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Something was definitely happening here. It was messier than a food fight and much more important than whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable. My kids were doing what Copernicus did when he placed the sun at the center of the universe, readjusting the centuries-old paradigm of an Earth-centered system. They were doing what Reuben Mattus did when he renamed his Bronx ice cream Haagen-Dazs and raised the price without changing the product. They were doing what Edward Jenner did when he discovered a vaccination for smallpox by abandoning his quest for a cure.
毫无疑问，这里正发生着什么事儿。这事儿比争抢食物还乱，比西红柿是水果还是蔬菜重要得多。哥白尼把太阳视为宇宙中心，重新调整了地心说这一长达数世纪的范式，我的孩子们正做着哥白尼当年做的事。鲁宾·马修斯把他的布朗克斯冰淇淋改名为哈根达斯，在不改变产品的情况下提高了价格，我的孩子们正着鲁宾·马修斯做过的事。爱德华·詹纳放弃了寻找治疗天花的特效药，从而发现了能预防这一疾病的疫苗，我的孩子们正做着爱德华·詹纳做过的事。
Instead of studying people who were sick with smallpox, he began to study people who were exposed to it but never got sick. He found that they'd all contracted a similar but milder disease, cow pox, which vaccinated them against the deadly smallpox.
他不去研究得了天花的患者，而去研究接触天花却从未染上此病的人。他发现他们都患了一种类似天花但比较轻微的疾病：牛痘；牛痘使他们得以防止染上致命的天花。
They were refocusing the parameters. They were redefining the problems.They were reframing the question. In short, they were doing what every scientist who's ever made an important discovery throughout history has done, according to Thomas Kuhn, in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: They were shifting old paradigms.
他们在重新看待相关的各种因素。他们在重新认识他们的问题。他们在重新表述他们的问题。总之，据托马斯·库恩在他的《科学革命的结构》一书中所言，他们正做着历史上有过重大发现的科学家都曾做过的事：他们在改变旧的范式。
But if this had been a workbook exercise in school, every kid who didn't circle tomato would have been marked wrong. Every kid who framed the question differently than “Which is not a fruit?” would have been wrong. Maybe that explains why so many of the world's most brilliant scientists and inventors were fails in school, the most notable being Albert Einstein, who was perhaps this century's most potent paradigm-shifter.
但假若我们的游戏是学校里做在作业本上的练习，那么没有把西红柿圈出来的孩子全都会被批为答错。凡是没有把问题解读为“哪个不是水果”的孩子都是错的。也许这种情形说明了为什么世界上最杰出的科学家和发明家中有那么多的人读书时是不及格的学生。其中最引人注目的是阿尔贝特·爱因斯坦，他也许是本世纪最有影响的范式改变者。
