求助! History學派見解文

HsiaoYuChen

是從外國GMAT討論版上看的, 我沒有找著標準解答 ,
對於這兩題推論題型想與大家討論!!
黃線是版中比較多人回答的答案. 但也是很分歧.
想提出來與大家討論! 謝謝了!

A recent generation of historians of science, far from portraying accepted scientific views as objectively accurate reflections of a natural world, explain the acceptance of such views in terms of the ideological biases of certain influential scientists or the institutional and rhetorical power such scientists wield. As an example of ideological bias, it has been argued that Pasteur rejected the theory of spontaneous generation not because of experimental evidence but because he rejected the materialist ideology implicit in that doctrine. These historians seem to find allies in certain philosophers of science who argue that scientific views are not imposed by reality but are free inventions of creative minds, and that scientific claims are never more than brave conjectures, always subject to inevitable future falsification. While these philosophers of science themselves would not be likely to have much truck with the recent historians, it is an easy step from their views to the extremism of the historians.

While this rejection of the traditional belief that scientific views are objective reflections of the world may be fashionable, it is deeply implausible. We now know, for example, that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen and that parents each contribute one-half of their children’s complement of genes. I do not believe any serious-minded and informed person can claim that these statements are not factual descriptions of the world or that they will inevitably be falsified.

However, science’s accumulation of lasting truths about the world is not by any means a straightforward matter. We certainly need to get beyond the naive view that the truth will automatically reveal itself to any scientist who looks in the right direction; most often, in fact, a whole series of prior discoveries is needed to tease reality’s truths from experiment and observation. And the philosophers of science mentioned above are quite right to argue that new scientific ideas often correct old ones by indicating errors and imprecision (as, say, Newton’s ideas did to Kepler’s). Nor would I deny that there are interesting questions to be answered about the social processes in which scientific activity is embedded. The persuasive processes by which particular scientific groups establish their experimental results as authoritative are themselves social activities and can be rewardingly studied as such. Indeed, much of the new work in the history of science has been extremely revealing about the institutional interactions and rhetorical devices that help determine whose results achieve prominence.

But one can accept all this without accepting the thesis that natural reality never plays any part at all in determining what scientists believe. What the new historians ought to be showing us is how those doctrines that do in fact fit reality work their way through the complex social processes of scientific activity to eventually receive general scientific acceptance.

3) In the third paragraph of the passage, the author is primarily concerned with
(A) presenting conflicting explanations for a phenomenon
(B) suggesting a field for possible future research-->本來選這個, 是因為當段提到一些此idea未來的可能貢獻.
(C) qualifying a previously expressed point of view-->作者似乎已轉折語氣表達對此一新的idea的些許認可.
(D) providing an answer to a theoretical question
(E) attacking the assumptions that underlie a set of beliefs

4) The use of the words “any serious-minded and informed person’ serves which one of the following functions in the context of the passage?
(A) to satirize chronologically earlier notions about the composition of water
(B) to reinforce a previously stated opinion about certain philosophers of science-->本來選這個, 但是似乎作者目的不是要reinforce新的學派.
(C) to suggest the author’s reservations about the “traditional belief”-->第二段中,作者仍強調原有那一派學家的,所以是否選這個比較好?
(D) to anticipate objections from someone who would argue for an objectively accurate description of the world
(E) to discredit someone who would argue that certain scientific assertions do not factually describe reality