单项选择题

Scientific tradition demands that scientific papers follow the formal progression :method first, results second, conclusion third. The rules permit no hint that, as often happens, the method was really made up as the scientist went along, or that accidental results determined the method, or that the scientist reached certain conclusions before the results were all in, or that he started out with certain conclusions, or that he started doing a different experiment. 　　Much scientific writing not only misrepresents the workings of science but also does a disservice to scientists themselves. By writing reports that make scientific investigations sound as unvarying and predictable as the sunrise, scientists tend to spread the curious notion that science is infallible. That many of them are unconscious of the effect they create does not alter the image in the popular mind. We hear time and again of the superiority of the "scientific method". In fact, the word "unscientific" has almost become a synonym for "untrue". Yet the final evaluation of any set of data is an individual, subjective judgment; and all human judgment is liable to error. Thoughtful scientists realize all this; but you wouldn’’t gather so from reading most scientific literature. A self-important, stiff and unnatural style too often seizes the pen of the experimenter the moment he starts putting words on paper. 　　Editors of scientific publications are not without their reasons for the current style of scientific writing. Their journals aren’’t rich. Paper and printing are expensive. Therefore, it is helpful to condense articles as much as possible. Under pressure of tradition, the condensation process removes the human elements first. And few scientific writers rebel against the tradition. Even courageous men do not go out of their way to publicize their deviations from accepted procedures. Then ,too, there is an apparent objectivity and humbleness attached to the third person, passive voice writing technique adopted in the preparation of most scientific papers. So, bit by bit, the true face of science becomes hidden behind what seems to the outsider to be a self-satisfied all-knowing mask. Is it any wonder that in the popular literature the scientist often appears as a hybrid superman-spoiled child 　　No small contribution to modern culture could be the simple introduction, into the earliest stage of our public-school science courses, of a natural style of writing about laboratory experiments as they really happen. This is something that could be done immediately with the opening of classes this fall. It requires no preparation except a psychological acknowledgment of the obvious fact that the present form of reporting experiments is a mental tie whose very appearance is calculated to repel the imaginative young minds science so badly needs. The traditional demands on writing scientific papers