Issue153 [飞跃dreams小组] 第四次作业

纳兰馨儿UID: 2437109

TOPIC: ISSUE153 - "Students should bring a certain skepticism to whatever they study. They should question what they are taught instead of accepting it passively."
WORDS: 574          TIME: 00:58:25          DATE: 2008/2/6 16:59:30

This is a world of information and we students live in a garden in which various flowers involved, poison or not. Without careful observation and skeptical thinking, maybe no one can avoid being cheated by the beautiful appearance, under which poison liquid will make you lost. Thus, when we are learning, we should be keeping a clear mind on everything we are taught, without further judging, a conclusion can not be easily made.

Especially in the field of science, this principal is quite meaningful. Without keep asking why, little achievements can be made, and in my view, there are several reasons as follows. At the beginning, scientific research is a procedure of exploring with inherent mistakes all the time. In the long history, we have been quite sure about the plain-shaped ground and the round sky, in which the hot but small sun moving everyday from east to west. Also, we were so confident about the centre position of the universe where our earth located. Examples like these are countless and these wrong ideas, which were absolutely right at their time, were demonstrated stupid after further research, which begins only by doubt and critical thinking and would still be keeping questioned now and in the future. From these previous experiences, we can conclude that the amount of  theories, which are written in books or told by the teachers, may be proved wrong in the future, so why we accept them all without doubt now? Further, it should be our responsibility to find out the faults hidden in the seemingly truth.

Let us suppose what will happen if we keep accepting passively. Surely it will cause an grave impact not only in the ways of scientific research but also put our daily life in danger. First ,without critical thinking, there will never be creativity. If Newton did not doubt about the common sense he would never thought about the no existed force that will drag the apple down, in that case, the development of physics will delayed tens or hundreds years later. Lacking the courage to challenge the traditional truth that it is the god who created human beings, we will never find out the relationships among the variety
of animals and plants, which is caused by the evolution and the choice of the nature itself. Despite these great discoveries and inventions, learning exists everywhere in our daily issues, in which we will be seriously cheated if all the words told by others are accepted passively. Because not everyone will tell you the right thing that benefits yourself, given that each person has his own goals that might be conflict with yours in that the right for you will be the wrong for him. In addition, despite the ones who want to set you in trouble, the kind ones who want to teach you the truth may hold the wrong ones themselves, because of the changing world will bring changes to everything without noticing. Therefore keep a clear mind both in your work and life would be a wise choice.

However, it doesn't mean that we do not need to accept any advice at all. Just as Newton has said(and I paraphrased): we should stand on the giants' shoulder to gain any more achievements. So, during this positive thinking ,what we should do is to pick out the gold and dump the sand, and respect the elders as well as someone who really want to help us.