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For about three centuries we have been doing science, trying science out, using science for the construction of what we call modern civilization, Every dispensable item of contemporary technology, from canal locks to dial telephones to penicillin, was pieced together from the analysis of data provided by one or another series of scientific experiments. Three hundred years seems a long time for testing a new approach to human inter-living, long enough to set back for critical appraisal of the scientific method, maybe even long enough to vote on whether to go on with it or not. There is an argument. Voices have been raised in protest since the beginning, rising in pitch and violence in the nineteenth century during the early stages of the industrial revolution, summoning urgent crowds into the streets on the issue of nuclear energy. "Give it back," say some of the voices, "It doesn’t really work, we’ve tried it and it doesn’t work. Go back three hundred years and start again on something else less chancy for the race of man." The principle discoveries in this century, taking all in all, are the glimpses of the depth of our ignorance of nature. Things that used to seem clear and rational, and matters of absolute certainty-Newtonian mechanics, for example-have slipped through our fingers; and we are left with a new set of gigantic puzzles, cosmic uncertainties, and ambiguities. Some of the laws of physics are amended every few years; some are canceled outright; some undergo revised versions of legislative intent as if they were acts of Congress. Just thirty years ago we call it a biological revolution when the fantastic geometry of the DNA molecule was exposed to public view and the linear language of genetics was decoded. For a while, things seemed simple and clear: the cell was a neat little machine, a mechanical device ready for taking to pieces and reassembling, like a tiny watch. But just in the last few years it has become almost unbelievably complex, filled with strange parts whose functions are beyond today’s imagining. It is not just that there is more to do, there is everything to do. What lies ahead, or what can lie ahead if the efforts in basic research are continued, is much more than the conquest of human disease or the improvement of agricultural technology or the cultivation of nutrients in the sea. As we learn more about fundamental processes of living things in general we will learn more about ourselves. Now scientists have found in the past few years ______.
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Questions 11 to 18 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
That Louise Johannes is believed by many critics to be the greatest twentieth-century sculptor is all the more remarkable because the greatest resistance to women artists has been, until recently, in the field of sculpture. Since Neolithic times, sculpture has been considered the prerogative of men, partly, perhaps, for purely physical reasons it was erroneously assumed that women were not suited for the hard manual labor required in sculpting stone, carving wood, or working in metal. It has been only during the twentieth century that women sculptors have been recognized as major artists, and it has been in the United States, especially since the decades of the fifties and sixties, that women sculptors have shown the greatest originality and creative power. Their rise to prominence parallels the development of sculpture itself in the United States, while there had been a few talented sculptors in the United States before the 1940’s. It was only after 1945 when New York was rapidly becoming the art capital of the world--that major sculpture was produced in the United States. Some of the best was the work of women. By far the most outstanding of these women is Louise Johannes, who in the eyes of many critics is the most original female artist alive today. One famous and influential critic Hilton Kramer, said of her work, "For myself, I think Ms Johannes succeeds where the painters often fail." Her works have been compared to the Cubist constructions of Picasso, the Surrealistic objects of Miro and the Merzbau of Schwitters. Johannes would be the first to admit that she has been influenced by all of these, as well as by African sculpture, and by Native American and pre-Columbian art, but she has absorbed all these influences and still created a distinctive art that expresses the urban landscape and the aesthetic sensibility of the twentieth century. Johannes says, "I have always wanted to show the world that art is everywhere, except that it has to pass through a creative mind." Using mostly discarded wooden objects like packing crates, broken pieces of furniture, and abandoned architectural ornaments, all of which she has hoarded for years, she assembles architectural constructions, of great beauty and power. Creating very freely with no sketches, she glues and nails objects together, paints them black, or more rarely white or gold, and places them in boxes. These assemblages, walls, even entire environments create a mysterious, almost awe-inspiring atmosphere. Although she has denied any symbolic or religious intent in her works, their three-dimensional grandeur and even their titles, such as Sky Cathedral and Night Cathedral, suggest such connotation. In some ways, her most ambitious works are closer to architecture than to traditional sculpture, but then neither Louise Johannes nor her art fits into any neat category. The author quotes Hilton Kramer in Paragraph 2 most probably in order to illustrate
To an adolescent who dreams of dominating the basketball court, synthetic human growth hormone may look like a godsend. To biotechnology watchdog Jeremy Rifkin, it has a more sinister aspect. The 5-foot-7 activist doesn’t view short stature as a medical problem, and he’s appalled that the US government is sponsoring a 10-year study to see whether the treatment will make healthy children taller. In a new petition to the National Institute of Health, Rifkin and his Washington-based Foundation on Economic Trends charge that the study violates federal rules restricting medical experiments on children. No one expects the petition to shut down the study, but it has rekindled a long-simmering debate over what makes a difference a defect. Synthetic human growth hormone was approved in 1985 as a treatment for kids who don’t produce the substance naturally. The manufacturers would like to find a large clientele. The disputed NIH trial, now in its second year, is designed to see what effect the treatment will have on kids with normal hormone levels, but who fall at the lowest end of the height curve. Half of the 80 participants get injections of synthetic growth hormone three times a week. The others get dummy injections. To measure the effects of the treatment, researchers will monitor all the kids until they stop growing. Advocates of the drug’s wider use insist that while short stature is no disease, it can be a social handicap. They cite research showing that short people tend to lag in school, earn less money, and even lose elections. Twelve-year-old Marco Oriti has normal hormone levels but has always been small. After six years of treatment he’s still five inches behind some peers, but his mother credits the drug with narrowing the gap. Small risk: Someone else’s parents may find a smaller gap worrisome. Should any child with nervous parents receive years of costly medical treatment If the risks are minimal, and the public isn’t paying the bill, maybe there’s no harm (synthetic growth hormone isn’t known to cause serious side effects at standard doses.) But the implications are unsettling. If short stature is to be treated as a medical disorder, Rifkin asks, what other perceived handicap will follow Skin color Some researchers share those misgivings but defend the NIH study as an effort to identify the drug’s possibilities. At the moment, no one knows whether it will increase a normal child’s adult height or simply help him attain it faster. If synthetic growth hormone does not provide extra inches, says Dr Lynnette Nieman of NIH, the debate over treating healthy kids will be questionable. Maybe so. But if the drug works, science alone won’t tell us how to use it. We may infer from the passage that
根据以下资料回答86-90题。2006年，全国研究与试验发展(R&D)经费总支出为3003.1亿元，比上年增加553.1亿元，研究与试验发展(R&D)经费投入强度为1.42%。按研究与试验发展人员(全时工作量)计算的人均经费支出为20万元，比上年增加2万元。从研究类型看，基础研究经费支出为155.8亿元，比上年增长18.8%；应用研究经费支出为504.5亿元，增长16.4%；试验发展经费支出为2342.8亿元，增长24.3%。从执行部门看，各类企业经费支出为2134.5亿元，比上年增长27.5%；政府部门属研究机构经费支出567.3亿元，增长10.6%；高等学校经费支出276.8亿元，增长14.2%。从产业部门看，七大行业的研究与试验发展(R&D)经费投入强度超过1%。医药制造业为1.76%，专用设备制造业为1.7%，电气机械及器材制造业为1.48%，通用设备制造业为1.47%，交通运输设备制造业为1.38%，橡胶制造业为1.19%，通信设备、计算机及其他电子设备制造业为1.19%。从地区看，研究与试验发展(R&D)经费支出超过100亿元的有北京、江苏、广东、上海、山东、浙江、辽宁、四川和陕西9个省(市)，共支出2154亿元，占全国经费总支出的71.7%。研究与试验发展投人强度达到或超过全国平均水平的有北京、上海、陕西、天津、江苏、辽宁和浙江7个省(市)。 2006年各类企业经费支出占研究与试验发展经费总支出比例和2005年相比（）。
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