[無情的考驗]
同一組現象和事實,當然可以提出很多不同的解釋。
If you want a good idea, get lots of ideas.
( Linus Pauling )
任何「假說」當然都可能是錯的。
有一點可以肯定的是,如果存在兩個互相矛盾的「假說」,
那麼其中一個「假說」一定是錯的,
當然極有可能兩個「假說」都是錯的。
Whenever a theory (hypothesis) appears to you
as the only possible one,
take this as a sign that you have
neither understood the theory nor the problem
which it was intended to solve.
( Karl Popper )
「假說」的提出,不需要理由,但「假說」一經提出之後,
就必須接受理性的批判和實驗的考核。
Where there is much desire to learn,
there of necessity will be much arguing, many opinions;
for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
( Milton )
The world little knows how many thoughts and theories
which have passed through the mind of a scientific
investigator have crushed in silence and and secrecy
by his own severe criticism and adverse examinations;
that in the most successful instances, not a tenth of
the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary
conclusions have been realized.
( Michael Faraday )
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right;
but a single experiment may at any time prove me wrong.
( Albert Einstein )
「假說」當然要能夠合理地解釋所觀察到的現象,
但「假說」亦往往會預測可能會進一步觀察到的新現象,
所以當提出各式各樣的「假說」之後,就需要再做一些實驗,
去證明那些「假說」可以成立,那些「假說」必須放棄。
If you shut your door to all errors
truth will be shut out.
( Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds, 1916 )
「假說」其實就好像春秋戰國時代百家爭鳴的現象,
只不過當然沒有百家如此誇張。
在社會上人人都可以提出個人的意見,
愚昧者甚至認為百家爭鳴的現象是好事,
完全忽視邏輯及合理的懷疑和批判精神。
智者當然明白文明要進步就必須去蕪存菁、
淘汰所有不合理的意見和概念。
科學上解決百家爭鳴的現象,除了靠邏輯之外,
靠的就是實驗來淘汰失敗者,
所以絕大部份「假說」最後當然都是錯的。
一度燦爛奪目的東西,可以瞬息之間黯然無光!
This is the great tragedy of science──the slaying
of a beautiful hypothesis by a single ugly fact.
( Thomas Huxley )
The progress of science is strewn,
like an ancient desert trail, with the bleached
skeletons of discarded theories (hypotheses)
which once seemed to possess eternal life.
( Arthur Koestler )
真正的科學、哲學和宗教,一向都重視邏輯和實踐,
中國漢代的徐幹,早已經明白必須驗證這個道理:
「事莫貴乎有驗,言莫棄乎無徵。」《中論。貴驗》
想不到聖經《馬太福音 5:18》和科學的看法非常吻合,
因為它告訴基督徒,到天地都廢去時,人就不會再存在,
所以人類的法律就不再存在,但科學的真理卻永遠長存,
因為科學的真理就是太初的道,而道與神同在,道就是神。
「我實在告訴你們:就是到天地都廢去了,
律法的一點一畫也不能廢去,都要成全。」
《馬太福音 5:18》
這裡說的律法當然不是指人世間的法律,而是指道!