首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
考研
In the early 19th century, French philosopher Auguste Comte proposed a scientific hierarchy ranging from the physical sciences a
In the early 19th century, French philosopher Auguste Comte proposed a scientific hierarchy ranging from the physical sciences a
admin
2018-01-31
35
问题
In the early 19th century, French philosopher Auguste Comte proposed a scientific hierarchy ranging from the physical sciences at the bottom up through biology to the "queen" of sciences, sociology, at the top. A science of human social behavior, Comte contended, could help humanity make moral and political decisions and construct more efficient Just governments. Today, social science receives much less federal funding than the biological and physical sciences do. Social scientists are accused of being "soft", of working with theories so lacking in precision and predictive power that they don’t deserve to be called scientific.
Some social scientists—I’ll call them "softies"—shrug off this criticism, because they identify less with physicists and chemists than with scholars in the humanities. 【R1】______
Other social scientists, "hardies" hope for and believe they can eventually attain the same status as hard science, say, biology. Softies and hardies have been fighting for as long as I can remember. 【R2】______
The term "sociobiology" became so controversial that it is rarely used today, except by softies as an insult. Hardies nonetheless embraced the tenets of sociobiology. They attached the term "evolutionary" to their fields—creating disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and evolutionary economics—and churned out unreliable conclusions about the adaptive origins of war and capitalism.
Softies look skeptically at the aspirations of hardies—with good reason. The recent recession provides a powerful demonstration of social science’s limits. 【R3】______
Even when supported by the latest findings from neuroscience, genetics, and other fields, social science will never approach the precision and predictive power of the hard sciences. 【R4】______
In contrast, the basic units of social systems—people—are all different from each other; each person who has ever lived is unique in ways that are not trivial but essential to our humanity. 【R5】______
So we are left with a paradox: Although social science is in many aspects quite weak, it can also be extraordinarily powerful in terms of its impact, for ill or good, on our lives. Here’s a more specific suggestion : Social scientists should not consider identifying with the harder sciences or the humanities. Rather, they should focus more intensely on finding answers to specific problems.
[A]The world’s smartest economists, equipped with the most sophisticated mathematical models and powerful computers that money can buy, did not foresee—or at any rate could not prevent—the financial calamities that struck the United States and the rest of the world in 2008.
[B]However, James Weatherall who has a Ph. D. in physics as well as in philosophy pointed out that the methods of hard sciences can help make social sciences more rigorous.
[C]Stevens Institute of Technology is a case in point;Social science falls within the charge of the Stevens College of Arts & Letters, which also encompasses philosophy, history, literature, music and my own humble discipline, science communication. As far as I can tell, my social-science colleagues aren’t seething with resentment at being lumped together with the humanities folks.
[D]Each individual mind also keeps changing in response to new experiences—watching Lord of the Rings, having a baby, teaching freshman composition. Imagine how hard physics would be if every electron were the unique product of its entire history.
[E]Recently, as the prestige of neuroscience has surged, hardies have discovered the benefits of including magnetic-resonance imaging and other brain-scanning experiments in grant proposals, and they have attached the prefix "neuro" to their disciplines, yielding new terms such as neuroeconomics and neuroan-thropology.
[F]In 1975, for example, the Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson contended in his blockbuster Sociobiology that social science would only become truly scientific by embracing evolutionary theory and genetics. Horrified softies denounced sociobiology as a throwback to social Darwinism and eugenics, two of the most notorious social applications of science.
[G]Physics addresses phenomena—electrons, elements, gravity—that are relatively simple, stable and amenable to precise mathematical definition. Gravity works in exactly the same way whether you measure it in 17th-century England or 21st-century America. Every neutron is identical to every other neutron.
【R3】
选项
答案
A
解析
空格出现在第五段末。空格上文指出,软派学者对硬派学者的雄心表示怀疑,他们的理由很充分。近期的经济衰退就是对社会科学局限性的有力证明。这表明本段将以“经济衰退”为例介绍软派学者质疑硬派学者观点的理由。A项指出,世界上最好的经济学家,拥有最先进的模型和设备,却未能预测或阻止2008年的金融灾难。该选项说明,经济学具有一定局限性,无法达到硬科学那样高的精确度和预测能力。这一内容既与上文紧密衔接,又引出了下文(第六段)作者观点(社会科学绝不可能达到硬科学所具有的精确度和预测能力)。另外,该选项中the financial calamities与空格上文The recent recession也保持了话题一致。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/RnX7FFFM
0
考研英语一
相关试题推荐
Ifyouhaveeverwonderedhowanelephantsmells,scientistshavetheanswer.ResearchershavediscoveredthatAfricanElephants
Couldyoursmartphonepreventacarfromhittingyou?GeneralMotorsandotherresearchersthinkthat’sapossibility【C1】______a
Peekthroughtheinspectionwindowsofthenearly100three-dimensional(3D)printersquietlymakingthingsatRedEye,acompany
Forcenturies,menandwomenhaveworkedtirelesslytofitthephysicalmoldsoftheirtime.Diets,whichhave【B1】______fromth
Transparencyhashittheheadlines.Inthewakeofevidencethatmanyresearchfindingsarenotreproducible,thescientificcom
【F1】Withapresidentialcampaign,healthcareandtheguncontroldebateinthenewsthesedays,onecan’thelpgettingsuckedi
【F1】Withapresidentialcampaign,healthcareandtheguncontroldebateinthenewsthesedays,onecan’thelpgettingsuckedi
Whatisawomanworth?Thatisthequestionthathastobefacedbydivorcingcouplesandbytheirlawyers.Theanswersseemto
NowthatwearefairlysurethattherearemanyEarth-likeplanetsintheGalaxy,thetimeisripe(oralmostso)towonderwhet
随机试题
转基因食品的安全性被广泛质疑,国际社会对其尚存在极大争议,下列关于转基因食品的说法,正确的有()。
在国际技术转让法律制度中,技术出让方给与受让方在合同规定的低于和有效期内,有权使用技术出让方出让的技术、出让方及第三人不得在合同规定的地域内使用该项技术,这种协议成之为()。
反映项目实施阶段的原材料实际消耗量、机械台班数和人工工日数的信息为( )。
位于城市市区的一家电视机生产企业(以下简称甲企业)和一家百货商场(以下简称乙商场)均为增值税一般纳税人。2014年3月份发生以下业务:(1)甲企业销售给乙商场一批电视机,不含税销售额为70万元,采用托收承付方式结算,货物已经发出,托收手续已经办妥,但尚未
求助者的症状主要有()。排除求助者精神病性的依据包括()。
司马光说“(汉武帝)异于秦始皇无几矣”,又说“(汉武帝)有亡秦之失而免于亡秦之祸”。指出汉武帝在军事行动、役使百姓和加强思想控制三方面与秦始皇类似之处。比较秦皇、汉武的这些类似之处,说明为什么会导致秦亡汉兴的不同结果。
已知曲线y=f(x)=cosx,下列关于该曲线的凹凸性的表述错误的是().
下列关于我国国情的表述,正确的是()。
【S1】【S10】
A、Whattheman’splansarefortonight.B、Whythemandoesnotwanttoplaytennis.C、Whytheydonothavetimetoplaytennisa
最新回复
(
0
)