17.1-Conducting Inquiry-Working with Inconslusive Results

进行调查-不确定的结果

Why have working with inconslusive results - Because the state of human knowledge is imperfect, not every question is answerable when it is asked. Some issue remain unresolved for years, even centuries.
为什么会有不确定的结果 - 因为人类的知识是不完善的，不是每个问题都能回答。有些问题多年甚至几个世纪都不能解决。

Some question are even more resistant to inquiry - for example, the question,Are there intelligent lift-forms in our solar system or other planetary systems? Scientists estimate that the universe is 156 billion light-years wide and still expanding. Our sun is one of billions of stars, many of which could harbor intelligent life-forms, so it's conceivable that any inquiry into this question made in the next million years will be inconclusive. Perhaps the answer will never be known.
有些问题甚至更加难以调查 - 例如，这个问题：在我们太阳系或者其他行星系统有智慧的生命形式吗？ 科学家们估计宇宙有156亿光年宽而且还一直在扩大，我们的太阳是亿万行星中的一颗，其中有很多行星有可能孕育智慧的生命形式，因此可以想象的是，在未来的一百万年里对这个问题的任何研究都是不确定性的，甚至永远不会知道答案。

However resistant to resolution a question may be, though, inquiry is still useful. Even if it yields no more than the untestable opinions of experts, those opinions are more valuable than the casual speculations of the uninformed. So we shouldn't be intimidated by difficult issue. We should merely be realistic about how complete and final our answer are likely to be.
然而，无论解决一个问题有多么的困难，调查仍然是有用的。即使它产生的只是专家们无法验证的意见，这些意见也比不知情人士的随意猜测更有价值。所以我们不应该被困难的问题吓到。我们仅仅需要现实的考虑我们的答案可能有多完整和最终。