Asking the right question is more important than getting the right answer

    Asking the right question is more important than getting the right answer
    提出正确的问题比得到正确的答案更重要。[原文地址](https://lemire.me/blog/2018/12/06/asking-the-right-question-is-more-important-than-getting-the-right-answer/)
    Schools train us to provide the right answers to predefined questions.
 Yet anyone with experience from the real world knows that, more often than not, the difficult part is 
to find the right question.
    学校训练我们为预先设定的问题提供正确的答案。
然而，任何有现实世界经验的人都知道，困难的部分往往是找到正确的问题。

    To make a remarkable contribution, you need to start by asking the right question.
 I will go further than this: the questions you are asking might define who you are.
    要做出卓越的贡献，你需要先提出正确的问题。
    我会更进一步：你问的问题可能会定义你是谁。

    What is a good question?
    The great questions are tractable and fruitful. They lead you on a path of discovery. 
It is easy to ask how to cure cancer, but that’s not a good question because it does 
not help anyone do medical research.
    伟大的问题是易于处理和富有成效的。他们带领你走上发现的道路。
很容易提出如何才能治愈癌症这个问题，但这不是一个好问题，因为它无助于任何人进行医学研究。

    Secret questions are the best: if you are the only one with this question in mind, 
then you may be holding a gold mine. Questions that everyone is having are proportionally worthless.
 (E.g., see [Zero to One](http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=0804139296&com=daniellemires-20&ca=danilemisblog-20&uk=danilemisblog-21&de=danilemisbl05-21&fr=danilemisbl0e-21&it=danilemisbl02-21&jp=danilemisblog-22&cn=danilemisblog-23&fb=com&sc=w) )
    秘密问题是最好的：如果你是唯一一个有这个问题的人，那么你可能会持有一个金矿。
每个人都有的问题在比例上毫无价值。（例如，参见Peter Thiel的[Zero to One](http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=0804139296&com=daniellemires-20&ca=danilemisblog-20&uk=danilemisblog-21&de=danilemisbl05-21&fr=danilemisbl0e-21&it=danilemisbl02-21&jp=danilemisblog-22&cn=danilemisblog-23&fb=com&sc=w)）

     You may think that by studying hard, by learning all the answers, 
you will get better at asking great questions. I am not sure it works.
     你可能认为我只要努力学习，知道所有的答案，你就会在问更好的问题上做的更好。
我无法确定如此。
     In fact, knowing too much can harm you. I would take a B student 
who has fresh questions as a Ph.D. student over a typical overeager A+ student 
who frets about getting everything right. It is a poorly held secret 
that some of the very best researchers and innovators were average students.
     事实上，知道的太多反而可能影响你。我可能会带一个B学生，
他作为博士生能够提出新问题。在一个典型的过度训练得到A+成绩学生可能觉得一切正常。
一些最优秀的研究人员和创新者都是普通学生，这是一个拙劣的秘密。
     Do the following experiment. Pick a scholarly field, any field,
 then spend two weeks reading everything about it that you can. 
Next, write down 5 questions. I can almost guarantee you that these 5 questions will be
already covered by sources you read. They will be “known” questions.
     做以下实验。选择一个学术领域，任何领域，然后你花两个星期阅读有关它的一切资料。
接下来，写下5个问题。我几乎可以向您保证，你阅读的资料已经涵盖了这五个问题。他们将是“已知”的问题。

     So to find good questions, you have to maintain some distance from the material. 
This should be uncontroversial if you consider that I define “good questions” to be “secret” or “highly original”.
      因此，要找到好的问题，您必须与材料保持一定距离。如果你认为我将“好问题”定义为“秘密”
或“高度原创”，那么这应该是没有争议的。
     Our minds tend to frame everything in terms of the patterns we have learned. 
Spend two years studying Marxism and every single problem will feel like a Marxist problem to you.
It becomes difficult for you to come up with new questions outside of the frame.    
     我们的思维方式倾向于根据我们学到的模式来构建一切。花两年时间学习马克思主义，
每一个问题对你来说都是一个马克思主义问题。你很难在框架之外提出新的问题。

     Don’t get me wrong: smart people who know more tend to be more creative, 
everything else being equal… but there is a difference between being knowledgeable
and having been locked into a frame of mind.
     不要误会我的意思：聪明的人往往更有创造力，其他一切都是平等的......
但是，在知识渊博和被锁定在心境之间还是存在差异的。
     Yet here is how many researchers work. They survey the best papers from the last major
conference or journal issue in their field. Importantly, they make sure to read 
what everyone is reading and to make sure to make theirs the frame of minds of the best people. 
They make sure that they can repeat the most popular questions and answers. 
They look at the papers, look for holes or possibilities for improvement and work from there. 
What this ensures that there are a few leaders (people writing about genuine novel ideas) 
followed by a long and nearly endless stream of “me too” papers that offer minor
 and inconsequential variations.
     然而，这里有多少研究人员在工作。他们调查了他们所在领域上一次重大会议或期刊的最佳论文。
重要的是，他们确保阅读每个人正在阅读的内容，并确保让他们成为最优秀人才的思维框架。
他们确保他们可以重复最流行的问题和答案。他们看文件，寻找漏洞或改进的可能性，并从那里开始工作。
这儿确实有少数杰出者（人们写下真正的新颖创意），接下来是一长串且几乎无穷无尽的“我也是”的论文，
这些论文提供了微小而无关紧要的变化。

     It is easier to judge these things in retrospect. In computer science, we had the XML
craze at the turn of the century. Dozens of XML papers appeared each year 
at each of the top database conferences.
 [I wrote about the untold story of the death of this idea](https://lemire.me/blog/2013/01/14/xml-for-databases-a-dead-idea/). How could so many people get so excited at the same time by what was a dead-end?
     回想起来，这些事情更容易判断。在计算机科学中，我们在世纪之交就拥有了XML热潮。
每年在每个顶级数据库会议上都会出现数十篇XML论文。[我写了关于这个想法死亡的不为人知的故事](https://lemire.me/blog/2013/01/14/xml-for-databases-a-dead-idea/)。怎么会有这么多人同时因为一个死胡同而变得如此兴奋？           

     I believe that people are happy to be handed out questions and will often rush out 
to provide highly sophisticated thorough answers… whether or not the question is the right one.
     我相信人们很乐意提出问题，并且经常会急于提供高度复杂的彻底答案......
无论问题是否正确。
     My claim is that the people leading are not unnaturally smart, knowledgeable or creative. 
The people who answer other people’s questions are not dumb or unimaginative. 
The main difference is one of focus. You either focus on asking good questions or you focus on providing good answers.
     我的主张是杰出的人才不是天生的的聪明，知识渊博或创造性。
回答别人问题的人并不愚蠢或缺乏想象力。主要区别在于他们的关注点在哪里。
你要么专注于提出好的问题，要么专注于提供好的答案。

     The world would be better if we had more people asking better questions.
     如果我们有更多的人提出更好的问题，世界会更好。
     How might we ask better questions?
     Pay attention to what is around you and violates your worldview.
How did Fleming discover penicillin? He noticed that some mold 
that had invaded his dirty lab appeared to kill bacteria. He asked the right question at that time.
     我们怎么能问更好的问题？
     注意周围的事物可能会违背你的世界观。弗莱明是如何发现青霉素的？他注意到一些侵入他脏实验室的霉菌似乎会杀死细菌。他当时就问了正确的问题。

     Be patient. Reportedly, Einstein once stated, “It’s Not That I’m so Smart, 
It’s Just That I Stay with Problems Longer.” The longer you work on a problem, 
the more likely you are to find interesting questions. (See [Forthmann et al. 2018](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.350)) 
The easiest way to miss the great questions is to dismiss the problems as uninteresting and move on too quickly.
     耐心点。据报道，爱因斯坦曾经说过，“我不是多么的聪明，只是因为我的问题时间更长。
”你解决问题的时间越长，就越有可能找到有趣的问题。（参见[Forthmann等人，2018年](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.350)）
错过这些重大问题的最简单方法是将这些问题视为不感兴趣并过快地进行。
     Be physically active, go for a walk. Chaining yourself to a desk is likely counterproductive. 
I used to think that being an all-out intellectual was the best route, but I now believe that I was grossly mistaken.
 I personally take a walk outside almost every morning on weekdays. (See [Oppezzo and Schwartz, 2014](http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2014-14435-001)).
     通过身体活动，去散步。将自己束缚在桌子上可能会适得其反。
我曾经认为，成为一个全面的知识分子是最好的路线，但我现在相信我是错误的。
我平日几乎每天早上都在外面散步。
（见[Oppezzo和Schwartz，2014年](http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2014-14435-001)）。

     Don’t be too social. Social pressure toward conformity trigger intense instinctive reactions. 
It is simply hard to go against the herd. Thus you are better off not know too much 
about where the herd is. In concrete terms, spend entirely days by yourself.
     不要太实际。顺从的社会压力会引发强烈的本能反应。反对群体真的很难。
因此，你最好不要过多地了解群体的位置。具体而言，完全花几天时间。
     Ask a lot of questions. If you want to become good at providing the right answers, 
train yourself to answer lots of questions. If you want to become good at asking questions, 
ask a lot of them.
     问了很多问题。如果你想善于提供正确的答案，训练自己回答很多问题。如果你想善于提问，可以问很多问题。
     Always question your own thoughts and work.
     总是质疑自己的想法和工作。
     The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers 
as ask the right questions. (attributed to Levi-Strauss)
     在提出正确的问题时，科学思想并没有提供正确的答案。