issue87 [AWER小组]求拍

JasonDoveUID: 2322013

TOPIC: ISSUE87 - "In any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important discoveries."
WORDS: 456          TIME: 00:45:00          DATE: 2008/3/8 15:32:25

The speaker asserts that beginners are more likely than the experts to make significant discoveries in any field of inquiry. As far as I am concerned, I do not agree with the speaker's assertion, because this issue is not a straightforward one. Intricate as it is, the following illustrations are necessary.

Before we discuss the issue that whether or not the beginners are more likely to make significant discoveries than experts, we should be clear of the definition of inquiry. Inquiry refers to the processes of asking question or finding some strange phenomena, then analyzing questions to find the answer, finally generalizing the foregoing analysis to give an answer to the question. And the answers to the questions are what we call discoveries in any field of inquiry.

At the level of asking questions and finding strange phenomena, novices are more likely to be contributive. Novices, in other words, are new comers to a study field, and they are more likely to have questions and doubts, because of lacking experiences and knowledge. It is these questions and doubts, which may be taken for granted by experts,  that provide new avenues for researches. Thomas Edison's research for filament, respectively, comes immediately to my mind. Edison's assistants offered so many avenues that are worthy to try, including the idea of using bamboo, through which Edison finally found W to be the most proper one.  Therefore, we could never overlook novices’ ability of questioning and their smell of new approaches.

At the level of answering questions and generalizing, experts, obviously, would be more efficient and authoritative. Experts, who have been in their study fields for a long time, grabbed solid background knowledge as well as experience. They are more likely to answer questions in all possible ways and finally figure out some discoveries. Take the foregoing instance of Thomas Edison's research for example, although Thomas Edison's assistants provided a lot of directions for research of finding proper material for filaments, it is Edison himself found W to be the most impropriate one, after thousands of experiments using bamboo.

According to the foregoing analysis, the most effective way for research is to integrate experts with novices. Novices provide ways to research while learning to be more experienced; experts seek ways to solve problems and generalize analytic materials to make discoveries.

To sum up, I do not agree with the author's assertion that the novice is more likely than the expert to make vital discoveries, because it is experts solve problems and generalize analysis to make discoveries, although novices are more likely to provide directions to researches. Moreover, I insist the most effective way to research in any field of inquiry is to combine novices with experts.

JasonDoveUID: 2322013

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