ISSUE119 【天下无G askme习作】第8次作业 字数不错呵

askmeUID: 2264776

TOPIC: ISSUE119 - "When research priorities are being set for science, education, or any other area, the most important question to consider is: How many people's lives will be improved if the results are successful?"
WORDS: 653          TIME: 0:45:00          DATE: 2007-2-11

Everyone is longing for a better life: have more food, take more rest, and live longer. It, hence, causes some controversies and most of them are over the issue: whether we should consider the extent to which people's lives will improve after a certain researches succeed. I agree that it is wise to consider the research's potential effect on human lives insofar as it is one of the important goals of researches and technologies. However, we should give equal thought to other aspects when setting research priorities, such as the effect on either other fields or humans' demands.

First of all, we should set research priorities for some fields directly related to the quality of human lives. The results of these researches, if succeed, will serve to improve human lives dramatically. For supporting examples, one need look no further than human genetic engineering. This technology, which unifies a large number of institutes all over the world, is about to provide an insight into the structure of human gene, the basic unit of information stored in everybody. If it succeeds, we will be able to both resolve some severe diseases at DNA level and boost the production amount of crops, and in a word, to improve our lives. The same is true of fusion. Fusion is a process in which two hydrogen atoms fuse into a helium atom, and during which it will release great energy. Compared to nuclear plants and coal, fusion, considered as the only solution for Energy Crisis, is clearer, safer, and, what's more important, inexhaustible. These two examples are used to point out that because we are indeed able to benefit from some researches and enhance our quality of lives, we should set research priorities for such fields.

However, while some fields appear to be useless for improving our lives, they are indispensable for the development of certain fields, contributing to our lives directly. This statement brings immediately to minds mathematics. Any solution to a mathematic problem would never increase our material wealth, not to mention ameliorate our lives, but mathematics, so far from being trivial games in minds, is the base and instrumental for kinds of other theories, such as theory of gravity, evolution in biology, and arithmetic in computers. Were it not for mathematics, these theories, which leads to breakthrough in technologies, can not eventually form, let alone accelerate the development of technologies to boost our lives. As a result, many basic subjects like mathematics deserves research priorities, even if they seems to do little or nothing with our material improvement.

Finally, aside from the positive influence on human lives, we, when setting research priorities, still need to take into account other factors. Such factors include whether the research provide inspiration and guidance for us, or whether it satisfies other demands of humans. For example, history, once considered useless and too subjective to determine, have been proved to develop the ability of synthesis, weighing causes and effects, and looking in a higher perspective, all of these are both important and necessary to making an intellectual leader, criticizing our functions of society and providing an insight into the ends of our lives. In other words, history is to humans what roots are to trees; without roots, trees are  able neither to come out from soil, nor to gain enough impetus to grow up. What's more, arts also serve useful purposes in providing pleasure and, at the even better, leading people to the internal and universal world. A renaissance painting of a Madonna and child render some revelation of transcendent spirituality; Beethoven's symphony is the last word on human endurance; Shakespeare's Macbeth tells us that inordinate ambition is sometimes disastrous. In short, as a result of varieties of human demands, many other subjects need equal research priorities.

To sum up, we should place equal emphasis on both researches helpful for improving our quality of lives and other researches indirectly and indispensably provide impetus for us.

yan-dorisUID: 2261928

TOPIC: ISSUE119 - "When research priorities are being set for science, education, or any other area, the most important question to consider is: How many people's lives will be improved if the results are successful?"
读完文章，整体逻辑思路正确，有两个问题：1body1没有体现how many people这个量上，只是说人们生活水平提高，你的意思对的，个人觉得要强调下很多人受益。2有些句子刻意造得复杂，有点难理解。
Everyone is longing for a better life: have more food, take more rest, and live longer. It, hence, causes some controversies and most of them are over the issue: whether we should consider the extent to which people's lives will improve after a certain researches succeed.[这句很模糊，人们生活提高的程度，而不是涉及有多少人] I agree that it is wise to consider the research's potential effect on human lives insofar as it is one of the important goals of researches and technologies.[for researchers and technologists] However, we should give equal thought to other aspects when setting research priorities, such as the effect on either other fields or humans' demands.[such as promoting advancement of certain field,另外human demand 有点模糊，读者觉得不清楚]

First of all, we should set research priorities for [in]some fields directly related to the quality of human lives. The results of these researches, if succeed, will serve to improve human lives dramatically. For supporting examples, one need look no further than human genetic engineering. This technology, which unifies a large number of institutes[institutions] all over the world, is about to provide an insight into the structure of human gene, the basic unit of information stored in everybody. If it succeeds, we will be able to both resolve[resolve表示决心的意思，和solve不是一个意思，建议cure 也可以] some severe diseases at DNA level and boost the production amount of crops, and in a word, to improve our lives. The same is true of fusion. Fusion is a process in which two hydrogen atoms fuse into a helium atom, and during which it will release great energy. Compared to nuclear plants and coal, fusion, considered as the only solution for Energy Crisis, is clearer, safer, and, what's more important, inexhaustible. These two examples are used to point out that because we are indeed able to benefit from some researches and enhance our quality of lives, we should set research priorities for such fields.

However, while some fields appear to be useless for improving our lives, they are indispensable for the development of certain fields, contributing to our lives directly. [directly 与前面的useless矛盾，建议可以写ultimately] This statement brings immediately to minds mathematics. Any solution to a mathematic problem would never increase our material wealth, not to mention ameliorate our lives, but mathematics, so far from being trivial games in minds, is the base and instrumental[instrument] for kinds of other theories, such as theory of gravity, evolution in biology, and arithmetic in computers. Were it not for mathematics, these theories, which leads to breakthrough in technologies, can not eventually form[Were it not for mathematics, these theories can not lead to …..let alone…], let alone accelerate the development of technologies to boost our lives. As a result, many basic subjects like mathematics deserves research priorities, even if they seems to do little or nothing with our material improvement.

Finally, aside from the positive influence on human lives, we, when setting research priorities, still need to take into account [take account of ] other factors. Such factors include whether the research provide inspiration and guidance for us, or whether it satisfies other demands of humans. For example, history, once considered useless and too subjective to determine, have been proved to develop the ability of synthesis, weighing causes and effects, and looking in a higher perspective, all of these are both important and necessary to making an intellectual leader, criticizing our functions of society and providing an insight into the ends of our lives. In other words, history is to humans what roots are to trees[history to human is like roots to trees.]; without roots, trees are  able neither to come out from soil, nor to gain enough impetus to grow up. What's more, arts also serve useful purposes in providing pleasure and, at the even better, leading people to the internal and universal world. A renaissance painting of a Madonna and child render some revelation of transcendent spirituality; Beethoven's symphony is the last word on human endurance; Shakespeare's Macbeth tells us that inordinate ambition is sometimes disastrous. In short, as a result of varieties of human demands, many other subjects need equal research priorities.

To sum up, we should place equal emphasis on both researches helpful for improving our quality of lives and other researches indirectly and[but更有力] indispensably provide impetus for us.