Now Jeffreys points out that, if a number of observations have been found to conform to a law, it is highly probable that the next one will do so whether the law is true or not. In Jeffreys words? A well-verified hypothesis will probably continue to lead to correct inferences even if it is wrong.
Positivists and idealists have made great play with the fact that many laws of Nature, as formulated by scientists, have turned out to be inexact, and all may do so. But that is absolutely no reason for saying that there are no regularities in Nature to which our statements of natural law correspond. One might as well say that because no maps of England give its shape exactly it has no shape. What is remarkable about the laws of Nature is the accuracy of simple approximations. One might see a hundred thousand men before finding an exception to the rule that all men have two ears, and the same is true for many of the laws of physics. In some cases we can see why. The universes is organized in aggregates, with, in many cases, pretty wide gaps between them. Boyles law that the density of a gas is proportional to its pressure, and Charles law that the volume is proportional to the temperature, would be exact if gas molecules were points which had no volume and did not attract one another. These laws are very nearly true for gases at ordinary temperatures and pressures, because
the molecules occupy only a small part of the space containing the gas, and are close enough to attract one another only during a very small part of any interval of time. Similarly, most of the stars are far enough apart to be treated as points without much error when we are considering their movements.
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