Issue Topic
“Only Through Mistakes Can There Be Discoveries and Progress.”
审 题：
本文题目中所提出的论点由于二种缘故而存在严重缺陷。其一，通过应用“唯一”这一字眼，该论点将铸错设定为获得发现和实现进步的绝对条件，对前辈科学家们所从事的研究在导致科学发现和科学进步中的奠基性意义置若罔闻，熟视无睹。其次，该论点具有消极色彩，仅仅立足于“错误”与“谬误”这一行为上。关于人类发现和人类进步，一种更为合理和更为严谨的解释应该是人类作为理性动物的聪明才智，他长期积累起来的、且经由实践证明确是行之有效的那些经验和知识，其明智的判断力，他用以了解其自身和了解其周围世界的正确方法论，以及他在选择正确的行动方向时所作出的正确决策。也就是说，We can make discoveries and progress through mistakes but mistakes alone cannot be the only source for discoveries and progress. There are sources other than mistakes from which to achieve discoveries and progress.”
需要申明的是，笔者这篇1500多个英文单词、超过实际篇幅2-3倍的文章并不是在实战条件下写出来的。撰写此文，只是为了探索我的思辨严谨性及对丰富材料的驾御能力，并意欲以此为例，来论证这样一个道理——只要你拥有一个适当的角度（perspective），只要你具备细腻的咬文嚼字的能力，只要你具有严谨的思辨能力，你就能够写出独到的文字来。
嘉文博译声明，下列英文原文及中文翻译均为钱老师所有，任何人非经授权同意，不得擅自使用：
“Failure is Mother to Success”, a more popular and more widely publicized version of “Only through mistakes can there be discoveries and progress”, has been championed as an adage of encouragement perhaps since our earliest childhood, by people ranging from kindergarten nurses, teachers of elementary through middle to senior high schools, to university professors, and even by employer to his employee in the moving story at IBM involving Watson and one of his vice presidents. Admittedly, it is totally possible for Paul Ehrlich, one of the few exceptionally talented scientists in the world, to discover—perhaps under the encouragement of his childhood axiom—an syphilis-curing drug (which he symbolically named “Formula 606” as an indication of his perseverance, for he failed for the first 605 trials in developing the drug), thereby making important contributions to the progress of medical science as a whole. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that it is seriously misleading to take this apparently encouraging remark as a lifelong principle and even to live by this principle. There are times when mistakes are committed in such a way that there is no time for discoveries. Imagine how you would think if you, still committing mistakes in your great seniority, were approached and admonished with this “motto” by your grandson, who received it from his father to whom it was precisely you that had handed it down innumerable decades ago?
The process of “making mistakes”, especially when it is connected with “making discoveries”, strongly implies that a human agent, presumably a scientist, is engaged in an act of highly positivistic and empirical scientific research. However, with life being so transitory, we should keep in mind that the wealth of scientific knowledge accumulated by the scientists who precede us can help us effectively and directly head toward discoveries and progress by bypassing possible pitfalls and mistakes. The fact that we can exploit existing scientific findings in a more speedy and fruitful manner precludes us from the necessity to achieve scientific progress by resorting to mistake-making as the sole source of knowledge, as is advocated by the foregoing argument.
Moreover, the proposition that “only through mistakes can there be discoveries and progress” induces the illusion that, as long as researchers keep on undertaking trials and experiments regardless of efficiency and cost, victory will be there automatically and inevitably. The proposition that perseverance will ultimately lead to discoveries and progress further implies that every scientific effort would end up in success. By inference, there would never be such a thing as resignation or giving up halfway, as if success can always be guaranteed by an “anti-failure insurance company.” But there are instances in which certain scientific missions have to be terminated eternally because the prospect of making a discovery is all too bleak. If we allow ourselves to cherish the blind faith in an ultimate victory, two serious consequences would ensure thereof. On one hand, those mistake-makers would comfortably indulge themselves in committing infinite mistakes, and even blind mistakes. It would scarcely occur to them to make opportune reflections on their sustained failures and to seek fresh and more efficacious perspectives and methodologies. It is pathetic to expect the occurrence of the final miracle which in actuality might never occur. On the other hand, this will also give rise to the development of magnanimous but ill-fated tolerance on the part of the general public for mistake-making. In this case, the general public itself live under the illusory misconception that the perpetrator of constant mistakes would eventually evolve into a scientific genius, given enough time. It is absolutely conceivable that, by being exonerated for committing “innocent and necessary” mistakes, the perpetrator tends to contract inertia and indolence on one hand and become increasingly irresponsible on the other, thereby resulting in alarming physical wastes of materials and resources.
In connection with this consequence is the cost of making mistakes. Since making mistakes is generally negative, it carries the implication that a cost must be paid for every mistake. And when it comes to the point that the cost of making mistakes significantly dwarfs the possible benefits that can be derived from a trivial discovery, every sensible person would come to the conclusion that the practice of achieving minor discoveries through making costly mistakes should by no means be encouraged.
It might be contended that, given the incessant emergence of changing circumstances and fresh challenges, making mistakes are ineluctable and hence excusable. This is, at least partially, an ill-founded pretext for being immature. For one thing, a person who commits mistakes under each changed circumstance or commits the same mistake in similar cases can only be characterized as incapable of maturity. For another thing, although a definite demarcation line between maturity and naivety can be identified sooner or later in a person’s lifetime, it is hardly logical to say that a mistake-committing senior citizen has not completed his evolutionary process of de-naivetization when he is virtually on his deathbed. Progress, either personal or social, is absolutely impossible in a state of lasting naivety.
As is universally acknowledged, human beings differ from other creatures in that they are rational. This faculty of rationality functions by endowing man with the ability to foresee and to predict, to make full preparations based on past experience and knowledge for the advent of potential adversities caused by changed circumstances. The capacity for foresight makes it possible for man to be prepared in advance for impending problems, thus eliminating and avoiding mistakes.
In conclusion, the proposed argument is seriously flawed on two accounts. In the first place, by the use of the word “only”, it posits the committing of mistakes as an absolute condition for accomplishing discoveries and progress, ignoring the foundational importance of the research performed by those scientists preceding us in leading to scientific discoveries and progress. In the second place, the argument is merely negative, based on the act of being erroneous and even being fallacious. A more plausible and compelling explanation for human discoveries and progress is man’s intelligence as a rational being, his long-accumulated experience and knowledge that have been proved effective through practice, his sound judgments, his right methodologies in understanding himself and the world around him, and his correct decision-making in choosing the proper course of action.
中文翻译：
题目
“唯有通过犯错误，才会有发现和进步。”
“失败乃成功之母”，作为“唯有通过犯错误，才会有发现与进步”这一说法的一种流传更广、更加广为渲染的版本，或许自从我们孩提时代起就被反复倡导，当作一句激励人们不懈努力的话。无论是幼稚园阿姨，小学、中学和高中的老师，还是大学教授，甚至是你的雇主，无不对此津津乐道。在IBM那则涉及到总裁Watson和他的一位副总裁的动人故事中，我们可略知一斑。诚然，对于Paul Ehrlich这样一位世界上为数不多的几个具有非凡天赋的科学家来说，是全然有可能——在其或许是童年时代就已接触到的这一至理名言的激励下——去发现一种能医治梅毒的药物（他将其象征性地命名为“606配方”，以表明其坚忍不拔的品格，因为他研发该药的最初605次尝试均以失败而告终），从而对整个医学进步作出重大贡献。然而，我们也必须指出，如果将这番视若予人鼓励的话视作一种终身的准则，并按此准则来度过一生的话，这无疑将产生严重的误导作用。确实有这样一些时候，亡羊补牢，已为迟也。试问，如果老态龙钟的您依然还在犯下一个个错误，您的孙儿来到您身旁用这句由您不知多少年前传授给您儿子，再由您儿子传授给您孙子的“人生箴言”来告诫您时，您又会作何感想呢？
“犯错误”这一过程，尤其当它与“作出发现”相联系在一起时，强烈地暗示出有某个人类主体——我们可不无道理地将其假定为一位科学家——正置身于一种极具实证主义和经验主义色彩的科学研究行为之中。然而，人生何其短暂，我们应该牢记，前辈科学大师们已为我们积累起了大量的科学知识，足以帮助我们绕过可能存在的诸多弯路和谬误，直接且有效地迈向科学发现和进步。我们能够以一种更为快捷和卓有成效的方式去利用既存的科学发现，这一事实本身足以使我们大可不必象上述题目中的论点所倡导的那样，去诉诸于犯错误这一行为，将其视作唯一的知识之源泉，藉以实现科学进步。
此外，“唯有通过犯错误，才会有发现与进步”这一命题会诱导这样一种错觉，即只要科研人员不断进行试验和实验，无论效率与成本如何，成功将会理所当然地、不可避免地在那里等着你。“坚持不懈终将导致发现与进步”这一命题进一步暗示，任何一种科学努力均会以成功而告终，故诸如放弃与半途而废这样的事情绝不会出现，仿佛成功总可以在一家“反失败保险公司”里得到保障一样。但在实际情形中，某些科学使命不得不被永久性地中止，因为得以作出一项发现的前景微乎其微。如果我们允许自己对一次终极的成功执迷不悟，盲目相信的话，两个严重的后果会随之而来。首先，那些犯错误者会心安理得地沉湎于没完没了地犯错误这一行为之中，即使所犯的是盲目的错误亦在所不惜。他们很少会意识到去对其持续的失败作出及时的反思，并去寻觅全新的和更有可能奏效的视角和对策。对实际上或许永远也不会发生的最终奇迹的发生满怀期待，这无疑是可悲的。另一方面，这也会导致在公众身上养成一种对犯错误行为“宽宏大量的”但却注定没有好结果的容忍。在这一情形中，公众本身就生活在一种虚妄的误解中，仿佛那恒久的犯错者只要假以时日，必将演化为一个科学奇才。完全可以想象的是，当犯错者因其所犯错误是“必要的和无辜的”而获宽宥时，他一方面易于陷入懒惰与惰性之中而不思进取，另一方面亦易于变得越来越缺乏责任心，从而导致物质和资源的惊人浪费。
与上述后果相涉的还有犯错误的代价这一因素。既然犯错误这一行为普遍地具有负面意义，这便意味着每犯一个错误就必须付出代价。但当事情发展到这样一个地步，即当犯错误这一行为的代价远远超过从一项微不足道的发现中所能获得的回报时，每个明智之士想必都会得出这样的结论，即通过犯下代价高昂的错误而获得一些无足轻重的发现，这一做法绝不应该予以鼓励。
有人或许会辩驳道，由于新情况、新挑战层出不穷，犯错误是不可避免的，因此理应获得宽宥。这一论点至少在部分程度上是一种站不住脚的借口，藉以为不成熟作辩解。这是因为，其一，每次情况有变便必犯错误，或遇到类似情形仍犯同样的错误，这样的人只能被形容为“长不大”。 其次，虽然成熟与幼稚之间的分界线在一个人的一生中总是可以被分辨出来，在有些人身上早一些，在另一些人身上迟一些，但如果有人说一个依然在铸错的老者在行将就木之际还尚未完成他从幼稚中蜕变的过程，这恐怕甚不合乎逻辑。进步，无论是个人的抑或是社会的，在一种持久性幼稚状态中是断无可能的。
众所公认，人类之所以有别于其他种类的动物，就在于人是有理性的。这种理性能力之所以有其效用，就在于它可赋以人类以预测、预知和预见的能力，以前人的经验和知识为基础，对由于环境变化而导致的潜在逆境的出现作好充分准备。前瞻能力使人类得以对行将降临的问题预先作好准备，从而消除并避免失误。