经济学人下载:科学界也有种族歧视

Racial discrimination in science
科学界也有种族歧视

A black and white answer
黑人，白人

In American science, race affects the chance of getting a grant
在美国科学界，种族影响得到拨款的几率

YOU might expect that science, particularly American science, would be colour-blind.
也许你以为科学界、特别是美国的科学界是无种族歧视的。

Though fewer people from some of the country's ethnic minorities are scientists than the proportions of those minorities in the population suggest should be the case, once someone has got bench space in a laboratory, he might reasonably expect to be treated on merit and nothing else.
这个国家一些少数族裔的人当科学家的比例比那些少数族裔在人口中所占比例要小，尽管这个事实就暗示是又种族歧视的，但是一旦谁在实验室获得一席之地，他可能就期望凭借才能而非其他收到对待，这是合理的。

Unfortunately, a study just published in Science by Donna Ginther of the University of Kansas suggests that is not true.
不幸的是，堪萨斯大学的唐娜?金赛尔（Donna Ginther）刚刚在《科学》杂志发表了一篇研究论文，指出事实并非如此。

Dr Ginther, who was working on behalf of America's National Institutes of Health (NIH), looked at the pattern of research grants awarded by the NIH and found that race matters a lot.
曾代表美国国家卫生研究院（NIH）工作的金赛尔博士观察了国家卫生研究院研究拨款的模式并发现种族的影响很大。

Moreover, it is not just a question of white supremacy. Asian and Hispanic scientists do just as well as white ones.
亚裔和西班牙裔科学家的情况和白种人科学家的一样。

Black scientists, however, do badly.
但是黑皮肤科学家的情况很糟。

Dr Ginther and her colleagues analysed grants awarded by the NIH between 2000 and 2006, and correlated this information with the self-reported race of more than 40,000 applicants.
金赛尔博士及其同事分析了由国家卫生研究院在2000年到2006年间拨出的款项，并把这个信息同40000多申请者自报的种族做关联对比。

Their results show that the chance of a black scientist receiving a grant was 17%.
结果显示一名黑人科学家得到一笔拨款的概率为17%。

For Asians, Hispanics and whites the number was between 26% and 29%.
而亚裔、西班牙裔和白人科学家的概率则介于26%到29%之间。

Even when these figures were adjusted to take into account applicants' prior education, awards, employment history and publications, a gap of ten percentage points remained.
即使这些数字被调整以考虑申请人之前的教育水平、获奖情况、工作历史和发表出版情况，仍然有10个百分点的差距存在。

This bias appears to arise in the NIH's peer-review mechanism.
这种偏见似乎在国家卫生研究院的同行评审机制中出现。

Each application is reviewed by a panel of experts.
每一名申请人都要接受一组专家的审查。

These panels assign scores to about half the applications they receive (the others are rejected outright). Scored applications are then considered for grants by the various institutes that make up the NIH.
这些小组给他们收到的申请的一半打分（另一半直接被拒绝了）。再由组成国家卫生研究院的各所研究院考虑是否给被打分的申请拨款。

The race of the applicant is not divulged to the panel.
专家小组并不知道申请者的种族。

However, Dr Ginther found that applications from black scientists were less likely to be awarded a score than those from similarly qualified scientists of other races, and when they were awarded a score, that score was lower than the scores given to applicants of other races.
但是金赛尔博士发现黑人科学家的申请被打分的可能性比来自其他种族、条件相似的科学家的要小，而且如果他们获得打分，分数也比其他种族的申请人的分数低。

One possible explanation is that review panels are inferring applicants' ethnic origins from their names, or the institutions they attended as students.
一个可能的解释是审查小组通过申请者的名字、或是他们曾就读的学校推测他们的种族。

Consciously or not, the reviewers may then be awarding less merit to those from people with "black-sounding" names, or who were educated at universities whose students are predominantly black.
无论是无意抑或有意，审查者也许给那些名字"听上去的黑人"的人或是曾就读于大多数学生都是黑人的大学的人更少的优待。

Indeed, a similar bias has been found in those recruiting for jobs in the commercial world.
商业世界的招聘也存在类似的偏见。

One well-known study, published in 2003 by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago, found that fictitious CVs with stereotypically white names elicited 50% more offers of interviews than did CVs with black names, even when the applicants' stated qualifications were identical.
2003年，麻省理工大学和芝加哥大学的研究者发表了一份著名报告，发现如果他们编造的简历的名字是白人名字，那么收到的面试通知书会比名字是黑人的多50%，即使申请者陈述的资历是一模一样的。

Another possible explanation is social networking.
另一个可能的解释是社交网络。

It is in the nature of groups of experts (which is precisely what peer-review panels are) to know both each other and each other's most promising acolytes.
对于同在一组的专家们来说了解彼此和彼此最有前途的助手，这是人之常情（这也是同侪审查小组的实质）。

Applicants outside this charmed circle might have less chance of favourable consideration.
没进入这个排外圈子的申请者也许得到优先考虑的概率要少一些。

If the charmed circle itself were racially unrepresentative (if professors unconsciously preferred graduate students of their own race, for example), those excluded from the network because their racial group was under-represented in the first place would find it harder to break in.
如果这个排外的小圈子本身在人种上是不具备代表性的（比如，如果教授无意识地偏爱他们自己种族的研究生），那些首先因为自己种族族群的代表人数不足而被排斥在这一网络之外的人就会更难突破进去。

Though Dr Ginther's results are troubling, it is to the NIH's credit that it has published her findings.
尽管金赛尔博士的实验结果令人担忧，但是她的发现得以发表，应该归功于国家卫生研究院。

The agency is also starting a programme intended to alter the composition of the review panels, and—appropriately for a scientific body—will conduct experiments to see whether excising potential racial cues from applications changes outcomes.
该机构还开始一项旨在改变审查小组构成成分的项目，而且——对于一个科学机构是合适的——将开展实验以便证明是否透露申请者可能的种族身份会改变结果。

Other agencies, and not just in America, should pay strict attention to all this, and ask themselves if they, too, are failing people of particular races.
其他机构、不仅仅是美国的机构，应对此所有这一切予以严肃关注，同时扪心自问他们自己是否也不公正地对待某些来自特定种族的人。

Such discrimination is not only disgraceful, but also a stupid waste of talent.
这种歧视不仅是可耻的，也是对才能的愚蠢的浪费。