Issue120 【0806G desperado小组】第四次作业 by charry

charryUID: 2426204

TOPIC: ISSUE120 - "So much is new and complex today that looking back for an understanding of the past provides little guidance for living in the present."

WORDS: 467         TIME: unlimited          DATE: 2007-12-16

Outline:
1.   It is not yet certain that history can offer people today a strong support to make significant decisions and choices.
2.   Based on the former works done by others, we can stand on the shoulders of giants.
3.   The history teaches us as society how to avoid repeating the same mistakes which have already been made in the past.

Nowadays, the most radical changes have taken place all over the world in such a highly developed modern society. In order to accommodate ourselves to the social development and conform to the trend of globalization, we must keep on learning fresh knowledge poured out in streams. Admittedly, it is not yet certain that history, when we look backward, can offer people today a strong support to make current significant decisions and choices by reason of no comparability between the present and the past to some extent. History does not always repeat itself simply and mechanically, as situations and conditions have changed dramatically.

However, history should not be forgotten or neglected. On the contrary, it plays a vital role for people today to learn and research the great progress and achievements we have already made in the past. Based on the former works done by others, we can stand on the shoulders of giants to summarize and analyze these outcomes so as to provide valuable information for decision making in the future. Otherwise, we will waste plenty of time and money to do the job which is useless or had been done by forerunners many years ago. Scientific research serves as a case in point to illustrate the facts.
Many scientists, who have won the Nobel Price, just founded on plentiful and substantial fruits of former researchers.

George Santayana, a Spanish-American philosopher, poet, and humanist, once said, “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.” She enlightens us on the subject that one of the lessons the history teaches us is how to avoid repeating the same mistakes which have already been made in the past as society. The ozone layer, as an example, is a layer of gas in the upper atmosphere, which performs the vital role of protecting human beings and other living things from the deleterious ultraviolet. With the aggravation of the destruction to ecosystem, the study of the disintegration of the ozone layer over the poles of the earth has given birth to new laws and regulations on certain chemicals that help to preserve this valuable part of our atmosphere.

In addition, history is consecutive. Many problems we meet nowadays are just the continuity of the same ones in the past. Many wars and conflicts take place today have their own history roots. These diverse roots make the world become more complex and intricate. However, the only way for us to well understand the causes of these events is to probe the origin of their backgrounds through history.

In a word, the perspective the author put forward is oversimplified. The problems of today are more or less the reflection of the similar ones in the past. Therefore, we can take history as a warning and face the future.