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2014考研英语一真题答案

2014-01-24 18:00:23来源:网络

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  The US$3-millionFundamental physics prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as AlexanderPolyakov said when he accepted this year’s award in March. And it is far fromthe only one of its type. As a News Feature article in Nature discusses, astring of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes inrecent years. Many, like the Fundamental Physics Prize, are funded from thetelephone-number-sized bank accounts of Internet entrepreneurs. Thesebenefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields, they say, and they want touse their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science.

  What’s not to like?Quite a lot, according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature.You cannot buy class, as the old saying goes, and these upstart entrepreneurscannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels, The new awards are anexercise in self-promotion for those behind them, say scientists. They coulddistort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research. They couldcement the status quo of peer-reviewed research. They do not fund peer-reviewedresearch. They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius.

  The goals of theprize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism. Some want to shock, others todraw people into science, or to better reward those who have made their careersin research.

  As Nature has pointedout before, there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizes—bothnew and old—are distributed. The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, launchedthis year, takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include.But the Nobel Foundation’s limit of three recipients per prize, each of whommust still be living, has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature ofmodern research—as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who isignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson. TheNobels were, of course, themselves set up by a very rich individual who had decidedwhat he wanted to do with his own money. Time, rather than intention, has giventhem legitimacy.

  As much as somescientists may complain about the new awards, two things seem clear. First,most researchers would accept such a prize if they were offered one. Second, itis surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather thango elsewhere, It is fair to criticize and question the mechanism—that is theculture of research, after all—but it is the prize-givers’ money to do with asthey please. It is wise to take such gifts with gratitude and grace.


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