Specialization can be seen as a response to the problem of an increasing accumulation of scientific knowledge. By splitting up the subject matter into smaller units, one man could continue to handle the information and use it as the basis for further research. But specialization was only one of a series of related developments in science affecting the process of communication. Another was the growing professionalisation of scientific activity.
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. (424)
The growth of specialization in the 19th century might be more clearly seen in sciences such as ______.
A. sociology end chemistry
B. physics and psychology
C. sociology and psychology
D. physics and chemistry
The attacks on ambition are many and come from various angles; its public defenders are few and unimpressive, where they are not extremely unattractive. As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse, a quality to be admired and fixed in the mind of the young, is probably lower than it has ever been in the United States. This does not mean that ambition is at an end, that people no longer feel its stirring and prompting, but only that, no longer openly honored, it is less openly underground, or made sly. Such, then, is the way things stand: on the left angry critics, on the right stupid supporters, and in the middle, as usual, the majority of ear nest people trying to get on in life. (418)
It is generally believed that ambition may be well regarded if ______.
A. its returns well compensate for the sacrifices
B. it is rewarded with money, fame and power
C. its goals are spiritual rather than material
D. it is shared by the rich and the famous
Women and the Winning of the West
The popular version of the lone wagon train, forging its way west, in constant danger of losing the faintly marked trail, its occupants trembling in fear of imminent Indian massacre, is just a Hollywood concoction, says historian Sandra Myres, who has been researching the role of women in settling the American west. She has unearthed vivid accounts of the trail west and of homesteading at the journey's end. The journals, diaries and letters she has read help dispel some long cherished myths about the American frontier.
Forget the image of the lone wagon train silhouetted against the horizon. The fact was that after the California Gold Rush in 1849, isolated travel was not even a possibility. "You couldn't get lost if you wanted to, because you couldn't get out of sight of another wagon train," explains Myres, professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington.
"The country was so level that we could see the long trains of white-topped wagons for many miles," observed a pioneer woman, Margaret Frink. "It appeared to me that none of the population had been left behind," she wrote in her Journal of the Adventures of a Party of California Gold Seekers, published in 1897:
It seemed to me that I have never seen so many human beings in all my life before. And, when we drew nearer to the vast multitude, and saw them in all manner of vehicles and conveyances, on horseback and on foot... I thought, in my excitement, if one-tenth of these teams and these people get ahead of us, there would be nothing left for us in California worth picking up.
Another favorite Hollywood image--the wagon train forming a circle at dusk--bears little resemblance to reality. The wagons might have made a circle, but if so it was to enclose livestock which might otherwise wander off and become fair game for rustlers. So the protective stockade of wagons was for the benefit of cows, horses and pigs. Men, women and children naturally preferred to sleep in tents well outside the circle.
In the movies, we know the Indians are going to descend on the settlers as soon as the sun goes down. Hollywood was only preserving misconceptions of the American Indian that had long-flourished in popular literature and imagination. The 19th century pioneers themselves were steeped in simplistic views--many of which still persist today. Nineteenth-century fiction depicted either the good Indian-the noble savage of James Fenimore Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales--or the bad Indian. In Robert Bird's Neck of the Wood, for in- stance, Indians are bloodthirsty and treacherous; the heroic settlers ultimately vanquish them.
Settlers on their way west, however, were more likely to meet Indians who descended on the wagons in order to exploit the possibilities for trade the transcontinental travelers offered. Pioneer women found the Indians extremely helpful in identifying and preparing indigenous food and herbs. "You can't find an Indian attack for anything," says Myres ruefully after reading more than 500 women's journals.
Marauding Indians did occasionally harass the rare party of isolated travelers, but whites and Indians generally regarded each other with a curiosity tinged with mutual apprehension. Pioneer women were keen observers of Indian customs and ceremonies, often recording them in minute detail, very much as a modern anthropologist would. Indian women too were watching their counterparts; some of these accounts have also been pre served in English transcriptions made by interpreters, at times via sign language.
"The 19th century tended to be an age of journals, thank God," says Myres, The virtues of keeping a journal were instilled in young women by their teachers and the flood of ladies' magazines that kept them up-to-date on the latest eastern styles. It was one's duty to keep up a journal which could be read by friends and relations b
A. a Hollywood myth
B. very accurate in most of the details
C. accurate in regard to the Indians
D. helpful for creating homes
Recently, many cosmologists--scientists who study the structure and origin of the universe--have acknowledged that there is a definite link between the scientific and religious accounts of the Creation.
An account on the subject "where life begins" indicated that recent cosmological studies relating to the origin of Creation tend to validate the biblical account. The universe, according to the studies, was a huge fireball created about twenty billion years ago by the magnificently illuminating explosion of a giant primordial atom. The Bible describes the Creation in these words:
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form. and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of Cod was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. (Genesis 1)
At another level of scientific inquiry, oceanographers--scientists who study the origin, composition and life forms found in the ocean and bodies of water--have been searching to determine whether the oceans would be a productive source of food supply for humankind in the futura. Water bodies and oceans cover 70% of the earth's surface and oceanographers are firmly convinced that they can be utilized as a potential source of Christianity and Islam appears to attest to the validity of scientific investigation in the development of ocean resources as source of food supply.
The Koran states, "And He is who had made the sea subservient to you that you may eat flesh from it and bring forth ornaments which you wear and you might see the ships cleaving through it and that you might seek of his bounty and give thanks." (Koran 16:14)
In the words of the poet Walt Whitman, in his Leaves of Grass,
"I say the whole earth and the stars are in the sky for religion's sake." (370)
This selection implies that ______.
A. there is evidence that scientists are generally atheists
B. cosmologists read the Bible as part of their research
C. scientific studies show evidence of the validity of religious accounts of the universe and its origin
D. intellectual agnosticism has been on the rise