四級復習資料大全閱讀
Passage 5
In the next century well be able to alter our DNA radically, encoding our visions and vanities while concocting new life-forms. When Dr. Frankenstein made his monster, he wrestled with the moral issue of whether he should allow it to reproduce, Had I the right, for my own benefit, to inflict the curse upon everlasting generations? Will such questions require us to develop new moral philosophies?
Probably not. Instead, well reach again for a timetested moral concept, one sometimes called the Golden Rule and which Kant, the millenniums most prudent moralist, conjured up into a categorical imperative: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; treat each person as an individual rather than as a means to some end.
Under this moral precept we should recoil at human cloning, because it inevitably entails using humans as means to other humans ends and valuing them as copies of others we loved or as collections of body parts, not as individuals in their own right. We should also draw a line, however fuzzy, that would permit using genetic engineering to cure diseases and disabilities but not to change the personal attributes that make someone an individual (IQ, physical appearance, gender and sexuality).
The biotech age will also give us more reason to guard our personal privacy. Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, got it wrong: rather than centralizing power in the hands of the state, DNA technology has empowered individuals and families. But the state will have an important role, making sure that no one, including insurance companies, can look at our genetic data without our permission or use it to discriminate against us.
Then we can get ready for the breakthroughs that could come at the end of the next century and the technology is comparable to mapping our genes: plotting the 10 billion or more neurons of our brain. With that information we might someday be able to create artificial intelligences that think and experience consciousness in ways that are indistinguishable from a human brain. Eventually we might be able to replicate our own minds in a dry-ware machine, so that we could live on without the wetware of a biological brain and body. The 20th centurys revolution in infotechnology will thereby merge with the 21st centurys revolution in biotechnology. But this is science fiction. Lets turn the page now and get back to real science.
21.Dr. Frankensteins remarks are mentioned in the text_______
[A] to give an episode of the DNA technological breakthroughs.
[B] to highlight the importance of a means to some everlasting ends.
[C] to show how he created a new form of life a thousand years ago.
[D] to introduce the topic of moral philosophies incurred in biotechnology.
22.It can be concluded from the text that the technology of human cloning should be employed_______
[A] excessively and extravagantly.
[B] reasonably and cautiously.
[C] aggressively and indiscriminately.
[D] openly and enthusiastically.
23.From the text, we learn that Aldous Huxley is of the opinion that_______
[A] DNA technology should be placed in the charge of individuals.
[B] government should assume less control over individuals.
[C] people need government to protect their DNA information.
[D] old moral precepts should be abolished on human cloning.
24.Judged from the information in the last paragraph, we can predict that the author is likely to write which of the following in the next section?
[A] The reflection upon biotechnological morality.
[B] The offensive invasion of our personal privacy.
[C] The inevitable change of IQs for our descendants.
[D] The present state of biotechnological research.
25.According to the last paragraph, dry-ware is to wet-ware as_______
[A] collective to individual.
[B] fictional to factual.
[C] mechanical to corporeal.
[D] temporary to permanent.
Passage 5
In the next century well be able to alter our DNA radically, encoding our visions and vanities while concocting new life-forms. When Dr. Frankenstein made his monster, he wrestled with the moral issue of whether he should allow it to reproduce, Had I the right, for my own benefit, to inflict the curse upon everlasting generations? Will such questions require us to develop new moral philosophies?
Probably not. Instead, well reach again for a timetested moral concept, one sometimes called the Golden Rule and which Kant, the millenniums most prudent moralist, conjured up into a categorical imperative: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; treat each person as an individual rather than as a means to some end.
Under this moral precept we should recoil at human cloning, because it inevitably entails using humans as means to other humans ends and valuing them as copies of others we loved or as collections of body parts, not as individuals in their own right. We should also draw a line, however fuzzy, that would permit using genetic engineering to cure diseases and disabilities but not to change the personal attributes that make someone an individual (IQ, physical appearance, gender and sexuality).
The biotech age will also give us more reason to guard our personal privacy. Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, got it wrong: rather than centralizing power in the hands of the state, DNA technology has empowered individuals and families. But the state will have an important role, making sure that no one, including insurance companies, can look at our genetic data without our permission or use it to discriminate against us.
Then we can get ready for the breakthroughs that could come at the end of the next century and the technology is comparable to mapping our genes: plotting the 10 billion or more neurons of our brain. With that information we might someday be able to create artificial intelligences that think and experience consciousness in ways that are indistinguishable from a human brain. Eventually we might be able to replicate our own minds in a dry-ware machine, so that we could live on without the wetware of a biological brain and body. The 20th centurys revolution in infotechnology will thereby merge with the 21st centurys revolution in biotechnology. But this is science fiction. Lets turn the page now and get back to real science.
21.Dr. Frankensteins remarks are mentioned in the text_______
[A] to give an episode of the DNA technological breakthroughs.
[B] to highlight the importance of a means to some everlasting ends.
[C] to show how he created a new form of life a thousand years ago.
[D] to introduce the topic of moral philosophies incurred in biotechnology.
22.It can be concluded from the text that the technology of human cloning should be employed_______
[A] excessively and extravagantly.
[B] reasonably and cautiously.
[C] aggressively and indiscriminately.
[D] openly and enthusiastically.
23.From the text, we learn that Aldous Huxley is of the opinion that_______
[A] DNA technology should be placed in the charge of individuals.
[B] government should assume less control over individuals.
[C] people need government to protect their DNA information.
[D] old moral precepts should be abolished on human cloning.
24.Judged from the information in the last paragraph, we can predict that the author is likely to write which of the following in the next section?
[A] The reflection upon biotechnological morality.
[B] The offensive invasion of our personal privacy.
[C] The inevitable change of IQs for our descendants.
[D] The present state of biotechnological research.
25.According to the last paragraph, dry-ware is to wet-ware as_______
[A] collective to individual.
[B] fictional to factual.
[C] mechanical to corporeal.
[D] temporary to permanent.
