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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.
毫無疑問，這里正發生著什么事兒。這事兒比爭搶食物還亂，比西紅柿是水果還是蔬菜重要得多。哥白尼把太陽視為宇宙中心，重新調整了地心說這一長達數世紀的范式，我的孩子們正做著哥白尼當年做的事。魯賓·馬修斯把他的布朗克斯冰淇淋改名為哈根達斯，在不改變產品的情況下提高了價格，我的孩子們正著魯賓·馬修斯做過的事。愛德華·詹納放棄了尋找治療天花的特效藥，從而發現了能預防這一疾病的疫苗，我的孩子們正做著愛德華·詹納做過的事。
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，而去研究接觸天花卻從未染上此病的人。他發現他們都患了一種類似天花但比較輕微的疾病：牛痘；牛痘使他們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.
他們在重新看待相關的各種因素。他們在重新認識他們的問題。他們在重新表述他們的問題。總之，據托馬斯·庫恩在他的《科學革命的結構》一書中所言，他們正做著歷史上有過重大發現的科學家都曾做過的事：他們在改變舊的范式。
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.
但假若我們的游戲是學校里做在作業本上的練習，那么沒有把西紅柿圈出來的孩子全都會被批為答錯。凡是沒有把問題解讀為“哪個不是水果”的孩子都是錯的。也許這種情形說明了為什么世界上最杰出的科學家和發明家中有那么多的人讀書時是不及格的學生。其中最引人注目的是阿爾貝特·愛因斯坦，他也許是本世紀最有影響的范式改變者。
