Read the following passage carefully and complete the succeeding three items.
(1)
No line can be drawn between common knowledge of things and scientific knowledge
; nor between common reasoning and scientific reasoning. In strictness, all accurate knowledge is science; and exact reasoning is scientific reasoning. The method of observation and experiment by which great results are obtained in science, is identically the same as that which is employed by every one, every day of his lift, but refined and rendered precise. If a child acquires a new toy,
he observes its characters and experiments upon its properties
; and we are all of us constantly making observations and experiments upon one thing or another.
(2)But those who have never tried to observe accurately will be surprised to find how difficult a business it is.
There is one person in a hundred who can describe the commonest occurrence with even an approach to accuracy.
That is to say either he will omit something which did occur, and which was of importance, or he will imply or suggest the occurrence of something which he did not actually observe, but which he unconsciously inferred that must have happened. When two truthful witnesses contradict one another in a court of justice, it usually turns out that one or the other, or sometimes both, are confounding their inferences from what they saw with those which they actually saw. Untrained observers mix up together their inferences from what they see with that which they actually see in the most wonderful way and
even experienced and careful observers are in constant danger of falling into the same error.
(3)Scientific observation is such as is at once full, precise, and free from unconscious inference.
(4)Experiment is the observation of that which happens when we intentionally bring natural objects together, or separate them, or in any way change the conditions under which they are placed. Scientific experiment, therefore, is scientific observation performed under accurately known artificial conditions.
(5)It is a matter of common observation that water sometimes freezes. The observation becomes scientific when we ascertain under what exact conditions the change of water into ice takes place. The commonest experiments tell us that wood floats in water. Scientific experiment shows that in floating, it displaces its own weight of the water.
(6)Scientific reasoning differs from ordinary reasoning in just the same way as scientific observation and experiment—that is to say, it strives to be accurate, and it is just as hard to reason accurately as it is to observe accurately.
(7)In scientific reasoning general rules are collected from the observation of many particular cases and when these general rules are established, conclusions are deduced from them, just as in everyday life. If a boy says that "marbles are hard", he has drawn a conclusion as to marbles in general from the marbles he happens to have seen and felt and has reasoned in that mode which is technically termed induction. If he declines to try to break a marble with his teeth, it is because he consciously or unconsciously performs the converse operation of deduction from the general rule: marbles are too hard to break with one"s teeth.
(8)
The laws of nature are the general rules respecting the behavior of natural objects
, which have been collected from innumerable observations and experiments; or, in other words, they are inductions from those observations and experiments. The practical and theoretical results of science are the products of deductive reasoning from these general rules.
(9)Thus science and common sense are not opposed, as people sometimes fancy them to be, but science is perfected common sense. Scientific reasoning is simply very careful common reasoning, and common knowledge grows into scientific knowledge as it becomes more exact and complete. Answer the following essay question in English within 80~100 words.
What does the author mean by saying: "Thus science and common sense are not opposed, as people something fancy them to be, but science is perfected common sense" Support your points.
【参考答案】
People sometimes think that science and common sense are pul......