspect,but not too much of one. Serendipity is a word that expresses a positionsomething like that. It’s a fascinating word, and the late Robert KingMerton—“the father of the sociology of science”—liked it well enough to composeits biography, assisted by the French cultural historian Elinor Barber.
C The word did not appear in thepublished literature until the early 19th century and did not become wellenough known to use without explanation until sometime in the first third ofthe 20th century. Serendipity means a “happy accident” or “pleasant surprise”,specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without lookingfor it. The first noted use of “serendipity” in the English language was byHorace Walpole. He explained that it came from the fairy tale, called The ThreePrinces of Serendip (the ancient name for Ceylon, or present day Sri Lanka),whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, ofthings which they were not in quest of’.
D Antiquarians, following Walpole,found use for it, as they were always rummaging about for curiosities, andunexpected but pleasant surprises were not unknown to them. Some people justseemed to have a knack for that sort of thing, and serendipity was used toexpress that special capacity. The other community that came to dwell onserendipity to say something important about their practice was that ofscientists, and here usages cut to the heart of the matter and were oftenvigorously contested. Many scientists, including the Flarvard physiologistWalter Cannon and, later, the British immunologist Peter Medawar, liked toemphasise how much of scientific discovery was unplanned and even accidental.One of the examples is Hans Christian Orsted’s discovery of electromagnetismwhen he unintentionally brought a current-carrying wire parallel to a magneticneedle. Rheto-ric about the sufficiency of rational method was so much hot air.Indeed, as Medawar insisted, “There is no such thing as The Scientific Method,”no way at all of systematis-ing the process of discovery. Really importantdiscoveries had a way of showing up when they had a mind to do so and not whenyou were looking for them. Maybe some scientists, like some book collectors,had a happy knack; maybe serendipity described the situation rather than apersonal skill or capacity.
E Some scientists using the word meantto stress those accidents belonging to the situation; some treated serendipityas a personal capacity; many others exploited the ambiguity of the notion. Yetwhat Cannon and Medawar took as a benign nose-thumbing at Dreams of Method,other scientists found incendiary. To say that science had a significantserendipitous aspect was taken by some as dangerous denigration. If scientificdiscovery were really accidental, then what was the special basis of expertauthority? In this connection, the aphorism of choice came from no less anauthority on scientific discovery than Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors theprepared mind.” Accidents may happen, and things may turn up unplanned andunforeseen, as one is looking for something else, but the ability to noticesuch events, to see their potential bearing and meaning, to exploit theiroccurrence and make constructive use of them—these are the results ofsystematic mental preparation. What seems like an accident is just another formof expertise. On closer inspection, it is insisted, accident dissolves intosagacity.
F The context in which scientificserendipity was most contested and had its greatest resonance was thatconnected with the idea of planned science. The serendipitists were not allinhab-itants of academic ivory towers. As Merton and Barber note, two of thegreat early-20th-century American pioneers of industrial research—WillisWhitney and Irving Langmuir, both of General Electric—made much play of serendipity,in the course of arguing against overly rigid research planning. Langmuirthought that misconceptions about the certainty and ratio-nality of theresearch process did much harm and that a mature acceptance of uncertainty wasfar more likely to result in productive research policies. For his own part,Langmuir said that satisfactory outcomes “occurred as though we were justdrifting with the wind. These things came about by accident.” If there is novery determinate relationship between cause and effect in research, he said,“then planning does not get us very far.” So, from within the bowels ofcorporate capitalism came powerful arguments, by way of serendipity, forscientific spontane-ity and autonomy. The notion that industry was invariablycommitted to the regimentation of scientific research just doesn’t wash.
G For Merton himself—who one supposesmust have been the senior author-serendipity rep-resented the keystone in thearch of his social scientific work. In 1936, as a very young man, Merton wrotea seminal essay on “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action.”It is, he argued, the nature of social action that what one intends is rarelywhat one gets: Intending to provide resources for buttressing Christianreligion, the natural philoso-phers of the Scientific Revolution laid thegroundwork for secularism; people wanting to be alone with nature in YosemiteValley wind up crowding one another. We just don’t know enough—and we can neverknow enough—to ensure that the past is an adequate guide to the future:Uncertainty about outcomes, even of our best-laid plans, is endemic. All socialaction, including that undertaken with the best evidence and formulatedaccording to the most rational criteria, is uncertain in its consequences.
SECTION 3: QUESTIONS 27-40
Questions 27-32
Choose the correctletter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter inboxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.
Choose the most suitableheading for paragraphs A-G from the list of headings below.Write the appropriate number, i-x, in boxes 27-32 onyour answer sheet.
List of Headings
i
Examples of some scientific discoveries
ii
Horace Walpole’s fairy tale
iii
Resolving the contradiction
iv
What is the Scientific Method
v
The contradiction of views on scientific discovery
vi
Some misunderstandings of serendipity
vii
Opponents of authority
viii
Reality doesn’t always match expectation
ix
How the word came into being
x
Illustration of serendipity in the business sector
27 _____________ Paragraph A
Example
Answer
Paragraph B
iii
28 _____________ ParagraphC
29 _____________ ParagraphD
30 _____________ ParagraphE
31 _____________ ParagraphF
32 _____________ ParagraphG
Questions 33-37
Choose the correctletter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter inboxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.
33In paragraph A, the word “inductivism”means
Aanticipate results in the beginning.
Bwork with prepared premises.
Caccept chance discoveries.
Dlook for what you want.
34Medawar says “there is no such thing as TheScientific Method” because
Adiscoveries are made by people withdetermined mind.
Bdiscoveries tend to happen unplanned.
Cthe process of discovery is unpleasant.
Dserendipity is not a skill.
35Many scientists dislike the idea ofserendipity because
Ait is easily misunderstood and abused.
Bit is too unpredictable.
Cit is beyond their comprehension.
Dit devalues their scientific expertise.
36The writer mentions Irving Langmuir toillustrate
Aplanned science should be avoided.
Bindustrial development needs uncertainty.
Cpeople tend to misunderstand therelationship between cause and effect.
Daccepting uncertainty can help producepositive results.
37The example of Yosemite is to show
Athe conflict between reality andexpectation.
Bthe importance of systematic planning.
Cthe intention of social action.
Dthe power of anticipation.
Questions 38-40
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWOWORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers inboxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.
Who is the person that firstused the word “serendipity”?
38 _________________
What kind of story does theword come from?
39 _________________
What is the present name ofserendip?
40 _________________
答案
雅思阅读第037套P3-Accidental Scientistshttp://www.tuonindefu.com/?p=2316雅思阅读第037套P3:Accidental Scientists
