科学家们也犯错.docVIP

科学家们也犯错 　　人非圣贤，孰能无过。科学家也不例外。事实上，他们不仅犯过错，还犯过今天看来无比荒谬的错，有一些错误的理论观念甚至延续了千年才被后人推翻。看来，只有踩着错误的“尸骨”不断探求，才能寻得真理的曙光！ 　　Take a deep breath： believe it or not， scientists are not always right. We really put them up on a pedestal1）， though， dont we？ We quote scientists as experts， buy things if theyre scientifically proven to work better ... but scientists are human， too. Its just not fair to expect perfection out of them， is it？ But come on， cant we at least ask for a reasonable level of competency2）？ 　　深吸一口气，听我说：信不信由你，科学家也不总是正确的。但我们确实把他们当做偶像一样崇拜，不是吗？我们把科学家当成专家来援引他们的话，购买“经科学证明”更为有效的产品……但是，科学家毕竟也是人，要求他们十全十美确实有失公允，对吧？可是拜托，至少我们可以要求他们稍微靠谱一点吧？ 　　Alchemy 　　The idea of morphing3） lead into gold may seem a little crazy these days， but take a step back and pretend you live in ancient times. Pretend you never took high-school chemistry and know nothing about elements or atomic numbers or the periodic table4）. What you do know is that youve seen chemical reactions that seemed pretty impressive： substances change colors， spark， explode， evaporate， grow， shrink， make strange smells―all before your eyes. Now， if chemistry can do all that， it sounds pretty reasonable that it might be able to turn a dull， drab5）， gray metal into a bright， shiny yellow one， right？ In the hopes of getting that job done， alchemists sought out the mythical philosophers stone， a substance that they believed would amplify6） their alchemical powers. They also spent a lot of time looking for the elixir7） of life. Never found that either. 　　Phlogiston8） 　　What？ Youve never heard of phlogiston？ Well， dont beat yourself up9） about it， because its not real. Phlogiston， proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher， was another element to add to the list （earth， water， air， fire and sometimes ether10））； it wasnt fire itself， but the stuff fire was made of. All combustible11） objects contained this stuff， Becher insisted， and they released it when they burned. Scientists bought into12） the theory and used it to explain