Section A Translate the underlined sentences in
the following passage into Chinese. Remember to write the answers on the answer
sheet.
The idea that science can, and should, be run according to
fixed and universal rules, is both unrealistic and pernicious. (81) It is
unrealistic, for it takes too simple a view of the talents of man and of the
circumstances which encourage, or cause, their development. And it is
pernicious, for the attempt to enforce the rules is bound to increase our
professional qualifications at the expense of our humanity. (82) In addition,
the idea is detrimental to science, for it neglects the complex physical and
historical conditions which influence scientific change. It makes our
science less adaptable and more dogmatic: every methodological rule is
associated with cosmological assumptions, so that using the rule we take it for
granted that the assumptions are correct. Naive falsificationism takes it for
granted that the laws of nature are manifest and not hidden beneath disturbances
of considerable magnitude. (83) Empiricism takes it for granted that sense
experience is a better mirror of the world than pure thought. Praise of"
argument takes it for granted that the artifices of Reason give better results
than the unchecked play of our emotions. Such assumptions may be perfectly
plausible and even true. Still, one should occasionally put them to a test.
Putting them to a test means that we stop using the methodology associated with
them, start doing science in a different way and see what happens. Case studies
such as those reported in the preceding chapters show that such tests occur all
the time, and that they speak against the universal validity of any rule. (84)
All methodologies have their limitations and the only "rule" that survives is
"anything goes. " (85) The change of perspective brought
about by these discoveries leads once more to the long- forgotten problem of the
excellence of science. It leads to it for the first time in modern history, for
modem science overpowered its opponents, it did not convince them. Science
took over by force, not by argument (this is especially true of the former
colonies where science and the religion of brotherly love were introduced as a
matter of course, and without consulting, or arguing with, the inhabitants).
Today we realize that rationalism, being bound to science, cannot give us any
assistance in the issue between science and myth and we also know that myths are
vastly better than rationalists have dared to admit. Thus we are now forced to
raise the question of the excellence of science.