issue 87 （关于新手与专家问题）大家来扔砖 欢迎互拍

87．In any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important discoveries."

There is a heated public controversy these days over the issue of whether the beginner or the expert is more likely to make important discoveries. To some extent, I concede the expert is more knowledgeable and experienced than the beginner. However, considering the rich imagination, intense curiosity, and strong enthusiasm, I deem the beginner is the person who is more likely to make important discoveries and gain great success.

Admittedly, in view of the profound understanding of the knowledge in certain areas, the expert who has systematically learned and mastered the theories in particular realm of inquiry may discover something valuable especially in today’s technological advanced society in which academic disciplines have been specialized and divided into diverse branches. For instance, archaeology is a discipline that studies the past culture and behavior of human from the origins of humans to the present. Archaeology involves various fields such as histories, physics, chemistry, anthropology and so on, each of which may contributes a lot to the research of archaeology. It is far less enough for a beginner to know only limited knowledge from a discipline since the theories from other disciplines may act decisive roles. In that way, it seems to be more likely for experts who are familiar with more knowledge from different realms to make important discoveries.

However, in this Information Age, the advent of the computer has made it possible for beginners to search for certain information or learn in any realm of inquiry more quickly and efficiently. As a result, the view that the role of knowledge acts in limiting important discoveries has been obsolete. More and more important discoveries are made by the beginner who has a sense of imagination. Indeed, it is the imagination that leads to the stimulation of his original ideas, with which the beginner may create novel inventions or produce great works. Take Andersen for example. As is known to everybody, Andersen's fairy tales are known for their rich imagination so that a majority of people all over the world like reading them. Although the beginner, to some extent, is less knowledgeable than the expert, with the help of the computer and Internet, the beginner with imagination may gain the greatest success since Einstein once said (and I paraphrase):"imagination is more important than knowledge."

Furthermore, armed with intense curiosity, the beginner may discover some unknowns of the world. A point in case is Newton's contribution to astronomy. Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician, discovered and formulated the laws of universal gravitation from a falling apple. It is the curiosity of Newton that contributes to his successful discovery. Suppose at that time he did not ask himself why the apple was falling, the formulation of the laws would be still a mystery.

Last but not least, being spurred by strong enthusiasm, the beginner is more actively involved in the academic research, thus being able to make important discoveries. For instance, the graduate student Francis Crick and his research fellow James Watson from Cambridge University were enthusiastic in the research of the model of molecule so that they defeated a myriad of obstacles and ultimately figured out the structure of DNA.

From what has been discussed above, we may safely draw the conclusion that while the expert with experience can successfully discover some new things, with the development of science and technology, the beginner seems to be more likely to make important discoveries since the imagination, curiosity as well as enthusiasm originating from the heart of the beginner are the most significant factors which are responsible for important discoveries.

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[ 本帖最后由 维斯特姆 于 2006-8-8 21:19 编辑 ]