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
外语
Why do readers of New Scientist continue to get steamed up about race? After all, it can be used as an innocuous technical term
Why do readers of New Scientist continue to get steamed up about race? After all, it can be used as an innocuous technical term
admin
2023-03-07
21
问题
Why do readers of New Scientist continue to get
steamed up
about race? After all, it can be used as an innocuous technical term by anthropologists. But all too often discussions of "race" lead to "racism", and tempers begin to fray. Before the 18th century, race merely described a group of common cultural origin, not one defined by immutable characteristics. Unfortunately, this usage changed as the Western powers colonized Asia and Africa and needed a way to characterize the peoples they subjected as not only different, but inferior.
A long list of scientists helped to "classify" the races. Among them were some of the famous names of the 18th and 19th centuries: Linnaeus, Cuvier, Haeckel, Huxley and Buffon. Although their classifications rarely agreed, many accepted that the races were fundamentally different and could be arranged with Caucasians at the top.
Only after the Darwinian evolution and the emergence of genetics did the notion of a league table start to crumble. By the 1940s, UNESCO could emphatically state: "Racism falsely claims that there is a scientific basis for arranging groups hierarchically in terms of psychological and cultural characteristics that are immutable and innate."
That groups cannot be arranged hierarchically does not mean that anthropologists cannot set up classifications which divide people into different groups, or that such classifications will not be useful, as several of our latter writers point out. For example, they can provide vital tools (along with language distribution) to reconstruct the prehistoric movements of peoples. Where genetic data are available, these reconstructions can be greatly refined.
In other contexts, such classifications are misleading. Many of the differences they record (including facial features, skin and hair color) are most probably superficial adaptations to local climate. Although useful as indicators of the origin of different groups, they imply nothing fundamental about differences between them.
Attempts to assess more important differences between groups (of any number of cognitive abilities, for example) always come to the same very well-known conclusion—that the differences between individuals within one racial group are much larger than the differences between the average members of two such groups.
What this means is that it is impossible to say anything about a particular individual’s ability because of his or her race (however, defined) because the spread of variation within a race is larger than the average difference between races. Racism can thus receive no support from science, even though a classification of races can be scientifically useful.
Lay people sometimes put more faith in the concept of race than scientists do, perhaps because they believe they can quite easily identify a person’s race or even nationality. But it’s not that easy: our correspondent from Le Vesinet, for example, identified some of the people in our recent feature ("Genes in Black and White") as Australian, Sicilian, Sumatran and Brazilian. In fact, they came from Sweden, Greece, the Central African Republic and Russia.
The classifications of races by anthropologists are useful in that they________.
选项
A、divide people into different groups
B、help to define prehistoric human movements
C、contribute to language distribution
D、provide tools for the study of prehistoric human movements
答案
D
解析
本题问人类学家对种族的划分是有用的,其原因是什么。根据第4段第2句可知,种族划分能帮助重构史前人类迁徙的轨迹,因此D“为研究史前人类迁徙轨迹提供工具”正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/QDcD777K
本试题收录于:
CATTI三级笔译综合能力题库翻译专业资格(CATTI)分类
0
CATTI三级笔译综合能力
翻译专业资格(CATTI)
相关试题推荐
"Juststicktoscience."ThisisacommonadmonitionthatSciencereceiveswhenwepublishcommentariesandnewsstoriesonpoli
Americahaslongbeenresistanttoadequatepovertypoliciesbecauseofitsstrongstrainofthinkingthatthepoorareresponsi
Inanew【C1】________publishedinthejournalHeart,researchersfoundthatSwissadultswhotookoneortwodaytimenapsperwee
[A]Crisisseemsfar[B]Thefirmisatrisk[C]Morerivalsjoinin[D]Naturalfoodsareunreal[E]Stopbuyin
[A]Crisisseemsfar[B]Thefirmisatrisk[C]Morerivalsjoinin[D]Naturalfoodsareunreal[E]Stopbuyin
HarlanCobenbelievesthatifyou’reawriter,you’llfindthetime;andthatifyoucan’tfindthetime,thenwritingisn’tap
HowdoyouexplaineconomicsinplainEnglish?TheFederalReserveBankofNewYorkhasbeenansweringthequestionwithaneven
Sunlightisfree,butthatisnoreasontowasteit.Yeteventhebestsiliconsolarcells—byfarthemost【C1】________sort—conv
TermsandConditionsofEmploymentThesetermsandconditionsshouldbereadbeforeyousignyourcontract.Salary:Yoursta
A、Checkthelocalweather.B、Findamapandacompass.C、Prepareenoughfoodanddrink.D、Informsomebodyofyourplan.D细节推断题。短
随机试题
设由抛物线y=x2与y=2-x2所围成的平面图形,试求:此平面图形的面积;
患者,女,68岁。CT表现:直肠壁局限性增厚,外壁毛糙,周围脂肪内见密度增高的结节影,周围筋膜增厚,拟诊为直肠癌,根据Thoeni分期应属于
机体排斥微生物侵袭的能力属于下列哪一种免疫功能
关于子宫的解剖,下列哪项是错误的( )
下述使用阿托品解救有机磷中毒的注意事项中,正确的是()。
业主主供应的材料、设备使用前,负责检验或试验的人和承担检验或试验费用的人分别是()。
Youcancloseyourumbrella.Therainseems______.
20世纪60、70年代我国成功试射“两弹一星”表明,中国在尖端科技领域的某些方面正接近世界先进水平,其中“两弹”是指()
设f(x)在(一∞,+∞)上有定义,x0≠0为函数f(x)的极大值点,则().
Intheworldofentertainment,TVtalkshowshaveundoubtedlyfloodedeveryinchofspaceondaytimetelevision.Andanyonewho
最新回复
(
0
)