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
A Pioneering Woman of Science Re-Emerges after 300 Years [A] Maria Sibylla Merian, like many European women of the 17th century,
A Pioneering Woman of Science Re-Emerges after 300 Years [A] Maria Sibylla Merian, like many European women of the 17th century,
admin
2021-01-08
43
问题
A Pioneering Woman of Science Re-Emerges after 300 Years
[A] Maria Sibylla Merian, like many European women of the 17th century, stayed busy managing a household and rearing children. But on top of that, Merian, a German-born woman who lived in the Netherlands, also managed a successful career as an artist, botanist, naturalist and entomologist (昆虫学家
[B] " She was a scientist on the level with a lot of people we spend a lot of time talking about," said Kay Etheridge, a biologist at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania who has been studying the scientific history of Merian’ s work. "She didn’ t do as much to change biology as Charles Darwin, but she was significant. "
[C] At a time when natural history was a valuable tool for discovery, Merian discovered facts about plants and insects that were not previously known. Her observations helped dismiss the popular belief that insects spontaneously emerged from mud. The knowledge she collected over decades didn’ t just satisfy those curious about nature, but also provided valuable insights into medicine and science. She was the first to bring together insects and their habitats, including food they ate, into a single ecological composition.
[D] After years of pleasing a fascinated audience across Europe with books of detailed descriptions and life-size paintings of familiar insects, in 1699 she sailed with her daughter nearly 5,000 miles from the Netherlands to South America to study insects in the jungles of what is now known as Suriname. She was 52 years old. The result was her masterpiece, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.
[E] In her work, she revealed a side of nature so exotic, dramatic and valuable to Europeans of the time that she received much acclaim. But a century later, her findings came under scientific criticism. Shoddy (粗糙的) reproductions of her work along with setbacks to women’ s roles in 18th- and 19th-century Europe resulted in her efforts being largely forgotten. " It was kind of stunning when she sort of dropped off into oblivion (遗忘) ," said Dr. Etheridge. "Victorians started putting women in a box, and they’ re still trying to crawl out of it. "
[F] Today, the pioneering woman of the sciences has re-emerged. In recent years, feminists, historians and artists have all praised Merian’ s tenacity (坚韧) , talent and inspirational artistic compositions. And now biologists like Dr. Etheridge are digging into the scientific texts that accompanied her art. Three hundred years after her death, Merian will be celebrated at an international symposium in Amsterdam this June.
[G] And last month, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium was republished. It contains 60 plates(插图) and original descriptions, along with stories about Merian ’ s life and updated scientific descriptions. Before writing Metamorphosis, Merian spent decades documenting European plants and insects that she published in a series of books. She began in her 20s, making textless, decorative paintings of flowers with insects. "Then she got really serious," Dr. Etheridge said. Merian started raising insects at home, mostly butterflies and caterpillars. "She would sit up all night until they came out of the pupa (蛹) so she could draw them, " she said.
[H] The results of her decades’ worth of careful observations were detailed paintings and descriptions of European insects, followed by unconventional visuals and stories of insects and animals from a land that most at the time could only imagine. It’ s possible Merian used a magnifying glass to capture the detail of the split tongues of sphinx moths (斯芬克斯飞蛾) depicted in the painting. She wrote that the two tongues combine to form one tube for drinking nectar (花蜜). Some criticized this detail later, saying there was just one tongue, but Merian wasn’ t wrong. She may have observed the adult moth just as it emerged from its pupa. For a brief moment during that stage of its life cycle, the tongue consists of two tiny half-tubes before merging into one.
[I] It may not have been ladylike to depict a giant spider devouring a hummingbird, but when Merian did it at the turn of the 18th century, surprisingly, nobody objected. Dr. Etheridge called it revolutionary. The image, which also contained novel descriptions of ants, fascinated a European audience that was more concerned with the exotic story unfolding before them than the gender of the person who painted it.
[J] "All of these things shook up their nice, neat little view, " Dr. Etheridge said. But later, people of the Victorian era thought differently. Her work had been reproduced, sometimes incorrectly. A few observations were deemed impossible. "She’ d been called a silly woman for saying that a spider could eat a bird," Dr. Etheridge said. But Henry Walter Bates, a friend of Charles Darwin, observed it and put it in book in 1863, proving Merian was correct.
[K] In the same plate, Merian depicted and described leaf-cutter ants for the first time. "In America there are large ants which can eat whole trees bare as a broom handle in a single night," she wrote in the description. Merian noted how the ants took the leaves below ground to their young. And she wouldn’ t have known this at the time, but the ants use the leaves to farm fungi (菌类) underground to feed their developing babies.
[L] Merian was correct about the giant bird-eating spiders, ants building bridges with their bodies and other details. But in the same drawing, she incorrectly lumped together army and leaf-cutter ants. And instead of showing just the typical pair of eggs in a hummingbird nest, she painted four. She made other mistakes in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium as well: not every caterpillar and butterfly matched.
[M] Perhaps one explanation for her mistakes is that she cut short her Suriname trip after getting sick, and completed the book at home in Amsterdam. And errors are common among some of history’ s most-celebrated scientific minds, too. " These errors no more invalidate Ms. Merian’ s work than do well-known misconceptions published by Charles Darwin or Isaac Newton," Dr. Etheridge wrote in a paper that argued that too many have wrongly focused on the mistakes of her work.
[N] Merian’ s paintings inspired artists and ecologists. In an 1801 drawing from his book, General Zoology Amphibia, George Shaw, an English botanist and zoologist, credited Merian for describing a frog in the account of her South American expedition, and named the young tree frog after her in his portrayal of it. It wouldn’t be fair to give Merian all the credit. She received assistance naming plants, making sketches and referencing the work of others. Her daughters helped her color her drawings.
[O] Merian also made note of the help she received from the natives of Suriname, as well as slaves or servants that assisted her. In some instances she wrote moving passages that included her helpers in descriptions. As she wrote in her description of the peacock flower, "The Indians, who are not treated well by their Dutch masters, use the seeds to abort their children, so that they will not become slaves like themselves. The black slaves from Guinea and Angola have demanded to be well treated, threatening to refuse to have children. In fact, they sometimes take their own lives because they are treated so badly, and because they believe they will be born again, free and living in their own land. They told me this themselves. "
[P] Londa Schiebinger, a professor of the history of science at Stanford University, called this passage rather astonishing. It’ s particularly striking centuries later when these issues are still prominent in public discussions about social justice and women’ s right. " She was ahead of her time," Dr. Etheridge said.
Merian acknowledged the help she got from natives of South America.
选项
答案
O
解析
该段前两句提到,梅里安还记录了她从苏里南本地人那里得到的帮助,在她写的动人的段落中就有对帮助者的描写。题干中的the help she got from natives of South America和acknowledged分别对应原文中的the help she received from the natives of Suriname和wrote moving passages,故答案为O。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/WpP7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Itmakescontactseasierandquicker.B、Itboomsbusinessandeconomy.C、Itimprovesinterpersonalrelationship.D、Itsavespe
Peoplecannowavoidhavingtosortthroughalbumsfromseveraldifferentfriendswhentryingtoreliveparties,weddingsandot
Carmakershavelongusedsextoselltheirproducts.Recently,however,bothBMWandRenaulthavebasedtheirlatestEuropeanm
MarieCuriewasthefirstfemaleprofessoratSevres,acollegeforgirlswhowantedtoteachhighereducation.Thesetwenty-yea
It’sagoodideatoapplysunscreenbeforeheadingtothebeachifyoudon’twanttoburn.Butformarineanimalslikewhales,t
RenewableEnergy[A]Inthepastcentury,ithasbeenseenthattheconsumptionofnon-renewablesourcesofenergyhascaused
红色是中华儿女最喜爱的颜色,在传统文化中象征着喜庆与祥和。中国人的生活中充满红色主题的装饰,如红色的灯笼、红色的婚礼用品和红色的对联(couplets)等。古人认为红色具有驱逐邪恶的功能,因此中国古代的许多宫殿和寺庙的墙壁都被漆成红色。红色是激情和胜利的颜
人们还会在门上粘贴红色的对联(couplets),对联的主题为健康、发财和好运。
A、All-arounddevelopment.B、Creativityforthefuture.C、Basicsocialskills.D、Academiccapability.D演讲者提到现在我们的教育体制建立在学术能力的概念上,
AIisprobablycomingforyourjob.Buttheremaybeawaytofuture-proofyourcareer."Humansaregoingtofindmeaningfulwor
随机试题
利益集团也被称为()
革兰氏染色阳性的细菌菌体呈
乳牙创伤对正在发育中的恒牙胚的影响表现为
对于项目的完成者来说,()是项目工作开展的基础,同时也是确定组织形式和机构的重要基础。
某物业服务公司欲招聘3名不同岗位的员工,人事部主管小张制订了招聘计划,主要内容包括:计划招聘人员总数、招聘职位及每个岗位的具体要求、招聘信息发布的时间、方式与范围等。小张通过网站发布了招聘信息,随后陆续有应聘者来面试。该物业服务公司人事部王经理根
普伐他汀是一种调节血脂的药物,其结构简式如图1所示(未表示出其空间构型)。下列关于普伐他汀的化学性质描述正确的是()。
下列有关刑事责任的说法正确的是()。
在网球比赛中,甲、乙、丙、丁争夺冠军。至于谁将获得冠军,A、B、C三人做了如下猜测:A:冠军是甲或是乙。B:如果冠军不是丙,那么冠军不是丁。C:冠军不是甲。已知A、B、C三人中有并且只有一人的预测成立,那么以下哪项一
【L1】【L3】
【S1】【S8】
最新回复
(
0
)