The US$3-million Fundamental physics prize is indeed an interesting experiment,as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this year’s award in March.And it is far from the only one of its type.As a News Feature article in Nature discusses,a string of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes in recent years.Many,like the Fundamental Physics Prize,are funded from the telephone-number-sized bank accounts of Internet entrepreneurs.These benefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields,they say,and they want to use their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science.What’s not to like?Quite a lot,according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature.You cannot buy class,as the old saying goes,and these upstart entrepreneurs cannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels,The new awards are an exercise in self-promotion for those behind them,say scientists.They could distort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research.They could cement the status quo of peer-reviewed research.They do not fund peer-reviewed research.They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius.The goals of the prize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism.Some want to shock,others to draw people into science,or to better reward those who have made their careers in research.As Nature has pointed out before,there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizes—both new and old—are distributed.The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences,launched this year,takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include.But the Nobel Foundation’s limit of three recipients per prize,each of whom must still be living,has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research—as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson.The Nobels were,of course,themselves set up by a very rich individual who had decided what he wanted to do with his own money.Time,rather than intention,has given them legitimacy.As much as some scientists may complain about the new awards,two things seem clear.First,most researchers would accept such a prize if they were offered one.Second,it is surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather than go elsewhere,It is fair to criticize and question the mechanism—that is the culture of research,after all—but it is the prize-givers’money to do with as they please.It is wise to take such gifts with gratitude and grace.
The discovery of the Higgs boson is a typical case which involves
事实细节根据题干中的专有名词“the Higgs boson”可快速回文定位到原文第四段。从原文来看，即例子前半句的内容“But the Nobel Foundation’s limit of three recipients per prize,each of whom must still be living,has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research”，就是说，但诺贝尔奖也存在很大局限性，比如一个奖项最多只能有三位获得者，而且必须健在。而现代科学研究是多人合作式的，所以这项规定很早之前就不合时宜了。而后面谈及希格斯玻色子的发现这一例子正是为了例证这一观点。所以选项A“现代研究的共同努力”中的joint（共同的）正是原文中collaborative（合作）的同义替换，所以A为正确答案。而选项B“获奖者地位的争议”是文中并未提及的信息；选项C“研究发现的展示”是例子本身；选项D“对新奖项的合理关注”对应原文“Time,rather than intention,has given them legitimacy”，原文表述的是诺贝尔奖的合理性，而不是新奖项，故排除。
