"Scientific community" has the article the before it because it is a collective noun.

The extinction of the dinosaurs is still a matter of debate in the scientific community.

The use of monosodium glutamate is still a sensitive topic in the culinary arts.

You would use the, an or a depending on the noun.

A murder of crows

An army of ants

The International Olympic Committee

The World Health Organization

The music industry

Here's a nice reference: http://www.edufind.com/ENGLISH/grammar/Determiners2a.cfm

Thank you.

Can you give me some examples of sentences with collective nouns that take no articles?

Does this sentence look natural withthout the article? Are the usual rules of grammar in regard to articles still applicable for collective nouns? I think i saw it from somewhere that some collective nouns usually carry the in front.

The extinction of the dinasaurs is still a matter of debate in scientific community.

Hi guys,

''The extinction of the dinosaurs is still a matter of debate in the scientific community.''

in the sentence above I dont understand why' scientific community' takes 'the' instead of zero article

I wıll be very happy if somebody could explain this....

I'd like to offer another opinion.

I'm dubious about trying to explain this in terms of collective nouns. I would simply say that there are many communities (eg artistic, sporting, scientific, literary) and the writer of the sentence is making a specific reference to the scientific community, hence the definite article.

It's the same as saying 'The cat sat on the blue chair' (eg not the green chair, not the red chair, etc.) I'm making a specific reference to the blue chair, hence the definite article.

You wouldn't say '. . . in scientific community' for the same reason that you wouldn't say 'The cat sat on blue chair'.

Best wishes, Clive