首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
(1) History is riddled with science denial. From Newton’s law of gravitation to Hanaoka Seinshu’s use of anesthesia (麻醉), there’
(1) History is riddled with science denial. From Newton’s law of gravitation to Hanaoka Seinshu’s use of anesthesia (麻醉), there’
admin
2018-05-14
40
问题
(1) History is riddled with science denial. From Newton’s law of gravitation to Hanaoka Seinshu’s use of anesthesia (麻醉), there’s no shortage of discoveries that have been scoffed at, ridiculed, and wholly rejected by prominent thinkers before eventually settling into the human narrative. But too often, significant damage is done—and sometimes lives are lost—while these debates play out. After centuries of dismissing scientific discoveries, only to be proven wrong time and again, you’d think we’d learn to have a little more faith in the experts.
(2) In the era of social media, around-the-clock cable news, and Donald Trump, preventing the spread of misinformation has become one of the greatest challenges facing the scientific community. That’s especially true when it comes to politics. On this week’s episode of me Inquiring Minds podcast, science journalist and author Dave Levitan calls out some of Washington’s worst offenders.
(3) Levitan has spent countless hours pouring over statements made by politicians about science. Sometimes our leaders get me facts right. But frequently, says Levitan, they distort, misrepresent, or flat-out fabricate me data in order to pander to their audience or push an agenda. That’s the subject of Levitan’s forthcoming book, Not a Scientist; How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science.
(4) While misleading rhetoric is nothing new in politics, the danger it poses to environmental and public health may be at an all-time high. In a country where scientific literacy is already in decline, misinformation about topics as significant as climate change or infectious diseases can have devastating consequences. Yet many politicians, purposely or not, continue to get the science wrong. Levitan points to Sen. James Inhofe as an example of the perfect "denier-in-chief. " Last year, Inhofe brought a snowball to the Senate floor to dispute the science of global warming. His implication: Because there was snow on the ground, the Earth couldn’t possibly be getting warmer. It was a classic display of a cherry-picking politician using a single data point to obscure an indisputable trend;
(5) Two years ago, as Sen. Rand Paul was gearing up to run for president, he slammed the National Institutes of Health for funding research on fruit flies. "Have you seen what the NIH spends money on?" Paul said, according to the Washington Post. " Nine hundred and thirty-nine thousand dollars spent to discover whether or not male fruit flies would like to consort with younger female fruit flies. " When you put it like that, the NIH sounds ridiculous. But Paul missed the mark completely. As Levitan wrote at the time:
(6) The characterization of the project as simply testing " whether male fruit flies like younger female fruit flies" is misleading. The study was in fact part of ongoing work looking into olfaction and other sensory perception, the aging process and how it relates to sexual and social activity. A paper that came out of the same line of inquiry appeared in the prestigious journal Science in 2013, showing that exposure to female pheromones without the opportunity to mate actually decreased male flies’ life spans. In short, sexual reward "specifically promoted healthy aging," according to[Scott]Pletcher[the scientist whose research Paul was criticizing]. "His lab’s work could yield insights both into how humans age and into aging-related diseases... Paul is entitled to his opinions on where government funds are best spent, but the study of flies has yielded important benefits to human health. "
(7) Misrepresenting research is " a way to get people to not want the government to spend money," Levitan says. "The effect, though, is that people don’t understand the importance of basic science research. "
(8) Of course, scientists share the burden of communicating their findings clearly, but most of them don’t have the public megaphones that elected officials do. " Politicians have a lot of responsibility," Levitan says. "They’re the ones legislating and governing where money goes and what science actually can get done. Some random scientist can’t just decide he’s going to give a speech and everyone will watch. "
(9)In the end, Levitan offers voters a simple way to sift through the BS: Have a healthy degree of skepticism when politicians talk about science. "If they’re making fun of basic research," he says, "they’re probably wrong. " And his advice to the politicians: Let the scientific consensus be your talking point.
The most obvious outcome of misinformation about science may be______.
选项
A、environmental decay
B、cost of lives
C、public crisis
D、human destruction
答案
C
解析
细节题。原文第四段第一句提到,对科学信息进行误导性的传播可能给环境和公共安全带来极高的威胁,并且在随后一句补充说,有些关于气候变化和传染病的错误信息可能产生毁灭性的后果,归纳而言,关于科学话题的错误信息最显而易见的后果就是会导致公共危机,故[C]为本题答案。作者虽然以环境话题作为例子,但并没有说任何科学相关的误导信息都会导致环境的破坏,故排除[A];历史上对科学新发现的抵制才可能导致致命损失,[B]不符合题意,故排除;[D]“人类毁灭”是对原文第四段第二句的曲解,原句的意思是关于重大话题的后果更加严重,并没有指出会引起人类毁灭。
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/U8xK777K
0
专业英语四级
相关试题推荐
AHealthyMixofReading,WritingandTechnologyI.Aboutstudents’readingA.Childrencannot【T1】theInternetinformationwell
TheEnglishRenaissanceTheEnglishRenaissancedatesfromthelate15thandearly16thcenturiestotheearly17thcentur
AmericanLiteratureI.ThebeginningoftheAmericanliterature—ColonistscametotheNewWorldtofindreligious【T1】and【T1】__
Theircheerfulnessseemedrather_____andartificial.
Whatisthemainideaofthepassage?
Istartedforschoolverylatethatmorningandwasingreatdreadofascolding,especiallybecauseMr.Hamelhadsaidthathe
Therearesuperstitionsattachedtonumbers:eventhoseancientGreeksbelievedthatallnumbersandtheirmultipleshadsomemy
(1)InthecaseofArchimedes,althoughhemademanywonderfuldiscoveriesofdiversekinds,yetofthemall,thefollowing,whic
TipsforApplyingtoU.S.CollegesI.GeorgeMasonUniversity■Thelargest【T1】______universityinVirginia【T1】______■Moreth
A、Robotsliketobecalledroboticpersonsratherthanrobots.B、TheroboticstriketwoyearsagohitGooglenoharderthanothe
随机试题
若将中药中所含生物碱盐和游离生物碱都提取出来,应选用的溶剂是
限制民事行为能力人订立的合同,经法定代理人追认后,该合同有效。相对人可以催告法定代理人在()内予以追认。合同未追认前,善意相对人有撤销的权利。撤销()作出。
项目的()是项目的利害关系者。
不以真实身份从事期货交易的单位或者个人,交易行为符合期货交易所交易规则的,交易结果由其自行承担。()
对症下药、量体裁衣是对矛盾特殊性原理的具体运用。()
2014年5月16日,《生活垃圾焚烧污染控制标准》第二次修订版正式发布。在近4年时间里,我们曾先后向28个环保部门申请过生活垃圾焚烧厂排放数据的信息公开,也对多个垃圾焚烧厂进行过实地________。对比现实中民怨载道的问题,此次国标修订未能对症下药,在有
为保证文件的安全,操作系统一般采用多种方式来保护文件。为防止未经授权对文件的访问而造成的篡改或破坏,所采取的方法是()。
因特网中,下列有关FTP服务的论述中,正确的是______。
Accordingtothepassage,aworkerprimarilyworksfor__________forthewelfareofthefirm.Whatkindofattitudeshouldam
北京是有着三千多年建城史和八百五十多年建都史的历史文化名城。它荟萃(blend)了元、明、清以来的中华文化,拥有众多名胜古迹和人文景观,是世界上拥有世界文化遗产(heritagesites)最多的城市。北京每年有超过一亿四千万的国内和国外旅客。北京城市面
最新回复
(
0
)