"Ruchlis, Hyman - True" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ruchlis Hyman)

experts in discovering the causes of illnesses by means of obser-
vations. They can then usually prescribe remedies likely to work.
Of course, doctors sometimes make mistakes in judgment.
Perhaps the facts are difficult to get or knowledge about some
diseases is limited. But what counts is that the facts doctors
do know usually enable them to prevent or cure many diseases
that once killed many people. As a result, today the average
life span is much longer than a century ago.
It has taken centuries for thousands of scientists to find
the causes of a great many different diseases. It usually takes
many years of research to discover just a single important fact.
Then it may take more years of work for others to verify it,
to be sure it is true and not a mistake in observations or
reasoning.
For example, the earliest microscopes in the 1600s revealed
the existence of microscopic plants and animals. It took another
two centuries before it was proved that many deadly diseases
are caused by different kinds of these microorganisms. Doctors
did not even know that they had to wash their hands before
treating different patients in hospitals, just to remove deadly
germs. They actually caused many deaths just by transmitting
germs when touching people with infected hands.


14 Part One: Superstition and Fairy-Tale Thinking

Discovery of new facts in science is not simple or easy.
It takes careful observation and lots of hard work.
Wrong ideas tend to continue for many years, often for
centuries. But gradually, over the years, we have learned how
to tell the difference between fact and fiction. We have been
steadily improving the way we uncover new facts, not known
before.
We call that method of discovery "science." Science is much
more than the facts that make up today's knowledge about the
nature of the world in which we live. It is really a new and
different way of thinking,--a way of knowing how to find new
facts and prove them true. This scientific way of thinking has
transformed our world and made it very different from what
it was just a few centuries ago.
This book is about the methods of science, the way it differs
from superstitious "fairy-tale" ways of thinking, how it has
changed our world, and how we might use it to solve many
of the difficult problems of the world we live in today.
But first, let's go back three centuries, to the year 1692,
to see how the wrong, superstitious way of thinking of olden
times was misused to execute innocent people in our country,
wrongly accused of what was considered to be the "crime" of
"witchcraft."