考研翻译题作业.docx 考研翻译题作业 Scientists are supposed to change theirminds. (1) Having adopted their views on scientific questions based on anobjective evaluation of empirical evidence, they are expected to willingly,even eagerly, abandon cherished beliefs when new evidence undermines them .So it is remarkable that so few of the essays in a new book in which scientistsanswer the question in the title , “What Have You Changed Your Mind About?”express anything like this ideal. Many of the changes of mind are justchanges of opinion or an evolution of values. One contributor, a past supporterof manned spaceflight, now thinks it’s pointless, while another no longer hasmoral objections to cognitive enhancement through drugs. Other changes of mindhave to do with broken predictions, such as that computer intelligence wouldsoon rival humans’. (2) Rare, however, are changes of mind by scientistsidentified with either side of a controversial issue . There is no one whorose to fame arguing that a disease is caused by sticky brain plaques and whohas now been convinced by evidence that the plaques are mostly innocentbystanders, not crimes. But really, we shouldn’t be surprised. (3) Advocatesof a particular viewpoint, especially if their reputation is based on theaccuracy of that viewpoint, cling to it like a shipwrecked man to floats .Studies that undermine that position, they say, are fatally flawed In truth, no study is perfect, so it wouldbe crazy to abandon an elegant, well-supported theory because one new findingundermines it. (4) But it’s fascinating how scientists with an intellectualstake in a particular side of a debate tend to see flaws in studies thatundermine their dearly held views, and to interpret and even ignore “facts” tofit their views . No wonder the historian Thomas Kuhn concluded almost 50years ago that a scientific paradigm falls down only when the last of itspowerful advocates dies. The few essays in which scientists do admitthey were wrong — and about something central to theirreputation 一 therefore stand out. (5 ) PhysicistMarcelo Gleiser of Dartmouth breaks ranks with almost every physicist sinceEinstein, and with his own younger self , in now doubting that the laws of naturecan be unified in a single elegant formulation . Gleiser has written dozens of papers proposingroutes to the unification of gravity and quantum mechanics through everythingfrom superstrings to extra dimensions, but now concedes that all attempts sofar have failed. Unification may be esthetically appealing, but it’s not hownature works.