[ISSUE 183] by Cherish

kidloveUID: 2814224

丢人了,自己都觉得写的超差.能怎么狠披就怎么狠披...谢谢..- -


TOPIC: ISSUE184 - "It is a gravemistake to theorize before one has data."
WORDS: 615
TIME: 01:45:00
DATE: 2011/2/8 22:32:46

In the statement, the author asserts thatit will be perilous mistake to draw a theory before one has data. I agreeinsofar as to theorize before collecting sufficient data is to risk the processof drawing a credible enough and comprehensive conclusion. However, the authoroverstates the importance of data that without it, no theory can be reached. Infact, things are not as extreme as the author claims.
Admittedly, many theories are set up withfoundations of data. These theories are explored after almost hundreds ofexperiments and collecting of data from a varying of aspects. A theory conjuredup without benefits of data amounts to only the theorists' dream and desire. Forexample, the discovery of inheritance of certain traits in pea plants. Mendel,who is known as the "father of modern genetics", after training onbotany, zoology, physics and chemistry, works in monastery. After 8 years ofhardworking and experiments on transplantation on peas, he finally found twobasic laws of genetics, which laid a solid foundation for the development ofgenetics. The exploration of Mendel is absolutely based on the benefits ofdata.
However, we cannot stop trying and guessingpossible conclusions and results that are not founded on solid base, nobodywill go forward without courage and bold guess. The discovery of Columbus canset us an illustration. Columbus is a firm believer of the sphericity of theearth. He travelled around Italy and Portuguese to find support on his voyageto reach to Asia, but nobody trust him for his theory is not convincing untilthe Spanish Royal family finally support him. Severely underestimating thecircumference of the Earth, he sets out from Spain wishing he would land onAsia but instead he and his crew reach at a new continent where he named SanSalvador and thus, opened a new era to the development of human history.Sometimes a bold try may lead to a surprising exploration.
At the same time, a mistake does not meanthe end of the world; God will open a window when he closes your door. Theautomotive genius Charles Kettering exemplified the spirit of working througherroneous assumptions to good ideas. When the automobile industry was justbeginning to grow, Kettering was interested in improving gasoline engineefficiency. He found that there was a phenomenon of "knock" in whichgasoline takes too long to burn in the cylinder- thereby reducing efficiency.He mistakenly assumed that it was of same theory with the color red and triedto put some red dye in the gasoline. But he only found iodine in his office,luckily and coincidentally, the iodine worked out with the gasoline and solvedhis efficiency problem. Sometimes errors should not be regarded as bad things;instead, errors may be stepping stone to another surprise.
We are living in a society with rapid andastonishing development; we now have more and more effective experimentalmethods and facilities to rely on in order to get sufficient data. There arehundreds of theories that we can come to when problems pop out and thustheorize more profound and influential theories. For we are making experimentsand guesses much more complicated and dangerous, from spirit of rigorous, moreand more theories strongly rely on data. However, scientists should not berestricted by emphasizing too much on the importance of data.
In sum, it is true that almost no theoriescan be fully developed without the benefits of data, but drawing a boldconclusion and by possibly erroneous assumption can we reach to another theoryby accident. Thus, we cannot overlook the importance of data meanwhile weshould not be restricted by over-emphasize of data.