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  3. If there is one thing scientists have to hear, it is that the game is over. Raised on the belief of an endless voyage of discove

If there is one thing scientists have to hear, it is that the game is over. Raised on the belief of an endless voyage of discove

admin2011-06-29  96
问题     If there is one thing scientists have to hear, it is that the game is over. Raised on the belief of an endless voyage of discovery, they recoil (畏缩) from the suggestion that most of the best things have already been located. If they have, today’ s scientists can hope to contribute no more than a few grace notes to the symphony of science.
    A book to be published in Britain this week, The End of Science, argues persuasively that this is the case. Its author, John Horgan, is a senior writer for Scientific American magazine, who has interviewed many of today’s leading scientists and science philosophers. The shock of realizing that science might be over came to him, he says, when he was talking to Oxford mathematician and physicist Sir Roger Penrose.
    The End of Science provoked a wave of denunciation (谴责) in the United States last year. "The reaction has been one of complete shock and disbelief," Mr. Horgan says.
    The real question is whether any remaining unsolved problems, of which there are plenty, lend themselves to universal solutions. If they do not, then the focus of scientific discovery is already narrowing. Since the triumphs of the 1960s--the genetic code, plate tectonics (板块构造税), and the microwave background radiation that went a long way towards proving the Big Bang--genuine scientific revolutions have been scarce. More scientists are now alive, spending more money on research, than ever. Yet most of the great discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries were made before the appearance of state sponsorship, when the scientific enterprise was a fraction of its present size.
    Were the scientists who made these discoveries brighter than today’s? That seems unlikely. A far more reasonable explanation is that fundamental science has already entered a period of diminished returns. "Look, don’t get me wrong," says Mr. Horgan. "There are lots of important things still to study, and applied science and engineering can go on for ever. I hope we get a cure for cancer, and for mental disease, though there are few real signs of progress."
There have not been many genuine scientific revolutions in the past few decades because
选项 A、there have been decreased returns in the research of fundamental science
B、there are too many important things for scientists to study
C、applied science and engineering take up too much time and energy
D、today’s scientists are not as intelligent as those in the past
答案A
解析 本题问的是在过去的几十年里，没有出现许多真正的科学革命的原因。文章第四段讲到，从20世纪60年代取得成功以来，真正的科学革命已经稀少了；第五段接着讲到，以前的科学家能够取得成功，实现真正的科学革命并不是他们比现在的科学家聪明，这个问题的一个合理得多的解释是——基础科学已经进入一个回报减少的时期。也就是说在过去的几十年里，因为基础科学研究领域的回报减少了，所以才没有出现许多真正的科学革命。
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