时间:2016-03-03 07:03:49
No clear-cut distinction can be drawn between professionals and amateurs in science: exceptions can be found to any rule. Nevertheless, the word “amateur” does carry a connotation that the person concerned is not fully integrated into the scientific community and, in particular, may not fully share its values. The growth of specialization in the nineteenth century, with its consequent requirement of a longer, more complex training, implied greater problems for amateur participation in science. The trend was naturally most obvious in those areas of science based especially on a mathematical or laboratory training, and can be illustrated in terms of the development of geology in the United Kingdom.
A comparison of British geological publications over the last century and a half reveals not simply an increasing emphasis on the primacy of research, but also a changing definition of what constitutes an acceptable research paper. Thus, in the nineteenth century, local geological studies represented worthwhile research in their own right; but, in the twentieth century, local studies have increasingly become acceptable to professionals only if they incorporate, and reflect on, the wider geological picture. Amateurs, on the other hand, have continued to pursue local studies in the old way. The overall result has been to make entrance to professional geological journals harder for amateurs, a result that has been reinforced by the widespread introduction of refereeing, first by national journals in the nineteenth century and then by several local geological journals in the twentieth century. As a logical consequence of this development, separate journals have now appeared aimed mainly towards either professional or amateur readership. A rather similar process of differentiation has led to professional geologists coming together nationally within one or two specific societies, whereas the amateurs have tended either to remain in local societies or to come together nationally in a different way.
Although the process of professionalisation and specialization was already well under way in British geology during the nineteenth century, its full consequences were thus delayed until the twentieth century. In science generally, however, the nineteenth century must be reckoned as the crucial period for this change in the structure of science.
51. The growth of specialization in the 19th century might be more clearly seen in sciences such as ________________________.
[A] sociology and chemistry
[B] physics and psychology
[C] sociology and psychology（D）
[D] physics and chemistry
52. We can infer from the passage that ________________________.
[A] there is little distinction between specialization and professionalisation
[B] amateurs can compete with professionals in some areas of science
[C] professionals tend to welcome amateurs into the scientific community（B）
[D] amateurs have national academic societies but no local ones
53. The author writes of the development of geology to demonstrate ________________________.
[A] the process of specialization and professionalisation
[B] the hardship of amateurs in scientific study
[C] the change of policies in scientific publications（A）
[D] the discrimination of professionals against amateurs
54. The direct reason for specialization is ________________________.
[A] the development in communication
[B] the growth of professionalisation
[C] the expansion of scientific knowledge（C）
[D] the splitting up of academic societies
A great deal of attention is being paid today to the so-called digital divide -- the division of the world into the info (information) rich and the info poor. And that divide does exist today. My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago. What was less visible then, however, were the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide. There are reasons to be optimistic.
There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow. As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access -- after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are. More and more governments, afraid their countries will be left behind, want to spread Internet access. Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will be netted together. As a result, I now believe the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead. And that is very good news because the Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty that we’ve ever had.
Of course, the use of the Internet isn’t the only way to defeat poverty. And the Internet is not the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential.
To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure (the basic structural foundations of a society) in the United States. When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn’t have the capital to do so. And that is why America’s Second Wave infrastructure -- including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on -- were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain’s former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now? The Americans. I believe the same thing would be true in