时间:2018-12-01 作者:英语课 分类:历年考研英语阅读理解


英语课
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[00:03.87]2000 Passage2
[00:07.51]Being a man has always been dangerous.
[00:10.94]There are about 105 males born for every 100 females,
[00:17.09]but this ratio drops to near balance at the age of maturity,
[00:21.84]and among 70-year-olds there are twice
[00:24.16]as many women as men.
[00:27.18]But the great universal of male mortality is being changed.
[00:32.34]Now, boy babies survive almost as well as girls do.
[00:37.40]This means that, for the first time,
[00:39.91]there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years
[00:43.24]when they are searching for a mate.
[00:46.06]More important, another chance for natural selection
[00:49.58]has been removed.
[00:51.60]Fifty years ago, the chance of a baby
[00:54.93](particularly a boy baby) surviving depended on its weight.
[01:00.98]A kilogram too light or too heavy meant
[01:04.00]almost certain death.
[01:06.01]Today it makes almost no difference.
[01:09.04]Since much of the variation is due to genes,
[01:12.26]one more agent of evolution has gone.
[01:16.49]There is another way to commit evolutionary 1 suicide:
[01:20.36]stay alive, but have fewer children.
[01:24.28]Few people are as fertile as in the past.
[01:27.30]Except in some religious communities,
[01:30.22]very few women have 15 children.
[01:33.55]Nowadays the number of births,
[01:35.87]like the age of death, has become average.
[01:39.80]Most of us have roughly the same number of offspring.
[01:43.62]Again, differences between people
[01:46.45]and the opportunity for natural selection to
[01:49.17]take advantage of it have diminished.
[01:51.99]India shows what is happening.
[01:54.97]The country offers wealth for a few in the great cities
[01:59.02]and poverty for the remaining tribal 2 peoples.
[02:02.35]The grand mediocrity of today
[02:04.77]--everyone being the same in survival
[02:07.20]and number of offspring
[02:09.00]--means that natural selection has lost 80% of
[02:12.03]its power in upper-middle-class India
[02:15.16]compared to the tribes.
[02:16.56]在线英语听力室(www.tingroom.com)友情制作
[02:17.78]For us, this means that evolution is over;
[02:21.86]the biological Utopia has arrived.
[02:24.99]Strangely,it has involved little physical change.
[02:29.52]No other species fills so many places in nature.
[02:33.45]But in the past 100,000 years
[02:36.38]--even the past 100 years
[02:38.70]--our lives have been transformed
[02:40.82]but our bodies have not.
[02:42.92]We did not evolve, because machines
[02:45.36]and society did it for us.
[02:48.38]Darwin had a phrase to describe those ignorant of evolution:
[02:53.01]they "look at an organic being as a savage 3 looks at a ship,
[02:57.56]as at something wholly beyond his comprehension."
[03:00.90]No doubt we will remember a 20th century way of life
[03:04.78]beyond comprehension for its ugliness.
[03:07.71]But however amazed our descendants may be
[03:10.13]at how far from Utopia we were,
[03:12.75]they will look just like us.


1 evolutionary
adj.进化的;演化的,演变的;[生]进化论的
  • Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
  • These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。
2 tribal
adj.部族的,种族的
  • He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
  • The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。
3 savage
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人
  • The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
  • He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。
学英语单词
a disaster area
Adiaphorites
aligning bearing
archaeobotanical
armstead
atomic-fuel
bachelorette
Banlin
baseball computer program
bintley
bittar
borshch
bu ngem (abu nujaym)
bulged blading
busy hour crosstalk and noise
butling
chittamwood
cokar-nut
communicatingly
continuamente
controlling shareholders
detain
differential draft
Digitora
drop-box
duck belting
dude food
dysmenorrhea gingivitis
Easter Egger
easy of belief
ecosystem function
epston
evolatine
excessive numbers
exit statement
finished inventory
fissured fracture
fitness-testing
gaolering
geodetic precession
Geoglobus
glue cooker
hay baling
help in
hendrik frensch verwoerds
hushaby
hydrogen peroxides
hyperscale computing
injusto
insulated electrode
intracerebral
isophots
Ligamentum collaterale ulnare
lime squash
literary null hypothesis
localized print suppression
macro definition library
managerial control principle
megadynes
miniaturists
mixed Pu-U oxide
monomeri
morner
New York curb exchange
nuffing
oaty
one-of-us
oriented phase
Orleanais
pearlwort
power-seeker
pressure filters
progenitalis
real audit
recoopering
rent-collectors
rib-eyer
ring-width index
scolecithricella tropica
sedentary (sessile) benthos
sedimentary stratum (pl. sedimentary strata)
sesquibenihidiol
setting in
shalal
side-and-face cutter
signal lens
sir anthony philip hopkinss
sizzla
soil binding nature
ST_military-and-armed-forces_the-armed-forces-generally
strike a bargain with someone
sulfaclozine
sweetmixes
tereter
Tropidia angulosa
unbeautifulness
upper balcony
us a-
vernier tachometer
Verschaffeltia
wallender
wrestlers