0610G的一题句子填空（science of astronomy）

挪啊慢UID: 3042503

Sec. 4, No. 6
The science of astronomy was begun by amateurs and today remains dependent on their contributions, which are incisive by virtue of being ----- by a prior assumption that often vitiate the work of professional research scientists.

A. characterized              B. unencumbered              C. supported
D. contradicted                E. inspired


网上XDF的答案是D. 我的疑问是B是否更合适？理由如下：

incisive (m-w: adj. impressively direct and decisive)应该是修饰amateur contributions的，而a prior assumption that often vitiate the work of professional research scientists则应该与professional research scientists有关。

但是从结构上看，这句话所称述的事实却是跟virtue (m-w: n. a beneficial quality or power of a thing)有关的（virtue of being + 一大段修饰）。那么如果我们理解成一种因为关系，是否可以认为amateur这种与破坏职业科学家成果的prior assumption相反的virtue就是做出incisive contributions的原因？

所以这个空应该填一个反对或者驳斥意义的词，到这里为止选contradicted还是正确的。但是现在反过来再重新看一下这句句子，是否能发现其对于amateur contributions and their virtue总体上的正面态度？所以在有"being"的情况下，与其说virtue被这种prior assumption驳斥 (contradicted)，不如说这些业余爱好者从prior assumption中unencumbered (解脱，m-w: adj. free of encumbrance)出来。

期待大家来讨论。

msshUID: 3072478

B是对的。但你的理由不对。by virtue of是一个词组（跟virtue意义上没有任何关系），差不多等于because of：因为业余爱好者不受成见约束……