Issue41 【六人作文小组】第4周第5次作业

levinshireUID: 2559564

TOPIC: ISSUE41 - "Such nonmainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a vital role in society by satisfying human needs that are not addressed by mainstream science."

提纲：
尽管目前市面上很多人还信这一套，但非主流对社会进步作用不大
1.占星术等的存在利用了人类对未知的恐惧，但没有帮助人类求知。历史上；现代人。
2.这些乱七八糟的东西阻碍社会进步。不去探索，而是等待。不相信自己判断和力量。浪费社会资源。
3.科学尚未解释的，也不能留给迷信去解释。如果放任其发展，将滋生欺诈之风。

Although areas like astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits, and so forth have been existing in history for a long time, and many people nowadays still believe in them, they actually contribute very little to the society's progress. It is the mainstream science that is responsible for the greatest achievements of today's society.

First of all, the existence of these nonmainstream areas results from human beings' deep fear for the unknown things. However, they provide little help for humanity to explore the unknown and make the society better. In the ancient time, kings often held some ceremony to ask the gods when they wanted to start a war. Feeling that they could not control the result of the war, they had nothing to do but resort to the gods' will. Also, even in the present time, when facing hard choices in life many people are totally lost and let some fortune-teller help them to decide what to do. As can be seen, what those areas actually satisfy are not human needs, but human's scare of uncertainty and unknown instead. And yet, human beings can not gain useful knowledge and experience through those areas. In fact, we often become more confused because the experts in those inquiries tend to make things more mysterious and hard to understand.

Moreover, those nonmainstream areas to some extent prevent the society from progressing. For one thing, such things as astrology or fortune-telling try to tell people that their lives are decided by some gods. So when individuals face difficulties in life, they will lose the courage to struggle but only wait for their destinies to come out. And when confronting unknown things, people will be unconfident about their own judgment and power to explore. For another thing, those areas naturally exclude and impede the development of scientific spirit. Afraid of being challenged and being proved to be absurd by science, history is replete with examples of scientists persecuted by the authorities of those areas. While a great deal of social wealth are wasted in such areas of inquiry----for example, in ancient Greek the richest and most powerful people are those fortune-tellers to predict the big events of the countries----the killing of thousands of cows and sheep would do little to increase the society's welfare or improve citizens' living conditions.

Of course, there are a great many of human needs that the mainstream science today can not address yet. Nevertheless, the solution for this demands the further improvement of modern science and technology, not leave it to those areas like astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits. If the society shows interest in those mysterious and unreasonable explanations, the real science spirit and courage to explore the unknown world will decline. Instead, there will be more cheats in the world playing tricks on the ordinary people. Thus, the progressing of human society will greatly be slowed down.

As discussed above, such nonmainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits provide little contribution to the progress of human society. If take a look back into the history, we will find it is science that provides reasonable explanations and facilitates the technological innovations to push society forward.

又写了两个多小时，哭死了哭死了。
这个题目我还是有很多话说的，可就是憋在心里表达不出来。提纲列好了，写着写着又跑偏了，不知道是提纲的问题还是语言表达的问题。结果是提纲改了N回，原来想表达的意思只说出60%不到。
这感觉，好难受。。。

sneakerliuUID: 2481691

别着急，我觉得你进步很大，语言上我觉得没有问题了，语法也OK
当然问题是，我认为这个题目着眼于非主流有没有satisfy human needs，而不是有没有促进社会进步。从First of all, the existence of these nonmainstream areas results from human beings' deep fear for the unknown things.这句话上看，是满足了的。而且存在了这么多年，自然有他的道理。不论是不是合理，人们是有需要的。
当然你这么写也有可取之处，通过讲非主流的危害说明很VITAL阿，导致了社会的问题。不一定是正面嘛。只有无关痛痒的事情才叫不VITAL。
ps，不带你这样夸人的

levinshireUID: 2559564

2# sneakerliu

有道理，我之前是吧Vital的含义理解错了，老觉得应该是正面的作用。那我的提纲应该改一下，说mainstream是satisfy human needs，也play vital role了，但是negative的role，一定程度阻碍了社会进步，再说一下mainstream science才是王道云云。你感觉好不好。
PS：你写得就是很好啊，特别我闷出自己的，再一看你的，对比那叫一个强烈啊。没办法，写作是个长期积累的真功夫，我是荒废太久了，自作孽不可活啊:mad: