More recently, this traditional view has begun to be questioned.One reason for this change was the increasing emphasis given to the historical approach to man.An examination of the history of humanity suggested that man in our epoch is so different from man in previous times that it seemed unrealistic to assume that men in every age have had in common something that can be called “ human nature ”. The historical approach was reinforced,particularly in the United States, by studies in the field of cultural anthropology.The study of primitive peoples has discovered such a diversity of customs, values, feelings, and thoughts that many anthropologists arrived at the concept that man is born as a blank sheet of paper on which each culture writes its text.Another factor contributing to the tendency to deny the assumption of a fixed human nature was that the concept has so often been abused as a shield behind which the most inhuman acts are committed.In the name of human nature, for example, Aristotle and most thinkers up to the eighteenth century defended slavery.Or in order to prove the rationality and necessity of the capitalist form of society, scholars have tried to make a case for acquisitiveness, competitiveness, and selfishness as innate human traits.
Popularly, one refers cynically to“human nature”in accepting the inevitability of such undesirable human behavior as greed, murder, cheating and lying.
Another reason for skepticism about the concept of human nature probably lies in the influence of evolutionary thinking.Once man came to be seen as developing in the process of evolution, the idea of a substance which is contained in his essence seemed untenable.Yet I believe it is precisely from an evolutionary standpoint that we can expect new insight into the problem of the nature of man.
Notes
Para.1: to most thinkers, philosophers: human nature→social animal
Para.2: be questioned :
(1) ↑ emphasis on historical approach to man: ∵ man of today ≠man of before no common“human nature”
2) Anthropology: man is a blank sheet of paper on which each culture writes its text.
(3) a shield behind which the most inhuman acts are committed, eg:
Aristotle: slavery,
Para.3:
(4) influence of evolutionary thinking→no contained human essence 6.The traditional view of “ human nature” was strongly challenged by.
A.the emergence of the evolutionary theory.
B.the historical approach to man.
C.new insight into human behavior.
D.the philosophical analysis of slavery.
7.According to the passage, anthropologists believe that human beings.
A.have some traits in common.
B.are born with diverse cultures.
C.are born without a fixed nature.
D.change their characters as they grow up.
8.The author mentioned Aristotle, a great ancient thinker, in order to.
A.emphasize that he contributed a lot to defining the concept of“human nature”
B.show that the concept of“human nature”was used to justify social evils.
C.prove that he had a profound influence on the concept of“human nature”
D.support the idea that some human traits are acquired.
9.The word“untenable”( Line 3) in the last paragraph of the passage most probably means.
A.invaluable C.changeable B.imaginable.D.indefensible.
10.Most philosophers believed that human nature.
A.is the quality distinguishing man from other animals.
B.consists of competitiveness and selfishness.
C.is something partly innate and partly acquired.
D.consists of rationality and undesirable behavior.
Ⅲ.Reading Task
A.Pre-reading activity
Sometimes we make assumptions that may be wrong, what shall we do then?B.Reading
Hawking Cracks Black Hole Paradox
After nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that falls into it, Stephen Hawking is saying he was wrong.It seems that black holes may after all allow information within them to escape.Hawking will present his latest finding at a conference in Ireland next week.
The about-turn might cost Hawking, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, an encyclopedia because of a bet he made in 1997.More importantly, it might solve one of the long-standing puzzles in modern physics,known as the black hole information paradox.
It was Hawking s own work that created the paradox.In 1976, he calculated that once a black hole forms, it starts losing mass by radiating energy.This“Hawking radiation”contains no information about the matter inside the black hole and once the black hole evaporates, all information is lost.
But this conflicts with the laws of quantum physics, which say that such nformation can never be completely wiped out.Hawking s argument was that the intense gravitational fields of black holes somehow unravel the laws of quantum physics.
Other physicists have tried to chip away at this paradox.Earlier in 2004,Samir Mathur of Ohio State University in Columbus and his colleagues showed that if a black hole is modelled according to string theory - in which the universe is made of tiny, vibrating strings rather than point-like particles -then the black hole becomes a giant tangle of strings.And the Hawking radiation emitted by this“fuzzball”does contain information about the insides of a black hole.
Big reputation
Now, it seems that Hawking too has an answer to the conundrum and the physics community is abuzz with the news.Hawking requested at the last minute that he be allowed to present his findings at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, Ireland.
“He sent a note saying‘I have solved the black hole information paradox and I want to talk about it ’，”says Curt Cutler, a physicist at the Albert Einstein Institute in Golm, Germany, who is chairing the conference s scientific committee.“I haven t seen a preprint [ of the paper ].To be quite honest,I went on Hawking s reputation.”
