1006G[REBORN FROM THE ASHES组]备考日记 by qisaiman——每天一点，不期速成

qisaimanUID: 2703629

两天没怎么看 周末要补回来

qisaimanUID: 2703629

----reading continued


With the data gathered in the video intervention, the Leiden team began to test the orchid hypothesis. Could it be, they wondered, that the children who suffer most from bad environments also profit the most from good ones? To find out, Bakermans-Kranenburg and her colleague Marinus van Ijzendoorn began to study the genetic makeup of the children in their experiment. Specifically, they focused on one particular “risk allele” associated with ADHD and externalizing behavior. (An allele is any of the variants of a gene that takes more than one form; such genes are known as polymorphisms. A risk allele, then, is simply a gene variant that increases your likelihood of developing a problem.)

Bakermans-Kranenburg and van Ijzendoorn wanted to see whether kids with a risk allele for ADHD and externalizing behaviors (a variant of a dopamine-processing gene known as DRD4) would respond as much to positive environments as to negative. [省略的用法]A third of the kids in the study had this risk allele; the other two-thirds had a version considered a “protective allele,” meaning it made them less vulnerable to bad environments. The control group[对照组，may be useful in my own essay], who did not receive the intervention, had a similar distribution.

Both the vulnerability hypothesis and the orchid hypothesis predict that in the control group the kids with a risk allele should do worse than those with a protective one. And so they did—though only slightly. Over the course of 18 months, the genetically “protected” kids reduced their externalizing scores by 11 percent, while the “at-risk” kids cut theirs by 7 percent. Both gains were modest ones that the researchers expected would come with increasing age. Although statistically significant, the difference between the two groups was probably unnoticeable otherwise.

The real test, of course, came in the group that got the intervention. How would the kids with the risk allele respond? According to the vulnerability model, they should improve less than their counterparts with the protective allele; the modest upgrade that the video intervention created in their environment wouldn’t offset their general vulnerability.

As it turned out, the toddlers with the risk allele blew right by their counterparts. They cut their externalizing scores by almost 27 percent, while the protective-allele kids cut theirs by just 12 percent (improving only slightly on the 11 percent managed by the protective-allele population in the control group). The upside effect [正面作用]in the intervention group, in other words, was far larger than the downside effect in the control group. Risk alleles, the Leiden team concluded, really can create not just risk but possibility.

Can liability really be so easily turned to gain? The pediatrician W. Thomas Boyce, who has worked with many a troubled child in more than three decades of child-development research, says the orchid hypothesis “profoundly recasts the way we think about human frailty.” He adds, “We see that when kids with this kind of vulnerability are put in the right setting, they don’t merely do better than before, they do the best—even better, that is, than their protective-allele peers. “Are there any enduring human frailties that don’t have this other, redemptive side to them?”

As I researched this story, I thought about such questions a lot, including how they pertained to my own temperament and genetic makeup. Having felt the black dog’s teeth a few times over the years, I’d considered many times having one of my own genes assayed—specifically, the serotonin-transporter gene, also called the SERT gene, or 5-HTTLPR. This gene helps regulate the processing of serotonin, a chemical messenger crucial to mood, among other things. The two shorter, less efficient versions of the gene’s three forms, known as short/short and short/long (or S/S and S/L), greatly magnify your risk of serious depression—if you hit enough rough road. The gene’s long/long form, on the other hand, appears to be protective.

In the end, I’d always backed away from having my SERT gene assayed. Who wants to know his risk of collapsing under pressure? Given my family and personal history, I figured I probably carried the short/long allele, which would make me at least moderately depression-prone. If I had it tested I might get the encouraging news that I had the long/long allele. Then again, I might find I had the dreaded, riskier short/short allele. This was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

But as I looked into the orchid hypothesis and began to think in terms of plasticity rather than risk, I decided maybe I did want to find out. So I called a researcher I know in New York who does depression research involving the serotonin-transporter gene. The next day, FedEx left a package on my front porch containing a specimen cup. I spat into it, examined what I’d produced, and spat again. Then I screwed the cap tight, slid the vial into its little shipping tube, and put it back on the porch. An hour later, the FedEx guy took it away.

Of all the evidence supporting the orchid-gene hypothesis, perhaps the most compelling comes from [of all … the most compelling ….]the work of Stephen Suomi, a rhesus-monkey researcher who heads a sprawling complex of labs and monkey habitats in the Maryland countryside—the National Institutes of Health’s Laboratory of Comparative Ethology. For 41 years, first at the University of Wisconsin and then, beginning in 1983, in the Maryland lab the NIH built specifically for him, Suomi has been studying the roots of temperament and behavior in rhesus monkeys—which share about 95 percent of our DNA, a number exceeded only in apes. Rhesus monkeys differ from humans in obvious and fundamental ways. But their close resemblance to us in crucial social and genetic respects reveals much about the roots of our own behavior—and has helped give rise to the orchid hypothesis.

Suomi learned his trade as a student and protégé of, and then a direct successor to, Harry Harlow, one of the 20th century’s most influential and problematic behavioral scientists. When Harlow started his work, in the 1930s, the study of childhood development was dominated by a ruthlessly mechanistic behavioralism. The movement’s leading figure in the United States, John Watson, considered mother love “a dangerous instrument.” He urged parents to leave crying babies alone; to never hold them to give pleasure or comfort; and to kiss them only occasionally, on the forehead. Mothers were important less for their affection than as conditioners of behavior.

With a series of ingenious but sometimes disturbingly cruel experiments on monkeys, Harlow broke with this cool behavioralism. His most famous experiment showed that baby rhesus monkeys, raised alone or with same-age peers, preferred a foodless but fuzzy terrycloth surrogate “mother” over a wire-mesh version that freely dispensed meals. He showed that these infants desperately wanted to bond, and that depriving them of physical, emotional, and social attachment could create a near-paralyzing dysfunction. In the 1950s this work provided critical evidence for the emerging theory of infant attachment: a theory that, with its emphasis on rich, warm parent-child bonds and happy early experiences, still dominates child-development theory (and parenting books) today.

In the years since Suomi took over Harlow’s Wisconsin lab as a 28-year-old wunderkind, he has both broadened and sharpened the inquiry Harlow started. New tools now let Suomi examine not just his monkeys’ temperaments but also the physiological and genetic underpinnings of their behavior. His lab’s naturalistic environment allows him to focus not just on mother-child interactions but also on the family and social environments that shape and respond to the monkeys’ behavior. “Life in a rhesus-monkey colony is very, very complicated,” Suomi says. The monkeys must learn to navigate a social system that is highly nuanced and hierarchical. “Those who can manage this, do well,” Suomi told me. “Those who don’t, don’t.”

Rhesus monkeys typically mature at about four or five years and live to about 20 in the wild. Their development parallels our own at a fairly neat 1-to-4 ratio: a 1-year-old monkey is much like a 4-year-old human being, a 4-year-old monkey is like a 16-year-old human being, and so on. A mother typically gives birth annually, starting at around age 4. Though the monkeys copulate all year, the females’ fertility seasons are only a couple of months long. Since they tend to occur together, a troop usually produces crops of babies that have same-age peers.

For the first month, the mother keeps the baby attached to her or within arm’s reach. At about two weeks, the baby starts to explore, at first within only a few feet of its mother. These forays grow in frequency, duration, and distance over the next six to seven months, but rarely do the babies pass out of the mother’s sight line or earshot. If the young monkey gets frightened, it scampers back to the mother. Often she’ll see trouble coming and pull the infant close.

When the monkey is about eight months old—a rhesus preschooler—its mother’s mating time arrives. Anticipating another child, the mother allows the youngster to spend more and more time with its cousins, with older siblings in the maternal line, and with occasional visitors from other families or troops. The youngster’s family group, friends, and allies still provide protection when necessary.

A maturing female will stay with this group all her life. A male, however, will leave—often under pressure from the females as he gets rowdier and rougher—when he’s 4 or 5, or roughly the equivalent of a 16-to-20-year-old person. At first he’ll join an all-male gang that lives more or less separately. After a few months to a year, he’ll leave the gang and try to charm, push, or sidle his way into a new family or troop. If he succeeds, he becomes one of several adult males to serve as mate, companion, and muscle for the several females. But only about half the males make it that far. Their transition period exposes them to attacks from other young males, attacks from rival gangs, attacks from new troop members if they play their cards wrong, and predation during any time they lack a gang’s or troop’s protection. Many die in the transition.

Very early in his work, Suomi identified two types of monkeys that had trouble managing these relations. One type, which Suomi calls a “depressed” or “neurotic” monkey, accounted for about 20 percent of each generation. These monkeys are slow to leave their mothers’ sides when young. As adults they remain tentative, withdrawn, and anxious. They form fewer bonds and alliances than other monkeys do.

The other type, generally male, is what Suomi calls a “bully”: an unusually and indiscriminately aggressive monkey. These monkeys accounted for 5 to 10 percent of each generation. “Rhesus monkeys are fairly aggressive in general, even when young,” Suomi says, “and their play involves a lot of rough-and-tumble. But usually no one gets hurt—except with these guys. They do stupid things most other monkeys know not to. They repeatedly confront dominant monkeys. They get between moms and their kids. They don’t know how to calibrate their aggression, and they don’t know how to read signs they should back off. Their conflicts tend to always escalate.” These bullies also score poorly in tests of monkey self-control. For instance, in a “cocktail hour” test that Suomi sometimes uses, monkeys get unrestricted access to a neutral-tasting alcoholic drink for an hour. Most monkeys have three or four drinks and then stop. The bullies, Suomi says, “drink until they drop.”

The neurotics and the bullies meet quite different fates. The neurotics mature late but do okay. The females become jumpy mothers, but how their children turn out depends on the environment in which the mothers raise them. If it’s secure, they become more or less normal; if it’s insecure, they become jumpy too. The males, meanwhile, stay within their mothers’ family circles an unusually long time—up to eight years. They’re allowed to do so because they don’t make trouble. And their longer stay lets them acquire enough social savvy and diplomatic deference so that when they leave, they usually work their way into new troops more successfully than do males who break away younger. They don’t get to mate as prolifically as more confident, more assertive males do; they seldom rise high in their new troops; and their low status can put them at risk in conflicts. But they’re less likely to die trying to get in the door. They usually survive and pass on their genes.

The bullies fare much worse. Even as babies and youths, they seldom make friends. And by the time they’re 2 or 3, their extreme aggression leads the troop’s females to simply run them out, by group force if necessary. Then the male gangs reject them, as do other troops. Isolated, most of them die before reaching adulthood. Few mate.

Suomi saw early on that each of these monkey types tended to come from a particular type of mother. Bullies came from harsh, censorious mothers who restrained their children from socializing. Anxious monkeys came from anxious, withdrawn, distracted mothers. The heritages were pretty clear-cut. But how much of these different personality types passed through genes, and how much derived from the manner in which the monkeys were raised?

To find out, Suomi split the variables. He took nervous infants of nervous mothers—babies who in standardized newborn testing were already jumpy themselves—and gave them to especially nurturing “supermoms.” These babies turned out very close to normal. Meanwhile, Dario Maestripieri of the University of Chicago took secure, high-scoring infants from secure, nurturing mothers and had them raised by abusive mothers. This setting produced nervous monkeys.

The lesson seemed clear. Genes played a role—but environment [played an equally important ]one.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

帖子又不行了难道？？

qisaimanUID: 2703629

[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.18]the article first demostrates several observations which reveals human activities have been impacting the global climate ,resulting in glaciers retreating,carbon-dioxide emission rapidly increasing and rising sea level-- all these lead to a disaster. the board scientific consensus is measures should be taken to avert this danger. And difficulty lies neither in technology nor economics according to the newspaper. it is all about politics. there is no framework to which mankind can rely on, the UN and WTO do little helpful. what is to be changed is the migration of carbon-intensive products to cabron-low ones. but the hurdles remain there. to achieve an effective agreement , the newspaper suggests that seperating some greenhouse gas from others in a single agreement, and limit the agreement to several countries temporary. the paper argues that any climate deal that works must be both efficient and effective ,and the author 's attitude is not so optimistic.
-------------useful words and sentences --------------
avert : curb : denigrate:
But the broad scientific consensus is that serious climate change is a danger, Mankind has no framework for it. he world economy moves from carbon-intensive to low-carbon—and, in the long term, to zero-carbon—products and processes. any global climate deal will work only if the domestic policies through which it is implemented are both efficient and effective.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

the world art market has been slow down since 2003, the two biggest auctiob houses suffered lots of lost.
but the situation implies a postive signal that with buyers still there, the lack of good works is the biggest probelms.
the report argue that the key to recovery lie in the globalization, which the weath spreads more widely and the investors spends more on assets that will hold value in the long term.
post-war and contemporary art has dominated the market
demand for contemporary art comes from the newly built museums.
new buyer from russian india and other royal family of Qatar asia country with a different cultural history lead to a change in taste and thus , new artist rose sharply.
also the transition method has changed.then the report mainly describle the two biggest auction houses: ch and sy. the ownship structure and the expansion ,and the competion betweem dealers and auction houses.

All the lots in Mr Hirst’s September 2008 sale, for example, had been consigned to Sotheby’s directly from the artist’s workshop, which shocked dealers who had not previously thought of the auction houses as direct competitors.

-------------useful-----------

Sotheby’s, for its part, is still smarting刺痛 from the public beating it received in America nearly a decade ago when ....
with Christie’s and Sotheby’s taking the lion’s share.
By contrast, contemporary art, which in the early 1990s accounted for less than 10% of Sotheby’s revenues, grew to nearly 30% of greatly increased revenues by last year.a good demonstration of increase
it will bounce back, and that the key to its recovery lies in globalisation.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

contemplate : to view or consider with continued attention  : meditate on
upstart: 暴发户 新贵
precipitate:
tenaciously: 顽固地
authoritarian: 专制
nettlesome: causing vexation
securities: 债券
wreck:使破产，搁浅，损坏
dollar reserves
stalemate: 僵局
chafe:to feel irritation, discontent, or impatience  : FRET
plight: 誓约
dwaref:  to cause to appear smaller or to seem inferior
resentful 怨恨的
resentment 怨恨
disruptive: 分裂的
ideological rivals
imperil 损害


this report first reviews the relationships between us and china, using a analogous of what happened
in the beginning of 20 century of british and america. with a fearing of what will happen if the
american treasury securities hold by china be sold out, that is a destory of american economy,the
author argues that the sell-out will not happen and yuan is unlikely to replace dollars as a reserve
currency in a short time.
first reason is the sell-out will be mutually assured destruction, and the high-technology exports
control is a considerable weight。
also china is weak in the technological innovating and brands creating. with the global economic
integration , china will be closer with american strategically .
the increasing mutual economic benefit will cover the dispute for now, but the relationship is subtle
due to the bureaucracy in china, the growning military power of china , which result in a worry that
america will be displaced in asia.
as the election in both , uncertainty is there, and if handled inapproriate , risk can occure to the
leadership in china .


Mutual economic benefit emerged as a winning answer.
Protests are on the rise, corruption is rampant, crime is surging.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

the report cites a conclude from the bond manager of califonia which claim that after the financial breakdown, market will revert to mean. the author of course did not agree with such a conclusion .instead, a much worse situation is expected according to the author, which is like a high unemployment, a weaken banking system , let alone the securitization market.
next a string theory is presented arguing the demand will recover to normal. the author reckons that demand will remain low and the financial system will be cautious, using the bubble in Japan and a IMF investigation to support his views.
the answer lie on the balance sheet , that is the liability or vast debts.the japan 's way to deal with balance-sheet recession results a protracted slog.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

Issue 18

The most effective way to communicate an idea or value to large groups of people is through the use of images, not language.


Words 400
Time 90mins

To communicate ideas or value to large groups of people effectively, the statement prefers using images than language. Though it maybe true in a few circumstances, I will argue that a comprehensive integration of both, in most scenarios, is the most effective way.

Before going further, considering the advantages of the two methods is helpful in understanding the reason why a combination of them is more powerful. There is a saying that a picture is more than thousands words, which shows the information conveyed from a picture is usually hard to describe using language. And in the similar way, to interpret several lines in picture is difficult too. It proves that either of them own indispensable features.

Of all the examples supporting my point of view ,the most compelling one is the various advertisement (ad) boards standing along the high way, rowing on the LED display, and printing on the ever-changing , most of which looks like a dedicated image with a few well-designed lines, to help explaining the subject delivered and avoid misunderstanding. Of course, more and more ads outdoor begin taking the advantage of video media, still it consists of moving image and languages.

Another example is when giving a lecture in a big classroom, a projecting on screen is more and more utilized. Since the knowledge to be delivered is becoming complicated day by day, a mere hand-writing on blackboard seems both exhausting to teachers and boring to students. By using a prepared multimedia material, efficient teaching and learning can be obtained. Imaging that facing a all pictures PowerPoint with no words, it is really confusing to figure out the meaning, similarly, all words but no picture leads to a mi sight and heavy head.

There are many other instances showing that a combination of the two always overwhelm either one. However, special scenario exists when, for example, the target is a group of people coming from different region and using different languages, using image maybe the only effective way due to the mankind do share some common feeling such as anger towards the evil and pity for the disaster.

Combining all the above, language is more effective in both emotional and logical expressions, while image do own a indispensable position, it can be sound and convincing that a integration of both image and language achieves the best in conveying ideas or values to the large groups.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

the report comments the health-care bill reform being on procedural . seems that the Demo and Repu have a fierce debate on the details , with the result of a passage on the House
Demo feel pitu for the public option did not be included ,and the Repu is not satisfied with the cost . the huge cost is the main problem, especially when a huge deficits need to tackle. the Demo and Repu hold different opinions on the income , one with rich and the other with an insurance-policy surcharge. the Repu contend that the surcharge will lead to a private insurance premiums since the insurer is inclined to transfer the new burden to the public.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

the debate seems fresh to me, though the topic is an old one .

as far as I concern, whether overpaid exist is out of question, just looking at the difference of wage earned by the ceo and by a common skilled worker. but it can not be judged by angry workers who just lost job. if the pay is market-driven, it is reasonable.

as to the debate, either argument by the two participating the debate is sound enough .

one who proposing claim that realized-pay is decreasing since 2000 , especially compared to other well-paid groups. however, a dropping salary does not necessarily mean it is not too high. to tell how much is the exact normal is ridiculous too. the opposition's argument turned out to be an emotional and dull complain, which just reckon it poor persuasive. besides, a single guilt ceo can not be regarded as  a representative one of all.

the result is obvious when comparing the two. if there is someone to blame , it probably the market itself.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

rebuttal: 反驳
prop up : support 撑腰
reiterates： 重申
attention-grabbing anecdotes ： 轶事
based conclusion on ：
stock appreciates ：涨价
diametrically opposed： 恰恰相反
preponderance ： 优势
fail to provide any evidence：
bonuses
agency costs： 代理成本


in this article , N seems take a temporary advantage over K.
the moderator : focus on the overall picture rather than anecdotes.
what I should focus on is how to support my views and how to disprove other's .
to avoid unnecessary dispute, a common definition on the pay or bonuses should be presented first, which explain how is the pay

first look at K 's rebuttal :
a summary consisting of 5 claims is shown by K, without including another one that claims a financial crisis results from the over-pay. however, he just propose a convincing reasoning toward the 4th claims by N, while  he failed to provide any other rebuttal. more reasoning and examples is needed for a convincing conclusion.

then N 's rebuttal
using Goldman Sachs and AIG 's story to support that pay is uncoupled from performance. and then by presenting another diagram showing the actual pay is growing, fight back K 's argument nicely. besides, N argues that the net worth and other high pay group is irrelevant to the subject discussed here, finally new sins is brought up, forecasting a more attractive debate.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

Aplenty : being abundance

Correspondent 通讯记者

Abreast 并列

Wind up

Dog-eared

Logons and passwords

Flout 嘲笑

Vault 地窖

Consolation 安慰

Sundry 各种各样的

Intruder

Rainbow tables

As a matter of course理所当然

Overkill 矫枉过正

Mnemonic 记忆的



To surf the web, lots of logons and passwords need remembering by people. Due to one can not remember too many different sets of logons and pws, simple passwords are used mostly, which can be easily cracked, leading to disclosure of personal information and even financial loss. Hence strong pws are required to keep the thieves away.

The strength of pw depends on three factors: length, complexity, and randomness. The randomness is measured by a notion of entropy. According to the security experts, a 12-bit pw is necessary in daily life. And the best method to obtain a strong pw is to use a computer-generated one. Again, the how-to-remember question is here. The article comes to its purpose--- in my view, introducing a pw management software, by which the logons and pws is encrypted. Then all you need is a adequate strong pw for the software and a email just in case.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

buoyant  上涨的 有浮力的
clutter 喧闹 a crowded or confused mass or collection
cover lot
porcelain 瓷器的
prolific 多产的
velvet 天鹅绒
consigned 委托的

under bidder 出价人
idyllic 田园诗般的



summary
the article main deal with a rising interesting on the realism market , that seems
strange during the recession. but after a remark by the bidder, it is easy to understand why . then the article introduce several works by the impressionist , by who the pictures were produced and how it travled from one to another.



comments
it seems that during the recession the clutter and realism art market is blooming.
at the S auction, record prices for works by impressionist occured. just as the remarks by Mason revealed , prices on the art reflected an expectation of the inflation and the rich try to hold the value on invest on the art works those can endure long.
another phenomenon is a paticular interset of the collector on the top-ranking pictures, from which a hint can be readily achieved that  it is no more than another stock.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

mob 围攻？

forge 锻造

intervene 干涉

evangelist 传道士

satire 讽刺

venture capitalist 风投

creative destruction

In contrast, Joseph Schumpeter advocated recession as creative destruction-a cleansing process to weed out the weak and create room for new businesses.

与此相反，主张衰退约瑟夫熊彼特创造性破坏作为一个清洗过程剔除弱者和创造空间新的业务


gospel 福音


bright-eyed 热情的

transplant 移民

anchor 依靠

start-ups 新办企业

pedigree 血统 谱系

deviator 偏差 脱轨

replicative and innovative

budding 萌芽的 初露头角的，

disastrous result

prop up

incumbents 现任者




---summary---



despite the turndown , the entrepreneurship is blooming all over the world.

then after a review from 1940s to recent time , the report comes to the first argument that entrepreneurial idea has gone mainstream, followed by a more confident conclusion, that is, reconsideration to the entrepreneurship is needed, instead of the "creative destruction " predicted in 1940s, a creative creation is the fact in almost all instances .

to support above views , a company created by Indian transplants in Silicon Valley is brought up. next the paper defines the word 'entrepreneurship' with a special feature : not the size but the innovation. meanwhile, innovation is interpreted by citing several famous person's remarks .

to get a better understanding, the five myths are described and then rebut using corresponding reasons and examples.



the first is entrepreneur is a social activity;

second is not all successful are kids;

third is venture capitalist only fund a small fraction of the start-ups;

fourth is  the process overweight the products ;

fifth is ent can flourish in big companies ;



facing the difficulty of finding customer, raising capital and etc, many suspect that ent is in danger. another awkward question is that why such disastrous results stems from the culture of wall-street .Also the author worries that the over-active bailout of the government helps to someone indulge in the safe government job, hence leading to more uncertainty.



through a nice argument , the paper shows us that there can be many advantages in spite of drawbacks , including cheaper rent , easily-find staff and less rivals.

in one words , more opportunities is presented too. besides, why there fewer barriers to entry is discussed.



----puzzle----

companies make economic sense when the bureaucratic cost of performing transactions under one roof is less than the cost of doing the same thing through the market.

--------comments ----

this is really a beautiful paper, though with one flaw I found and many new words I encountered.

the flaw is the awkward question about wall-street culture is not answered hereinafter , at least directly. but there are more convincing argument : such as the interpretation of the fifth myths, the connection between big giant and small companies is explained thoroughly ; the comments on advantages and drawbacks is smart likewise.  

ps: download the "nature of the firm ", this report and it both deserve reading twice at least.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

sanctity 神圣
chapel 教堂 礼拜
ecstasy ecstatic 狂喜 狂欢的
primordial ; first created or developed
propensity 嗜好
cohesion 团结 凝聚力
limpid 清晰的
solidarity ：unity (as of a group or class) that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards
mystical ：having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence
hidebound  ： having an inflexible or ultraconservative character
eschew ：避开
provocative ：有争论的
endorse ：背书，赞成
proponents ：主张者
dissident ：持不同意见者
cult ：a system of religious beliefs and ritual;  also   : its body of adherents
myriad：无数的。



this article makes a comment on Mr Wade's book, in which a religion issue is delivered. the author 's attitude is mixed with both praise and critique, and it 's difficult to tell which one is more than the other. after an brief introduction of his prospective , there is a rebuttal.

the views of wade :  
it is important to look at human beginnings ,
adaptive function which is contested among evolutionary biologist;
this two points make sense well, while another one ,that the relation between morality and ecstatic rites really confuse me a lot .to demonstrate the relation is oversimplified by wade , the author give an example on the failed revolution carried out by Peter the Great.
I agree that wade is harsh on offer a provocative history of monotheism.