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  3. The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields

The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields

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问题     The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields in the world, working both inside and outside academia. According to the World Social Science Report 2010, the number of social-science students worldwide has swollen by about 11% every year since 2000.
    Yet this enormous resource in not contributing enough to today’s global challenges including climate change, security, sustainable development and health.(41)______Humanity has the necessary agro-technological tools to eradicate hunger, from genetically engineered crops to artificial fertilizers. Here, too, the problems are social: the organization and distribution of food, wealth and prosperity.
     (42)______This is a shame—the community should be grasping the opportunity to raise its influence in the real world. To paraphrase the great social scientist Joseph Schumpeter: there is no radical innovation without creative destruction.
    Today, the social sciences are largely focused on disciplinary problems and internal scholarly debates, rather than on topics with external impact.
    Analyses reveal that the number of papers including the keywords "environmental changed" or "climate change" have increased rapidly since 2004.(43)______
    When social scientists do tackle practical issues, their scope is often local; Belgium is interested mainly in the effects of poverty on Belgium, for example. And whether the community’s work contributes much to an overall accumulation of knowledge is doubtful.
    The problem is not necessarily the amount of available funding.(44)______ This is an adequate amount so long as it is aimed in the right direction. Social scientists who complain about a lack of funding should not expect more in today’s economic climate.
    The trick is to direct these funds better. The European Union Framework funding programs have long had a category specifically targeted at social scientists. This year, it was proposed that system be changed: Horizon 2020, a new program to be enacted in 2014, would not have such a category. This has resulted in protests from social scientists. But the intention is not to neglect social science; rather, the complete opposite.(45)______That should create more collaborative endeavors and help to develop projects aimed directly at solving global problems.
[A] It could be that we are evolving two communities of social scientists: one that is discipline-oriented and publishing in highly specialized journals, and one that is problem-oriented and publishing elsewhere, such as policy briefs.
[B] However, the numbers are still small: in 2010, about 1,600 of the 100,000 social-sciences papers published globally included one of these keywords.
[C] The idea is to force social scientists to integrate their work with other categories, including health and demographic change; food security; marine research and the bio-economy; clean, efficient energy; and inclusive, innovative and secure societies.
[D] The solution is to change the mindset of the academic community, and what it considers to be its main goal. Global challenges and social innovation ought to receive much more attention from scientists, especially the young ones.
[E] These issues all have root causes in human behavior; all require behavioral change and social innovations, as well as technological development. Stemming climate change, for example, is as much about changing consumption patterns and promoting tax acceptance as it is about developing clean energy.
[F] Despite these factors, many social scientists seem reluctant to tackle such problems. And in Europe, some are up in arms over a proposal to drop a specific funding category for social-science research and to integrate it within cross-cutting topics of sustainable development.
[G] During the late 1990s, national spending on social sciences and the humanities as a percentage of all research and development funds—including government, higher education, non-profit and corporate—varied from around 4% to 25%; in most European nations, it is about 15%.
选项
答案E
解析 此题可以通过上下文的衔接和代词指代来确定答案。空格前一句谈到“这种巨大的能源不是当今全球问题的主要影响因素，这些问题包括气候变化、安全、可持续发展和健康问题”，空格后谈到“人类有必要的农业技术工具来消除饥饿”，空格处应该填入的选项可以连接前后句的内容，既包括谈及全球问题，又包括谈及解决问题的选项只有E项。该项首句提到的these issues即指代空格前所提及的全球问题以及该项第二句的climate change举例说明即是空格前所列出的问题之一，并且该项提及解决气候变化的问题，很好地启示了下文。
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