As the author points out below, the success of science has less to do with a particular method than with an essential attitude of the scientist. This attitude is essentially one of inquiry, experimentation and humility before the facts. Therefore, a good scientist is an honest one. True scientists do not bow to any authority but they are ever ready to modify or even abandon their ideas if adequate evidence is found contradicting them. Scientists, they do place a high value on honesty.

Science and the Scientific Attitude

Paul G. Hewitt

Science is the body of knowledge about nature that represents the collective efforts, insights, findings, and wisdom of the human race. Science is not something new but had its beginnings before recorded history when humans first discovered reoccurring relationships around them. Through careful observations of these relationships, they began to know nature and, because of nature's dependability, found they could make predictions to enable some control over their surroundings.

Science made its greatest headway in the sixteenth century when people began asking answerable questions about nature -- when they began replacing superstition by a systematic search for order -- when experiment in addition to logic was used to test ideas. Where people once tried to influence natural events with magic and supernatural forces, they now had science to guide them. Advance was slow, however, because of the powerful opposition to scientific methods and ideas.

In about 1510 Copernicus suggested that the sun was stationary and that the earth revolved about the sun. He refuted the idea that the earth was the center of the universe. After years of hesitation, he published his findings but died before his book was circulated. His book was considered heretical and dangerous and was banned by the Church for 200 years. A century after Copernicus, the mathematician Bruno was burned at the stake -- largely for supporting Copernicus, suggesting the sun to be a star, and suggesting that space was infinite. Galileo was imprisoned for popularizing the Copernican theory and for his other contributions to scientific thought. Yet a couple of centuries later, Copernican advocates seemed harmless.

This happens age after age. In the early 1800s geologists met with violent condemnation because they differed with the Genesis account of creation. Later in the same century, geology was safe, but theories of evolution were condemned and the teaching of them forbidden. This most likely continues. "At every crossway on the road that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past." Every age has one or more groups of intellectual rebels who are persecuted, condemned, or suppressed at the time; but to a later age, they seem harmless and often essential to the elevation of human conditions.

The enormous success of science has led to the general belief that scientists have developed and are employing a "method" - a method that is extremely effective in gaining, organizing, and applying new knowledge. Galileo, famous scientist of the 1600s, is usually credited with being the "Father of the Scientific Method." His method is essentially as follows:

1. Recognize a problem.

2. Guess an answer.

3. Predict the consequences of the guess.

4. Perform experiments to test predictions.

5. Formulate the simplest theory organizes the three main ingredients: guess, prediction, experimental outcome.

Although this cookbook method has a certain appeal, it has not been the key to most of the breakthroughs and discoveries in science. Trial and error, experimentation without guessing, accidental discovery, and other methods account for much of the progress in science. Rather than a particular method, the success of science has more to do with an attitude common to scientists. This attitude is essentially one of inquiry, experimentation, and humility before the facts. If a scientist holds an idea to be true and finds any counterevidence whatever, the idea is either modified or abandoned. In the scientific spirit, the idea must be modified or abandoned in spite of the reputation of the person advocating it. As an example, the greatly respected Greek philosopher Aristotle said that falling bodies fall at a speed proportional to their weight. This false idea was held to be true for more than 2,000 years because of Aristotle's immense authority. In the scientific spirit, however, a single verifiable experiment to the contrary outweighs any authority, regardless of reputation or the number of followers and advocates.

Scientists must accept facts even when they would like them to be different. They must strive to distinguish between what they see and what they wish to see -- for humanity's capacity for self-deception is vast. People have traditionally tended to adopt general rules, beliefs, creeds, theories, and ideas without thoroughly questioning their validity and to retain them long after they have been shown to be meaningless, false, or at least questionable. The most widespread assumptions are the least questioned. Most often, when an idea is adopted, particular attention is given to cases that seem to support it, while cases that seem to refute it are distorted, belittled, or ignored. We feel deeply that it is a sign of weakness to "change our minds." Competent scientists, however, must be expert at changing their minds. This is because science seeks not to defend our beliefs but to improve them. Better theories are made by those who are not hung up on prevailing ones.

Away from their profession, scientists are inherently no more honest or ethical than other people. But in their profession they work in an arena that puts a high premium on honesty. The cardinal rule in science is that all claims must be testable -- they must be capable, at least in principle, of being proved wrong. For example, if someone claims that a certain procedure has a certain result, it must in principle be possible to perform a procedure that will either confirm or contradict the claim. If confirmed, then the claim is regarded as useful and a stepping-stone to further knowledge. None of us has the time or energy or resources to test every claim, so most of the time we must take somebody's word. However, we must have some criterion for deciding whether one person's word is as good as another's and whether one claim is as good as another. The criterion, again, is that the claim must be testable. To reduce the likelihood of error, scientists accept the word only of those whose ideas, theories, and findings are testable -- if not in practice then at least in principle. Speculations that cannot be tested are regarded as "unscientific." This has the long-run effect of compelling honesty - findings widely publicized among fellow scientists are generally subjected to further testing. Sooner or later, mistake (and lies) are bound to be found out; wishful thinking is bound to be exposed. The honesty so important to the progress of science thus becomes a matter of self-interest to scientists.

正如作者在下面的文章中指出的那样，科学的成功与其说取决于某种特定的方法，不如说是与科学家的基本态度更有关联。从根本上来讲，这种态度是一种探究、实验、尊重事实的态度。因此，一位优秀的科学家是一位诚实的科学家。真正的科学家不屈从任何权威，假若发现了与他们的见解相矛盾的足够证据，他们就会修正甚至放弃这些想法。科学家作为人，也许不比其他人更加诚实，但在他们的职业之内，科学家确实极为重视诚实。

科学与科学态度

保罗·G·休伊特

科学是关于自然的知识总体，它代表了人类的共同努力、洞察力、研究成果和智慧。科学并不是什么新的东西，在有文字记载的历史以前，当人们最初发现了在他们周围反复出现的各种关系时，就有了科学的开端。通过对这些关系的仔细观察，人们开始了解了自然，而由于自然的可靠性，人们还发现他们能够作出预测，从而有可能在某种程度上控制他们的周围环境。

科学在16世纪取得了最伟大的进展，因为这时人们开始提出了有关自然的可以回答的问题，开始以对自然规律的系统研究代替了迷信，而且除了运用逻辑外，还运用实验来检验各种观点。以前人们曾试图用巫术和超自然的力量来影响自然事件，而现在有了科学来指导他们。 然而由于对科学方法和科学思想的强有力的反对，进展是缓慢的。

哥白尼在1510年前后指出，太阳是静止不动的，地球绕着太阳在旋转。他驳斥了地球是宇宙中心的观点。经过多年的犹豫，他发表了自己的研究成果，但他没等到自己的著作广为流传便去世了。他的著作被认为是危险的异端邪说，被教会查禁了200年之久。在哥白尼之后一百年，数学家布鲁诺被烧死在火刑柱上——主要原因就是他支持哥白尼，认为太阳是一颗恒星，空间是无限的。伽利略因普及哥白尼的理论和他对科学思想的其他贡献而遭到囚禁。然而，两个世纪之后，哥白尼的鼓吹者似乎就无害了。

这种事情一个时代接着一个时代发生。19世纪初，地质学家们因同《创世纪》有关创世的叙述相左而遭到强烈谴责。同一世纪的晚些时候，地质学安全了，但关于进化的理论却遭到谴责，被禁止讲授。这种情况很可能会继续下去。“在通往未来的每一个十字路口，每一个具有进步思想的人都会遭到受命维护过去的千名卫道士的反对。”每个时代都有一批或几批叛逆的知识分子在当时遭到迫害、谴责或镇压，但对后一个时代来说，他们便似乎无害了，而且对于改善人类的状况往往还是必不可少的。

科学的巨大成功导致人们普遍产生了这样一种信念，即科学家们已经制定出并正在运用着一种“方法”——一种在获取、组织和运用新知识方面极为有效的方法。17世纪的著名科学家伽利略通常被认为是“科学方法之父”。他的方法主要如下：

1. 确认一个问题

2. 猜测一个答案

3. 预言这一猜测的后果

4. 做实验以检验这些预言

5. 用公式表述能概括猜测、预言和实验结果这三大要素的最简明的理论

尽管这种菜谱式的方法有一定的吸引力，但它并不是大多数科学上的突破和发现的关键。反复试验、事先不作猜测的实验、偶然的发现以及其他一些方法才是科学上许多进步的原因所在。科学的成功与其说取决于某种特定的方法，不如说与科学家们所共有的一种态度更为有关。从根本上来讲，这种态度是一种探究、实验、尊重事实的态度。如果一位科学家认为某个想法是正确的，而随后又发现了任何相反的证据，他就会修正这一想法或完全放弃它。依照科学的精神，不管提出这一想法的人有多高的名望，这一观点都必须修正或放弃。例如，深受人们敬仰的希腊哲学家亚里士多德说过，落体的降落速度是同它们的重量成正比的。由于亚里士多德的巨大权威，这一错误的想法在两千多年的时间里一直被认为是正确的。然而，依照科学的精神，一次可证实相反结论的实验就可以胜过任何权威，不管该权威有多高的声望，也不管他有多少追随者和鼓吹声。

科学家必须接受事实，即使在他们希望事实不同时也必须如此。他们必须竭尽全力把他们看到的同他们希望看到的区分开来——因为人类具有极大的自欺能力。人们一贯倾向于未经彻底询问其是否正确，便采纳一般的规则、信仰、信念、理论和观点，而且在它们被证明是毫无意义的、错误的或者至少是可疑的之后，能长久地抱住它们不放。流传最广的假定是最少受到怀疑的。当某种观点被采纳之后，人们特别注意的往往是那些似乎是证实这一观点的事例，而似乎是驳斥它的事例则被歪曲、贬低或忽视。我们都深深感到，“改变看法”是一种虚弱的表现。然而，有能力的科学家必须善于改变看法。这是因为科学所追求的并不是维护我们的信念而是要改进我们的信念。只有那些不迷恋于流行理论的人才能创造出更好的理论来。

在他们的职业之外，科学家们并不比其他人生来更诚实或更讲道德。但是，在他们的职业之内，他们却是在一个极为重视诚实的活动场所内工作。科学的基本规则是，所有的断言都必须是可以检验的——它们至少在原则上必须能够被证明是错误的还是正确的。例如，如果某人声称某一程序具有某种结果，那么在原则上，就必须能完成某一程序来证实或推翻这一断言。如果得到证实，这一断言便被认为是有用的，可以作为一块踏脚石去获取更多的知识。我们谁也没有足够的时间、精力和财力去验证每一个断言，所以在大多数情况下，我们必须相信某些人的话。不过，在决定某人的话是否跟另一个人的话一样可靠、某个断言是否跟另一个断言一样正确的时候，我们必须有一个标准。这个标准同样是：断言必须是可以检验的。为了减少犯错误的可能性，科学家只相信那些其观点、理论和研究成果——即使不能在实践中至少也要在原则上——可以得到检验的人。无法被检验的推测被认为是“不科学的”。这种做法具有迫使科学家保持诚实的长远效果——在科学家同行中间广为宣传的研究成果一般都会受到进一步的检验。错误(和谎言)迟早会被发现，痴心妄想注定要被揭穿。因此，对科学的进步极为重要的诚实就成了与科学家的自身利益息息相关的事情。

参考资料：

1. 大学英语精读第五册 Unit 5_大学教材听力 - 可可英语

2. 大学英语精读(第三版) 第五册: unit5A Science and the Scientific Attitude(1)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语