TEXT C Black and white are two common words. White means bright and purity, black is darkness and evil, but not always. Sometimes the words are used differently. White hats and black hats represent the traditional meaning of the words. The hats are symbols of the good guys and the bad guys in American western movements. White hats and black hats had a real purpose in the early days of motion pictures. The early movies were made with no sounds. So the movie directors put a white hat on the hero and a black hat on his opponent, the bad guy in the story. A black sheep is a person who does things that are not accepted, that violate tradition. A black sheep is rejected because he brings shame to his group. A family may have a member who is thought of as a black sheep, a person who is not welcome at family gatherings. Black is also used in some expressions that describe good things. Feeling in the black, for example, is a good situation for anyone. It is a business expression. It means that the company is earning money. The store that makes profit is in the black. The expression comes from the color of ink that is used in the books that record a company’s profits or losses. Profits are written in black ink, losses are written in red. So when someone says his business is in the red, he means it is losing money. White usually means something good. A white-collar job, for example, is the kind of job many people seek. It is a job where you work at the desk, using your brain instead of your muscles. Usually white-collar jobs pay more than blue-collar jobs. These jobs are where you don’t use your muscles. Sometimes white is used in an expression that is not good. Whitewash is such an expression. At first whitewash meant to paint over something with white paint, making it look better but now whitewash has different meaning, to hide or cover up mistakes or falls. A newspaper might report, for example, that the investigation of the train accident is a whitewash because investigators did not really try to discover who was responsible. Some expressions use black and white together. Someone may say to you that your proposal sounds all right but he wants to see it in black and white. He wants to see your proposal in writing, black ink on white paper. Some people are said to see things only in black and white. Now this expression, black and white, represent opposite extremes, with no middle ground between them. Most issues in the world are not so simple as black and white. One side of an issue is not all white or good and the other side is not all black, wrong or evil. In the real world there are many gray areas where black and white are mixed to represent the true situation. In a newspaper report about an accident whitewash may mean
A. good.
B. profit and loss.
C. right and wrong.
D. positive and negative.
Albert Einstein once said, "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." The first thing scientists must do is to ask a question or identify a problem to be investigated. 46) Then scientists working on this problem collect scientific data, or facts, by making observations and taking measurements, which must be verified or confirmed by repeated observations and measurements, ideally by several different investigators. 47) The primary goal of science is not facts in and of themselves, but a new idea, principle, or model that connects and explains certain facts and leads to useful predictions about what should happen in nature. Scientists working on a particular problem try to come up with a variety of possible explanations or scientific hypotheses of what they (or other scientists)observe in nature. Then experiments are conducted (and repeated to be sure they are reproducible)to test the deductions or predictions for each hypothesis so as to arrive at the most plausible or useful hypothesis. 48) If many experiments by different scientists support a particular hypothesis, it becomes a scientific theory―a well-tested and widely accepted idea, principle, or model that usually ties together and explains many facts that previously appeared to be unrelated. Converting a scientific hypothesis to a scientific theory is a difficult process, often requiring decades, even hundreds of years. To scientists, theories are not to be taken lightly ,for they are ideas or principles stated with a high degree of certainty because they are supported by a great deal of evidence. Another end result of science is a scientific law ―a description of what we find happening in nature over and over in the same way, without known exception. The more complex the parts of nature scientists study, the more difficult it becomes to discover scientific laws. 49) There are many scientific laws of physics and chemistry, only a few in biology, and even fewer (and less reliable ones) in fields involving complex interactions of multiple factors ( variables), such as ecology, climatology( study of climate) ,and social sciences such as economics and politics. The scientific process requires not only logical reasoning, but also imagination, creativity, and intuition. According to physicist Albert Einstein," There is no completely logical way to a new scientific idea. "50) Intuition, imagination, and creativity are as important in science as they are in poetry, art, music, and other great adventures of the human spirit that awaken us to the wonder, mystery, and beauty of life, the Earth and the universe.