According to the new school of scientists, technology is an overlooked force in expanding the horizons of scientific knowledge. (1) Science moves forward, they say, not so much through the insights of
GREat men of genius as because of more ordinary things like improved techniques and tools. (2) "In short", a leader of the new school contends, "the scientific revolution, as we call it, was largely the improvement and invention and use of a series of instruments that expanded the reach of science in innumerable directions." (3) Over the years, tools and technology themselves as a source of fundamental innovation have largely been ignored by historians and philosophers of science. The modern school that hails technology argues that such masters as Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and inventors such as Edison attached great importance to, and derived great benefit from, craft information and technological devices of different kinds that were usable in scientific experiments. The centerpiece of the argument of a technology-yes, genius-no advocate was an analysis of Galileo's role at the start of the scientific revolution. The wisdom of the day was derived from Ptolemy, an astronomer of the second century, whose elaborate system of the sky put Earth at the center of all heavenly motions. (4) Galileo's greatest glory was that in 1609 he was the first person to turn the newly invented telescope on the heavens to prove that the planets revolve around the sun rather than around the Earth. But the real hero of the story, according to the new school of scientists, was the long evolution in the improvement of machinery for making eyeglasses.
Federal policy is necessarily involved in the technology vs. genius dispute. (5) Whether the Government should increase the financing of pure science at the expense of technology or vice versa often depends on the issue of which is seen as the driving force.
参考答案
1．他们说，科学的发展与其说源于天才伟人的真知灼见，不如说源于改进了技术和工具等更为普通的东西。
2．新学派的一位领袖人物坚持说：“简言之，我们所谓的科学革命，主要是指一系列器具的改进、发明和使用，这些改进、发明和使用使科学发展的范围无所不及。”
3．工具和技术本身作为根本性创新的源泉多年来在很大程度上被科学史学家和科学思想家们忽视了。
4．伽利略的最光辉的业绩在于他在1609年第一个把新发明的望远镜对准太空，以证实行星是围绕太阳旋转，而不是围绕地球（旋转）。
5．政府究竟是以减少对技术的经费投入来增加对纯理论科学的经费投入，还是相反，这往往取决于把哪一方面看作是驱动力量。
