TEXT D 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
is faithfully as the reports in file science journals medicate, then it is
pertectly topical 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 tile 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 bails" among researchers in favor of more
conventional thinkers who "work well with the team". The autor wants to prove with the example of Isaac Newton that ______.
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