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  3. Lawrence Bragg, the Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics, once wrote: "I will try to define what I believe to be lacking

Lawrence Bragg, the Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics, once wrote: "I will try to define what I believe to be lacking

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问题     Lawrence Bragg, the Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics, once wrote: "I will try to define what I believe to be lacking in our present courses for undergraduates. They do not learn to write clearly and briefly, marshalling their Points in due and aesthetically satisfying order, and eliminating inessentials. They are inept at those turns of phrase or happy analogy which throw a flying bridge across a chasm of misunderstanding and make contact between mind and mind. They do not know how to talk to people who have a very different training from them, and how to carry conviction when plans for action of vital importance to them are made." Perhaps this would not matter too much if physical science students were destined only for the backrooms of scientific laboratories. But recent trends indicate that many science graduates end up in careers far from their initial training. Many a physics graduate is to be found predicting the future market in the Square Mile; many a chemist is hyping it up in public relations. One of the main complaints of those graduates who leave science is that their course concentrated on producing students equipped to follow a research career, and that the underlying assumption was that such research would be carried out in an academic environment. Those who eventually find themselves elsewhere, whether as scientific researchers or in another capacity, often feel ill equipped for the environment of commerce and industry. These young people often have to write off their last three years’ training. At most, all they got from their BSc was a grounding in scientific logic and numeracy. The factual content of their subject was just so much excess baggage.
    The academic scientific community which supplied the excess baggage can be heard loudly bemoaning the "loss" of talented young scientists. Yet academic scientists also complain about scientific illiteracy in exactly those non-science professions, which are now welcoming science students.
    Perhaps if there were less moaning and greater acceptance of this intellectual osmosis(渗透), the exodus could be turned to everyone’s advantage. The refugee graduates ought to be able to think of their scientific knowledge and training as a bonus. It ought to make a positive, constructive contribution to their working lives, and be a source of insight for their colleagues. At the same time, the scientific community should be reaping the benefit of this broad and influential distribution of people who are sympathetic to science.
    The reason why this is not the case is that science graduates are often unable to share their science with their nonscientific colleagues. They are unable to communicate. Instead of building Bragg’s "flying bridge" they find themselves erecting barriers whenever called upon to explain scientific concepts in everyday terms. Attitudes in the scientific community are changing. In 1985, the Royal Society published a report on the public understanding of science in Britain. Its conclusions took many members of the scientific community by surprise.
    The report advocated increased cooperation with the media, more training in communication skills for scientists and wider science education. It also recommended that communication skills be an integral part of every undergraduate science course. The response in British universities has been patchy, to say the least, the reasons are not clear. It may be that nothing more than straightforward inertia is responsible. Being more charitable, academic scientists may simply feel their job is to teach science and that any attempts to delve into the art of communication will be ill received by both students and the outside world. However, there is evidence to suggest these fears are ill founded. For example, the departments of chemical and electrical engineering at Imperial College, London, have for many years offered their students tuition in giving talks. The motivation was partly to save examiners from hordes of trembling undergraduates’ mumbling their way through their oral exams. But mostly, it was the recognition that engineers have to deal with "the public"-- bankers, designers, construction workers all the time. Although these classes are crammed into odd spaces in overcrowded timetables, the students take the idea seriously and work hard on their talks. Through a process of practice, group discussion and criticism, all the students show a clear improvement in their communication skills. The best students give talks that are positively entertaining as well as informative. Over the past 12 months, University College London has been preparing a new course on the communication of scientific ideas. This will start in January as part of the science faculty’s new physical sciences degree, part of the course will involve the oral communication skills now being taught to engineers at Imperial. The rest is designed to bring students’ writing skills to a level where they could, perhaps, submit an article to New Scientist without it needing major surgery at the hands of a sub editor. Preparations for this element of the course have involved contacts with working journalists and bodies whose aims include making science more accessible to the general public, such as the British Association for the Advancement of Science and CIBA’s Media Resource Service. Here, too, initial approaches have produced an enthusiastic response. The conclusion from these ventures is that students want to know how to present the information they are learning in a coherent and attractive manner, and that initiatives by science departments which try to give their graduates such skills will be well received in the outside world. There are many people in universities who are interested in communication In many science faculties, staff are now taking upon themselves the responsibility for "chairing" classes for their students in communication skills. Given half a chance, most students would happily criticise their lecturers; in a class where they do the talking or writing, students learn by criticising each other.
    For academic scientists, the challenge of producing students with the communication skills demanded by society may be daunting. One thing, however, is certain. If we cannot even try, we can never succeed.
Undergraduates do not know how to talk to people who have a very different training from them, and how to carry ______ when plans for action of vital importance to them are made.
选项
答案conviction
解析 从“They do not know how to talk to people who have a very different training from them，and how to carry conviction when plans for action of vital importance to them are made．”可以得出结论。
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