“杰拉德•卡斯帕尔教授，你错了！”
美国斯坦福大学荣誉校长杰拉德•卡斯帕尔，在给本科一年级学生上课时，学生们经常这样提醒他，但这正是他最高兴的地方。“学生们的天真让我意识到我的理解并不全面，然后再把讲义重写一遍。创新就要靠这种质疑的勇气。”他说。
在GMAT的ISSUE写作的题库中有很多题目都是关于“质疑精神”的讨论，很多同学遇到这个话题，感觉有一肚子话说，一提笔却无从下手；或者即便能写出来，但也写的很不深入，对于“质疑精神”的重要性，我们在GRE和GMAT写作中要重点掌握它的论述概念、核心以及语言。下面我从中英文两个方向来谈谈这类题目可以用到的漂亮的写作素材。
首先，创新精神是一个民族进步的动力，培养具有创新精神、掌握科学知识的人才是大学的首要任务。因此，在“中外大学校长论坛”上，如何培养学生的创新意识、创新能力，成了校长们共同的话题，而人们在谈论创新时都提到要“敢于质疑”。其次，一个社会的发展离不开民众普遍质疑精神。用辩证唯物主义的说法，质疑就是一种内在的否定因素，否定因素的存在才推动事物由低级向高级发展。缺乏质疑与慎防，必然会使人们难辨是非、认知混乱、盲目盲从。建设现代的民主法制社会，同样离不开这种民众主动的参与意识，当政者也应该对质疑抱以宽容的态度，因为民主政治是坦率、勇气、干预精神等精神成长的沃土。我们相信，民众的这种质疑精神无疑是治疗社会疾痼的良药。
对于写作来讲，如果你用中文想出以上这些信息，就已经完成了一半了，下面就是要多储备一些写作素材，平时善于积累，从而构成大家的“写作语料库”。下面小宝老师给大家补充一个非常全面的论述质疑精神的英文论证工具。
Skepticism
Skepticism refers to the philosophic position holding that the possibility of knowledge is limited either because of the limitations of the mind or because of the inaccessibility of its object. It is more loosely used to denote any questioning attitude. Extreme skepticism holds that no knowledge is possible, but this is logically untenable since the statement contradicts itself. During the Renaissance the influence of ancient skepticism was reflected preeminently in the writings of the 16th-century French philosophical essayist Michel de Montaigne. The greatest exponent of modern skepticism was the 18th-century Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume. In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Hume questions the possibility of demonstrating the truth of beliefs about the external world, causal connections, future events, or such metaphysical entities as the soul and God. The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, while attempting to overcome Hume's skepticism, denied the possibility of knowing things in themselves or of achieving metaphysical knowledge. In the 19th century, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche denied the possibility of complete objectivity, and thus of objective knowledge, in any field. The 20th-century American philosopher George Santayana, claiming to have taken Hume's skepticism a step further, maintained, in his work Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923), that belief in the existence of anything, including oneself, rests on a natural, but irrational impulse. Elements of skepticism may be found in other modern schools of philosophy, including pragmatism, analytic and linguistic philosophy, and existentialism.
Scientific skepticism
A scientific (or empirical) skeptic is one who questions the reliability of certain kinds of claims by subjecting them to a systematic investigation. The scientific method details the specific process by which this investigation of reality is conducted. Considering the rigor of the scientific method, science itself may simply be thought of as an organized form skepticism. This does not mean that the scientific skeptic is necessarily a scientist who conducts live experiments (though this may be the case), but that the skeptic generally accepts claims that are in his/her view likely to be true based on testable hypotheses and critical thinking.
Common topics that scientifically-skeptical literature questions include health claims surrounding certain foods, procedures, and medicines, such as homeopathy, Reiki, Thought Field Therapy (TFT), vertebral subluxations; the plausibility of supernatural entities (such as ghosts, poltergeists, angels, and gods); as well as the existence of ESP/telekinesis, psychic powers, and telepathy (and thus the credibility of parapsychology); topics in cryptozoology, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, UFOs, crop circles, astrology, repressed memories, creationism, dowsing, conspiracy theories, and other claims the skeptic sees as unlikely to be true on scientific grounds.
Most empirical or scientific skeptics do not profess philosophical skepticism. Whereas a philosophical skeptic may deny the very existence of knowledge, an empirical skeptic merely seeks likely proof before accepting that knowledge.
