【正文】 or a prestigious research fellowship awarded by a top scientific is white,the other the color of their skin matter? Most scientists will already be screaming a resounding “no”. Those who progress in science do so because of their work, not their pigmentation. Science is meritocratic and objective. It must therefore be rigorously colorblind and shun both racial discrimination and affirmative action. Well,let’s think about science really is so meritocratic,where are all the black Nobel prizewinners and fellows of the Royal Society?The black chairs of government scientific panels?The black Richard Dawkinses and Susan Greenfields?When Newsweek magazine recently surveyed Europe’s largest 100 copanies,it was shocked to unrearth only six board members of nonEuropean racial origin. One shudders to thinks what a similar survey of upper echelons of European science would reveal. Even the usually stickinthemud British government now acknowledges there is a problem. Last month it promised new funding for projects designed to bat institutional racism in science education in schools. As measures go it is little and late, but wele nontheless. Despite starting school as the top achievers, balck British children have long underperformed in science. And there are positive changes afoot higher up the scientific career ladder too. At present, few scientific organizations, funding bodies or labs inEurope bother even to track the racial background of those they hire or fund. As a result the full scale of the underrepresentation problem is hidden. Not for much longer. Britain’s newly amended Race Relationa Act requires all government bodies, including funding councils, to track the effects of their activities on different ethnic groups and ensure that benefit equally. And next year a European union directive will push all EU employers this way too. But ethnic monitoring alone will not creat the back role models European Science so badly needs. Something else is needed. Funding agencies and influential organizations like the Royal Society must bite the bullet of affirmative action. That means ringfencing fellowship and grants for applicants from particular racial background. And it mesns seeking out those who have beoken through the barriers of race and giving htem preference over their equally wellqualified white peers for positions of influence and places in the spotlight. Tokenism and fine sentiments will no longer do. With other professions having already leapt ahead in this area, the enduring whiteness of science is more than an embarrassment: it is a barrier to its vey credibility. If a large segment of Euope’s schoolchildren never see a scientist who looks like them, they will continue to think science is not for them. And it scientist don’t reflect the multiracial societies they live in, they’ll find it hard to win the public trust they crave. Does color matter? You bet it does. 76. Science is not so meritocratic because . A. it is colorblind B. it is racially discriminative C. it awards wrong research workers D. it is practiced by the white exclusively 77. The embarrassing problem address in the passage . A. was proved by Newsweek magazine’s survey B. shocked government scientific panels C. was revealed by the Royal Society D. all of the above 78. One of the positive changes afoot is . A. funding research instittution or labs B. setting up a scientific career ladder C. hiding the racial discrimination D. belitting racial backgrounds 79. To bite the bullet of affirmative action is . A. to set up black role models in Europe B. to keep up ethnic issues under surveillance C. to restrict fellowship and grants to the balck D. to balance the distribution of fellowship and grants between the white the black 80. The author argues that color matters because it is . A. the nature of science B. credibility in science C. an embarrassing tokenism D. mutual trust between generations Passage Five About 14,000 people will contract HIV today. And tomorrow and the day after that, and every day for the foreseeable future. That’s 5 million by the end of the year, most of whom will be dead within a decade. Figure like these bring home the devastating impact of AIDS and the Urgent need of for a cheap, effective vaccine. As a stroke, a vaccine could stop the tide of infection and stem the need for more, costly treatment. It could even help people who already have the virus healthy. Back in 1990, drugs panies and researchers confidently predicted we’d Have a vaccine against HIV1 within 10 years. These were rash statement. The virus has turned out to be more cunning and stealthy than anyone expected. And our knowledge of how vaccine boister the immune system hasn’t been good enough. A dozen years on, we still have no clearcut candidate for a vaccine. So you maight expected the announcement of two largescale trials of AIDS Vaccines to be applauded. Yet they have been criticized as a monumental waste of money. The trials will test almost identical vaccine, neither of which is expected to offer great protection against the virus. What’s are funded by the US government. One through the national Institute of Health and the other through the Department of Defense. The NIH and the DoD have a long history of rivalry in AIDS reseach. But in this case it seems sensible for the NIH to back down. Although the NIH is under pressure “to be seen to be doing something”, dublicating work of questioable value is itself questioable. Better to join forces with the military for this trail and spend money saved—whith amounts to about $60 milliom— elsewhere. There are, after all, reasons for optimism. A new wave of vaccine from industry and academia has nearly pleted safety tests. It makes sense to carry out limited trials of all this newers, to identify which ones offe the best protection, before mitting tens of millions of dollars to larger trials. Su