fundamental objectivesand nature of research（ 研究的基本目标和本性）
research is the exploration of the unknownfor true answers to our questions, and for lasting solutions to our enduringproblems. Research is also the chief means by which we humans attempt to satisfyour insatiable appetite for knowledge, and our craving to understand ourselvesand the world around us.
explore unchartedand unpredictable territory （探索未知和不可预见的领域）
Indisputably （不可否认的） , the many complex technological marvels （科学奇迹） that are significant of our lives are the result ofthe extraordinary cumulative累积的 efforts of ourengineers, entrepreneurs, and others . and such achievements always call forthe courage to risk failing in a large way.
A number ofentrepreneurs and engineers today are making the effort to create far simple ,yet more elegant , technologies and applications , which will surely make ourlives far more convenient
The statementbrings immediately to mind the ever-growing and increasingly complex digitalworld.（数字世界）
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1. 贡献取决于? 不明确 Who is to decidewhich areas of academic inquiry are worthwhile? Scholars cannot be left todecide. nor can regulators and legislators , who would bring to bear their ownquirky notions about what would be worthwhile, and whose susceptibility to influencerenders them untrustworthy in any event.
人都擅长自己喜欢的事情 By human nature weare motivated to pursue those activities in which we excel. To compel scholarsto focus only on certain areas would waste their true/intellectual talents.
Besides , lackinggenuine interest or motivation, a scholar would be unlikely to contributemeaningfully to his or her “assigned ” field of study.
History is ladenwith充满 unusual claims by scholars and searchersthat turned out stunningly极富魅力的 significant that the sun lies at the center of out universe, thattime and space are relative concepts, that matter consists if discreteparticles, that humans evolved from other life-forms, to name a few.可更换例子
当时可能没有用,但是长久以后却有用了
The unusualresearch area does not immediately address society’s pressing socialproblems. Yet in the long term, it mightbe necessary to …
一定程度上浪费了纳税人的钱
Should not allowtheir faculty to indulge their personal intellectual fantasies at taxpayerexpense.
Earnest study inthe humanities affords us to know what is best for society, and helps usunderstand and approach societal problems more critically, creatively, andeffectively.
科学的发展在于不同的思想
Throughout thehuman intellectual history , it is always the different schools of thought thatboost the human scientific and technological progress.
科学技术对人类的影响
Nowadays ,incredible change in vehicles for transportation and road improvement have madetravel mot only safer but faster and more comfortable as well. High-speed magnetic levitation trains(高速磁悬浮列车) cantransport people safely at speeds of up to 300 miles an hour in parts of Europeand Japan. The Concorde jet can transport people from New York to London
in less than four hours in luxurious comfort. There have even been spacetourists who have traveled into outer space to the International Space Stationand returned safely to Earth. Not only have the transportation vehiclesthemselves been greatly enhanced, but the highways and railways that thevehicles use have also been tremendously improved. To be in a nutshell, moreplaces than ever befored are now accessible by rapid and reliabletransportation.
| 辅导科目 | 主讲名师 |
We have devised machines that perform number-crunching and other rote cerebral tasks withgreater accuracy and speed than human minds ever could.
Machines have no capacityfor independent thought, for making judgments based on normative considerations,or for developing emotional responses to intellectual problems.
Up until now, the notion of human-mademachines that develop the ability to think on their own, and to developso-called "emotional intelligence," has been pure fiction.凭空虚造
Yet it seems presumptuousto assert with confidence that humans will alwaysmaintain their superior status over their machines.
Recent advances in biotechnology,particularly in the area of human genome research,suggest that within the 21st Century we’ll witness machines that can learnto think on their own, to repair and nurture themselves, to experience visceralsensations本体感觉, and soforth.
Humans havethe unique capacity for independent thought, subjectivejudgment, and emotional response
科学的双面性
for every new research breakthrough thathelps reduces human suffering is another that serves to add to that suffering
For example, while somemight argue that physics researchers who harnessed thepower of the atom have provided us with an alternativesource of energy and invaluable "peace-keepers," thisargument ignored the face that hundreds ofthousands of innocent people murdered and maimedby atomic blasts, and by nuclear meltdowns核泄露. 美军对广岛[Hiroshima]原子弹轰炸
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was destroyed in World War II by the first atomic bomb used in warfarein fulfilling the promise of "betterliving through chemistry" research has given uschemical weapons for human slaughter.. Chemical warfare & biologicalwarfare& biochemical warfare
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money spent on researchis generally a sound investment because it is an investment in the advancementof human knowledge and in human imagination and spirit.
While we must invest in research irrespective ofwhether the results might be controversial, at the same time we should becircumspect about research whoseobjectives are too vague and whose potential benefits are too speculative.
比如 moneymight spent toward addressing society’s more immediateproblems, such as enhance AIDSawareness and education, and so forth
科学”theory” and “fact”
when it comes to scienceour wishes and desires ultimately yield to the stubbornness of facts--by whichI mean empirical scientific evidenceand the laws and principles of the physical world. Admittedly,in many cases it is difficult to distinguish between scientific"fact" and mere "theory." History is replete with examples of whatwere considered at one time to be facts, but later disproved as incorrecttheories. Yet it is telling that many such obsolete theories were based on thesubjective inclinations, desires, and wishes of theorists and of the societiesin which the theorists lived. For example, the notions of an Earth-centereduniverse and of linear time and space were both influenced by religiousnotions--that is, by human wishes and passions. As our factual knowledge increased, such theories ultimately giveway
