【课文】
First listen and then answer the following question.
听录音，然后回答以下问题。
What is the most influential factor in any human society?
In man"s early days. competition with other creatures must have been critical. But this phase of our development is now finished. Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays in dealing with primitive conditions. I am sure that, without modern weapons, I would make a very poor show of disputing the ownership of a cave with a bear, and in this I do not think that I stand alone. The last creature to compete with man was the mosquito. But even the mosquito has been subdued by attention to drainage and by chemical sprays.
Competition between our selves, person against person, community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was.
But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology. It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment, because the environment that determines our evolution is no longer essentially physical. Our environment is chiefly conditoned by the things we believe. Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes, both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources. Yet their present development is wholly different, not so much because of different people even, but because of the different thoughts that exist in the minds of their inhabitants. This is the point I wish to emphasize. The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.
It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture, the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas. Ideas are dangerous. The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by. Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society because when you are inside a community, you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive. It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts. I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us. I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so. Perhaps it will suffice to mention the nuclear bomb. Imagine the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society, one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility, of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed. Twenty or thirty pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925 would have been sufficient to change the course of world history. It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one, that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it. I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain, but of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present-day world, just as all of you are. We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or, to be more accurate, we can think only a very little way outside, and then only if we are very original.
FRED HOYLE Of Men and Galaxies
【New words and expressions 生词和短语】
dispute v. 争夺
mosquito n. 蚊子
subdue v. 征服
drainage n. 下水系统
envision n. 预想
Morocco n. 摩洛哥
latitude n. 纬度
heretic n. 异教徒，异端邪说
conceive v. 想像
suffice v. 足够
nuclear adj. 原子弹的
original adj.有独到见解的
【课文注释】
1.make a very poor show 出丑
2.dispute
v.
① 争论
例句：The couple disputed where to spend the holiday.
夫妻俩为上哪儿度假而发生争论。
②争议
例句：Now there was just one point on the boundary left to dispute.
边界上有一点引起争议。
The land near the border is disputed ground.
靠近边界的土地是有争议的地区。
③质疑
例句：The family wanted to dispute the will.
家属想对遗嘱提出质疑。
n. 争论，争端，争吵
【词义辨析】
argue, quarrel, debate, dispute, discuss, reason这些动词均含“辩论，争论，说理”之意。
argue: 指提出理由或证据为自己或自己一方的看法或立场辩护，着重说理、论证和企图说服。
quarrel: 指两人之间或两个团体之间不友好的、吵吵嚷嚷地大声争论某事，尤指“吵嘴、吵架”。
debate: 侧重指意见等对立的双方之间正式或公开的争辩。
dispute: 侧重对分歧进行激烈或热烈的争论或争辩，带一定感情色彩，常隐含“各持已见”或“争论不休”意味。
discuss: 最常用词，指就某一或某些问题表明观点、看法等，以便统一认识，解决问题。
reason: 指据理力争以说服对方或求得对问题作更深入的研究。
controversy, argument, conflict, debate, dispute, quarrel, strife这组名词均有“争执、不和”之意。
controversy: 侧重指深刻的意见分歧，多指对引起广泛兴趣或非常重要的问题的辨论。
argument: 指辩论双方均以事实或理由来说服对方的辨论。
conflict: 指双方坚持已见、互不妥协，怀有敌意的争论，多暗示分歧极为严重，有时用语言无法解决，只得诉诸武力。
debate: 通常指经过仔细组织和计划的个人或团体之间的辩论。
dispute: 普通用词，侧重指长时间，言词激烈，针锋相对的争辩。
quarrel: 普通用词，既可指言词激烈的争吵，也可指温和的言词上的不和。
strife: 指因不可缓和的矛盾而引起的争吵或斗殴。
3.I stand alone 仅我一人
4.The last creature to compete with man 其中的last有“极不可能的”的意思。
5.subdue v. 使服从，压制，减弱
例句：No one has been able to subdue these areas.
从没有人能够压制这一地区。
Soames made a tour of the room, to subdue his rising anger.
索米斯在屋内兜了一圈，压制一下心头升起的怒火。
【词义辨析】
conquer, overcome, overthrow, defeat, beat, subdue 这些动词均含“征服，战胜”之意。
conquer: 侧重战胜和控制。书面用词。
overcome: 多指战胜或克服非物质的东西，如困难和不良习惯等。语气较弱也可指在斗争或竞争中战胜或压倒对方。
overthrow: 指彻底击败对手，使其丧失力量和地位。
defeat: 普通用词，多指在战争、比赛、竞选或辩论中战胜对手，侧重胜利的暂时性。
beat: 口笔语均可用，可与defeat换用。
subdue: 正式用词，与conquer同义，但强调失败后的臣服状态;也可用作借喻，表克制、压抑感情、欲望等。
6.envision vt. 想象，设想
例句：I can"t envision him doing such a terrible thing.
我不敢想象他能做出这种可怕的事。
I cannot envision him as president.
我无法想像他是总统。
They didn"t envision any problems with the new building.
他们没想到这栋新楼会有什么问题。
7.The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by. the Holy Office是指罗马天主教的宗教法庭;full well 中的full是副词，有very的意思;gone by 作days的定语，整个词组的意思是“过去的日子”。
8.inject v.
①注射
例句：The nurse injected penicillin into her arm.
护士给她的胳膊注射了青霉素。
His medicine is a drug that can be injected or taken by mouth.
他的药可以注射或口服。
②注入
例句：His appointment may inject some new life into the committee.
他的任命可能给这委员会注入新生命。
③引入
例句：He injected new ideas into the discussion.
他把新的概念引入讨论中。
9. suffice v. 足够
例句：Two meals a day suffice an old man.
老人一天二餐就足够了。
The rations will suffice until next week.
这些口粮足够吃到下星期。
An hour should suffice for the journey.
这点路程一小时足够了。
The rules will suffice for all ordinary needs.
这些规定将能满足所有一般场合的需要。
【参考译文】
在人类早期，人类与其他生物的竞争一定是必不可少的。但这个发展阶段已经结束。确实，我们今天缺乏对付原始环境的实践和经验。我断定，如果没有现代化的武器，要我和一只熊去争洞穴，我会出洋相的;我也相信，出洋相者并非我一人。能与竞争的生物最后只有蚊子，然而即使蚊子，也由于我们注意清理污水和喷洒化学药品就被制服了。
然而人类之间的战争，人与人，团体与团体，依然在进行着，而且和以前一样激烈。
但是，人与人的竞争并不像生物学中想像的那样是一个简单过程。它已不是为争得物质环境所决定的东西所决定。摩洛哥和加利福尼亚是地球上纬度极其相似的两个地方，都在各自大陆的西海岸，气候相似，自然资源也可能相似。但是，这两个地方目前的发展程度完全不一样。这倒不是因为人民不同，而是由于居民头脑中的思想不同。 这是我要强调的论点。我们环境中最重要的因素就是我们的思想状况。
众所周知，凡是白人侵入原始文化的地方，破坏作用的不是杀人的武器，而是思想。思想是危险的。宗教法庭对此是非常清楚的，因此从前它总是把异教徒烧死。的确，言论自由的概念只存在于我们现代社会中，因为当你生活在一个社团中时，社团的风俗习惯会严格地制约你，使你很难有破坏性的想法。只有外部的旁观者才能灌输危险的思想。向现代世界灌输一种思想以便摧毁我们人类是可能的事，对此我并不怀疑。我愿为你举个例子，但幸亏我举不出。也许提一下核弹就足以证明了。对一个尚未拥有核弹、但科技相当发达的社会，如果告诉它制造核弹的可能性，而且向它提供制造核弹的细节，那么可以设想，这将对这个社会产生何等的影响。如果把二三十页的情报交给1952年前后的任何一个世界强国，就足以改变世界历史的进程。二三十页材料中的思想和情报会将当今的世界翻天覆地，甚至毁灭这个世界。这是个离奇的想法。不过我认为这个想法是正确的。我常常试图想像这些纸上所写的东西，不过我是做不到的，因为我和你们大家一样，是当今世界上的凡人。我们不能脱离我们大脑所限定的模式去思考问题，我们只能稍微离开一点儿，就这也需要我们有独创的思想。
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