单项选择题

Passage Four Two equally brilliant scientists apply for a prestigious research fellowship awarded by a top scientific organization.One is white,the other black.Does 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 color-blind and shun both racial discrimination and affirmative action. Well,let’s think about this.If science really is so meritocratic,where are all the black Nobel prizewinners and fellows of the Royal SocietyThe black chairs of government scientific panelsThe black Richard Dawkinses and Susan GreenfieldsWhen Newsweek magazine recently surveyed Europe’s largest 100 copanies,it was shocked to unrearth only six board members of non-European racial origin. One shudders to thinks what a similar survey of upper echelons of European science would reveal. Even the usually stick-in-the-mud British government now acknowledges there is a problem. Last month it promised new funding for projects designed to combat institutional racism in science education in schools. As measures go it is little and late, but welcome 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 under-representation 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 ring-fencing 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 well-qualified 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. To bite the bullet of affirmative action is ______.