Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
Even scientists know that absolute objectivity has yet to be attained. It's the same for absolute truth. But, as many newspaper reporters have observed, the idea of objectivity as a guiding principle is too valuable to be abandoned. Without it, the pursuit of knowledge is hopelessly lost.
Adapted from "Focusing Our Values," Nieman Reports
Assignment:Are people better at making observations, discoveries, and decisions if they remain neutral and impartial? Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
1. Journalists are supposed to be politically neutral.新闻工作者在政治上应持中立态度。
2. How can those people make discoveries if they stick to tradition and reject new ideas?如果那些人总是护着传统的东西,排斥新的想法,他们怎么能做出重要发现呢?
3. The boss has a bias against female applicants.老板对女性求职者抱有偏见。
4. Old biases die hard.古老的偏见很难消除。
5. The media is often biased.新闻媒体往往有偏向。
6. Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures.伊格兹.赛麦尔维斯是匈牙利的医生,被称为是防腐技术的先驱。
7. Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection.赛麦尔维斯发现,产褥热病例可以通过洗手大大减少。
8. He instituted a policy of using a solution of chlorinated lime for washing hands between autopsy work and the examination of patients.他规定,在解剖尸体后要用漂白粉溶液洗手,然后才能给产妇做检查。
9. The result was that the mortality rate dropped immediately and greatly. (消毒双手的)结果是,产妇死亡率立刻大幅下降。
10. Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community.赛麦尔维斯的发现与当时传统的医学观点冲突,因此遭到医学界的抵制。
11. Semmelweis has no bias towards established medical opinions, so he could remain neutral when doing researches, which made him discover the true reason that led to the death of mothers.赛麦尔维斯没有偏向于传统医学观念,因此他能在做研究是保持中立,找到致使产妇死亡的真正原因。
12. Bias and preconceived ideas should be put away.应抛弃偏见或成见。
13. He is free from prejudice to everybody.他对所有的人都不带有任何偏见。