1. In my experience this principle is likely to encounter considerable resistance：encounter表示“经历，遭遇”。例：The government has encountered strong resistance to its plans to raise income tax.政府欲提高所得税的方案遭到了强烈的反对。

2. ...affording in each case the opportunity to try out the suitability of some random genetic change： try out表示“试用，试验，检 验”。例：I’m trying out a new computer.我在试用一台新电脑。

3. ...those possible arrangements that are not compatible with the whole are screened out over the long course of evolution：screen out表示“剔除，清除（不可接受者或不合适者）”。例：An answering service can screen out nuisance calls.自动应答服务可以 挡掉骚扰电话.

4. In effect, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation：in effect表示“事实上，实际上”。 例：Even though she is, in effect, his stepmother, he fathers a child with her.实际上，尽管她（藤壶）是自己的继母，他（源 氏）还是与她生育了一位孩子。

5. ...he ordered his advisers, on pain of death, to produce a set of volumes：on pain of death表示“违者处死，以死为代价”。例： He was told to leave the country on pain of death.他被勒令离境，违则处死。

6. The story goes on in this vein, as such stories will, until the advisers are required：in vein表示“（说话，写作）以……的风 格”。例：There was more humour, in much the same vein.风格差不多，只是更幽默了。

7. ...the final generalizations which emerge from all this：emerge from表示“浮现，出现”。例：The sun emerged from behind the clouds.太阳从云层后露了出来。

8. ... these ideas become tools for restoring the damage inflicted on nature：inflict on表示“使（某人）遭受（不愉快的事），使 承受”。例：The strikes inflicted serious damage on the economy.罢工给经济造成了巨大的损失。

9. Walt Whitman（沃尔特·惠特曼）

Walt Whitman (1819—1892) is American poet, journalist, and essayist. His verse collection Leaves of Grass (1855) is considered landmark in the history of American literature. As a humanist, he incorporates both views of transcendentalism and realism in his works. Whitman is often called the father of free verse.

10. Moby Dick（《白鲸》）

Herman Melville (1819—1891), American novelist, short-story writer, and poet, is best known for his novels of the sea, including his masterpiece Moby Dick (1851). Moby Dick is considered to be one of the greatest American novels. The story tells the adventures and voyage of an outcast, Ishmael, on the whaleship Pequod commanded by Captain Ahab. Ahab’s only purpose of this voyage is to seek revenge to the ferocious whale Moby Dick which bit off his leg. This novel is also famous for its stunning opening: “Call me Ishmael.”

11. Ralph Waldo Emerson（爱默生）

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882) was an American poet, essayist, and philosopher. After his marriage he settled in Concord, Massachusetts. The center of a literary circle, Emerson became the chief spokesman for Transcendentalism. Among Emerson’s best works are First and Second Series, Poems, Representative Men, The Conduct of Life and English Traits. His best known addresses are “The American Scholar” and “The Divinity School Address”. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God; that Nature is a manifestation of Spirit; and that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture.

12. Henry David Thoreau （梭罗）

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American essayist, naturalist, and poet. Born at Concord, and educated at Harvard,

Thoreau began his career as a teacher. Through his friend and neighbor, Emerson, he became a part of the Transcendentalist circle. In 1845 Thoreau built a cabin at Walden Pond, and lived there for more than two years. The experience was later described in his best-known work, Walden. Politically the most conscious of the Transcendentalists, an acute observer of natural and social facts, Thoreau was also an outstanding prose stylist.

1. 文体

本文是一篇说明文，主要讲述了剩下的两个生态定律。第三条定律是“自然界最加博学”，第四条定律是“世界上没有免费 午餐”。通过进一步介绍自然界的规律和法则，作者揭示了生态系统中万物相互依存、共生共亡的本质。

2. 修辞

本文涉及的修辞手法主要有metaphor（隐喻）等，这在前面的单元已经提到，此处不再赘述。

Exercises

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I. Oral Presentation

Make a five-minute presentation in class based on your research.

Suggested topics:

1. Choose one of the four laws and explain it with your own examples.

2. How can the understanding of the four laws help to raise our awareness of the

a —= eS ———————————————————E

IL. Questions

environmental protection?

A. Questions on the Content

1.

What is the third law of ecology? Why does the writer say it might encounter considerable resistance?

. What does the term “research and development” (R & D) mean? What role does it

play in developing the best watches?

. What does the writer mean when saying, “In effect there are some two to three

billion years of ‘R & D’ behind every living thing.”? How has “R & D” been carried on in nature?

What does the third law suggest about the artificial introduction of an organic compound that does not occur in nature?

5. What is the function of an enzyme?

6. Why does the writer argue that “all man-made organic compounds that are at all

active biologically ought to be treated as we do drugs”?

7. What is the fourth law of ecology?

8. Why does the writer regard it embarrassing that the final law has been “widely held

by many people without any scientific analysis or professional authorization”? How do the four laws become tools for restoring the damage caused by the

environmental crisis?

. Questions on Structure and Style

What method does the writer use to explain the third law of ecology? Do you find it effective? Why or why not?

What example does the writer use in explaining the fact that the varieties of chemical substances actually found in living things are vastly more restricted than

the possible varieties?

3. Why does the writer tell a story about an oil-rich potentate in Paragraph 9?

4. Why does the writer mention major writers’ names such as Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Whitman, and Mark Twain? What literary heritage do they represent?

5. How does the writer end this piece? Do you think it is an effective ending? Give your reasons.

III. Paraphrase

Explain the following sentences in your own words, bringing out any implied meanings.

1. In my experience this principle is likely to encounter considerable resistance, for it appears to contradict a deeply held idea about the unique competence of human beings. (Para. 1)

2. This is a rather extreme claim; nevertheless I believe it has a good deal of merit if understood in a properly defined context. (Para. 1)

3. What is significant, for our purpose, is the universal observation that when mutation frequency is enhanced by x-rays or other means, nearly all the mutations are harmful to the organisms and the great majority so damaging as to kill the organism before it is fully formed. (Para. 3)

4. In effect there are some two to three billion years of “R & D” behind every living thing. (Para. 4)

5. Thus, when a new man-made organic substance is synthesized with a molecular structure that departs significantly from the types which occur in nature, it is probable that no degradative enzyme exists, and the material tends to accumulate. (Para. 7)

6. Such caution or prudence is, of course, impossible when billions of pounds of the substance are produced and broadly disseminated into the ecosystem where it can reach and affect numerous organisms not under our observation. (Para. 8)

7. Nevertheless, it is difficult to ignore the embarrassing fact that the final generalizations which emerge from all this—the four laws of ecology—are ideas that have been widely held by many people without any scientific analysis or professional authorization. (Para. 12)

8. Mark Twain is not only a marvelous source of wisdom about the nature of the environment of the United States from the Mississippi westward, but also a rather incisive critic of the irrelevance of science which loses connection to the realities of life. (Para. 12)

IV. Practice with Words and Expressions

A. Look up the dictionary and explain the meaning of the italicized words and phrases. 1. ...poke a pencil into the exposed works. (Para. 2) 2. ...that are not compatible with the over-all operation of the system... (Para. 2) 3. There is a close, and very meaningful, analogy in biological systems. (Para. 3)

4. ...by treating it with an agent... (Para. 3) 5. ...arrangements that are not compatible with the whole are screened out... (Para. 4) 6. ...the latter have once been tried out and found wanting. (Para. 6) 7. ...he ordered his advisers, on pain of death, to produce a set of volumes... (Para. 9) 8. When the tomes arrived... (Para. 9) 9. The story goes on in this vein... (Para. 9)

10. Many of them are campers... (Para. 13)

B. Replace the italicized formal, or technical words and terms with everyday words and expressions. 1. One of the most pervasive features of modern technology is the notion that it is intended to “improve on nature”... (Para. 1) 2. ...any major man-made change in a natural system is likely to be detrimental to that system. (Para. 1) 3. Generally, exposure to x-rays increases the frequency of all mutations which have been observed... (Para. 3) 4. If the change damages the viability of the organism, it is likely to kill it before the change can be passed on to future generations. (Para. 4) 5. Living things are composed of many thousands of different organic compounds... (Para. 5) 6. And on the basis of the foregoing, one would reason that many of these possible protein types were once formed in some particular living things... (Para. 6) 7. In the same way, living cells synthesize fatty acids...with even-numbered carbon chain lengths... (Para. 6) 8. ...when billions of pounds of the substance are produced and broadly disseminated into the ecosystem... (Para. 8) 9. The complex web in which all life is enmeshed, and man’s place in it... (Para. 12) 10. ...but also a rather incisive critic of the irrelevance of science which loses connection to the realities of life. (Para. 12)

C. Give the Chinese equivalents of the following terms. organic chemistry (Para. 5)

organic compound (Para. 5)

protein (Para. 6)

synthesize (Para. 6)

fatty acid (Para. 6)

carbon chain (Para. 6)

oxygen atom (Para. 6)

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carcinogenic (Para. 6)

9. enzyme (Para. 7) 10. detergent (Para. 8) 11. insecticide (Para. 8) 12. herbicide (Para. 8)

D. Differentiate between the following pairs of words. 1. impossible and improbable

2. technician and technologist

3. economics and economy

4. obviously and apparently

V.Transiation: 0

A. Translate the following sentences into Chinese.

1. Stated baldly, the third law of ecology holds that any major man-made change in a natural system is likely to be detrimental to that system. (Para. 1)

2. In effect, the watch mechanism, as it now exists, represents a very restricted selection, from among an enormous variety of possible arrangements of component parts, of a singular organization of the watch works. (Para. 2)

3. Thus, the structure of a present living thing or the organization of a current natural ecosystem is likely to be “best” in the sense that it has been so heavily screened for disadvantageous components that any new one is very likely to be worse than the present ones. (Para. 4)

4. The third law of ecology suggests that the artificial introduction of an organic compound that does not occur in nature, but is man-made and is nevertheless active in a living system, is very likely to be harmful. (Para. 5)

5. One of the striking facts about the chemistry of living systems is that for every organic substance produced by a living organism, there exists, somewhere in nature, an enzyme capable of breaking that substance down. (Para. 7)

6. In my experience, this idea has proven so illuminating for environmental problems that I have borrowed it from its original source, economics. (Para. 9)

7. Nevertheless, most of them were taken unawares by the environmental crisis, failing to understand, apparently, that Thoreau’s woods, Mark Twain’s rivers, and Melville’s oceans are today under attack. (Para. 13)

8. This is perhaps the major value of the effort to show that the simple generalizations which have already emerged from perceptive human contact with the natural world have a valid base in the facts and principles of a science, ecology. (Para. 14)

B. Translate Paragraphs 8 and 10 into Chinese.

Fe

Read, Think and Comment

Below is a passage from an article about Steve Jobs by Krystal D’Costa published in Scientific American. Read it and prepare to respond to the following questions: How does the author begin the article? Why does she begin this way? What is the function of Paragraph 2? What are the main ideas of the last two paragraphs? Why does the author say “Jobs had a Promethean quality to him”?

Like others, | learned of Jobs’ passing on an Apple device. S and | were just on our way out the door to pick up dinner when | hit the Facebook app on my iPhone. One of the updates near the top of my feed was from a friend in the tech sector and it read: “I had a feeling Jobs was in pretty bad shape when he stepped down from Apple.” Instantly, | went into search mode. Hungry for more information, | hit the home button and selected the Twitter app knowing that the people | follow would have shared relevant links and information about this event. Before my eyes | watched as my stream filled with @ RIPSteveJobs tweets. | told S—he went to get his iPhone. We looked at each other. Like so many others, particularly of our generation, we have been shaped by Apple and their products. My first experience on a computer was via Apple. We played Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? on Apple computers when we were in elementary school. In fact, that was probably the beginning of my love of video games—Sim City, The Sims, Diablo, and American McGee’s Alice remain some of my favorites and they were played on a Mac. Part of S's career has grown from his familiarity with Apple products. | was mostly speechless as | tracked the responses, numbly reading Tweets aloud to S while he drove. We talked about how the ubiquity of Apple has helped drive most people to the Cloud.

We definitely weren't the only ones engaged in this exercise. Over the last few days there has been no end of commentary on the death of Steve Jobs—what

he meant to people, the ways he drove innovation, the parts of him the public didn’t get to see or didn’t often discuss, and how he might have changed other areas of our lives if he’d applied himself differently. This is yet another addition to the growing documentation of his passing; it is more than just a story about what he meant to me—it covers what he meant to us all.

Jobs had a Promethean quality to him—he gave us fire, knowledge, at our fingertips, providing not just access, but new ways of interacting and understanding our lives. It’s easy to get swept up in these discussions, as | sit typing this on my old MacBook (which was the first laptop | ever purchased for myself), but larger questions loom. Jobs’ permanence extends beyond sainthood, which is only applicable via belief to a small group of people. The broad impact of Apple provides an opportunity to assess the global qualities of iCulture.

Jobs has been heralded as an innovator, and he has indeed challenged us to think differently and stretch the boundaries of digital—and then he put that world in the palm of our hands, setting a standard for access to information and apparent freedom to be ourselves. It promised that you could be who you were, that your style would fit with the device—which would be standard, but the experience, well, that was yours.

A.

1. The third law is nature knows the best. Because the general knowledge is that human knows better and the modern technology is intended to “improve on nature.”

2. Research and development means that over the years numerous watchmakers who are all taught by their predecessors, have tried out various detailed arrangements of watch works and have discarded those that are not compatible with the overall operation of the system and retained the better features. It plays a role of a very restricted selection, in which the last chosen one best fits the system.

3. It means that the evolving process every living thing has undergone is very intricate and highly selective. It is carried on as described in the text: “In that time, a staggering number of new individual living things have been produced, affording in each case the opportunity to try out the suitability of some random genetic change. If the change damages the viability of the organism, it is likely to kill it before the change can be passed on to future generations.”

4. The organic compound is man-made and will nevertheless become active in a living system. It is very likely to be harmful to the nature.

5. An enzyme breaks down the natural substances.

6 Because these compounds have strong actions on any other organism and are likely to damage other forms of life.

7. The fourth law of ecology is that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

8. Because the interaction between human and nature widely acknowledged in literature is still not applied to environmental protection.

9. The four laws arouse scientific awareness of the environmental crisis and therefore become tools.

B.

1. Analogy. Yes, it is effective. Through comparing the evolution process to the making of watch, readers can better understand the evolution process.

2. The writers uses examples of DDT, detergents, insecticides and herbicides to explain.

3. It is to explain the concept of “there is no free lunch.”

4. These names represent understanding of the four laws from the perspective of literature. All these works exhibit the beauty of the nature and a poetic ideal of harmony between human and nature.

5. The author ends with a quotation and a promising solution. It is effective since it makes its readers reflect more on the practical effect of the four laws.

1. My experience proves that some people will strongly reject this principle for it appears to diverge from an idea firmly held by people that human beings have the unique ability and power to do anything that is needed: human beings know better than nature.

2. Most people may regard this statement unusual and unacceptable. However, I believe, it contains many good points so that it

deserves our attention if we can properly define the situation and relate it to the correspondent situation, and events, instead of considering it independent of the context.

3. What is useful for the sake of our argument is the universally observed fact that when mutation frequency is increased by x-rays or other means, almost all the mutations cause harm to the living things and the great majority of the mutations are so damaging that they kill the living thing before it is fully formed.

4. The fact is that nature has carried out research and development for about two or three billion years for the survival and development of every living thing.

5. In this way, when a new man-made organic substance is synthesized with a molecular structure that is very different from the types which are synthesized in nature, most likely no corresponding enzyme is capable of degrading this substance, and consequently the substance tends to continue to stay as a harmful element.

6. It is impossible to avoid dangers or risks caused by such man-made substances when billions of pounds of them are produced and scattered far and wide into the ecosystem. In the ecosystem, they can bring about negative impacts on numerous organisms that we do not observe in our research.

7. In spite of the fact just mentioned, we can’t ignore the fact that people who firmly believe in the four laws of ecology are not engaged in scientific study. In other words, they are actually not scientists. This fact is rather embarrassing (for scientists).

8. Mark Twain not only provided remarkable first-hand information and knowledge about the nature of the environment of the part west of the Mississippi River, but criticized directly and sharply the irrelevant aspects of science which lose connection to the realities of life.

A.

1. works: the working parts or mechanism (of a watch, a clock, etc.)

2. compatible with: that can work well together

3. close: similar

4. agent: a chemical or substance that makes other substances change

5. screen out to sift through a coarse mesh so as to separate finer from coarser parts

6. found wanting: proven to be not good enough for a particular purpose

7. on pain of death: at the risk of bringing death upon oneself

8. tome: a large heavy book

9. in this vein: in this particular style or way

10. camper: a person who vacations at a campsite

B.

1. extensively existing and spreading

2. be harmful

3. significant and basic changes

4. ability to continue to live

5. are made up of

6. the things that have been mentioned

7. produce by combining different things

8. spread

9. involved in a complicated way

10. direct and sharp

C.

1. 有机化学

2. 有机化合物

3. 蛋白质

4. 合成

5. 脂肪酸

6. 碳链

7. 氧原子

8. 致癌的

9. 酶

10. 洗涤剂

11. 杀虫剂

12. 除草剂

D.

1. impossible意为“不可能的”，强调“不会发生，不会存在”，另外，impossible还用于表示“极难应付的”；improbable意为“不 可能”，强调“不太可能，未必会发生”，也可用来表示“奇异的，荒谬的”。如：It seems improbable that they could have driven home in less than ten minutes.（他们在十分钟不到的时间就开车到家似乎不大可能。）

2. technician意为“技师，技术员”，强调“擅长某一领域的技术”，而technologist意为“技术专家”，强调“掌握某技术的专业知 识”。如：As a technologist, Mr. Jobs was different because he was not an engineer—and that was his great strength.（作为一名技 术专家，乔布斯特别在他不是一名工程师，而这也是他最大的长处。）

3. Economics意为“经济学”或“经济因素”，指跟财政、税收相关的学科或领域。Economy意为“经济”，指“社会物质生产、 流通、交换等活动”，也指国家的经济结构，如：China is a newly emerging economy.（中国是一个新兴经济体）。

4. obviously表示“显然”时，强调“基于显而易见的事实”，而apparently表示“显然”时，强调“根据所听到或看到的进行推测， 不确定是否真实”。如：I was not there, but apparently it was a good party.（我不在那儿，但是显然聚会不错。）

V. See the translation of the text.

1. The author starts with a personal experience relating to the passing of Steve Jobs, which is learnt from her iPhone. In this way the author connects herself and the reader through the same device they use in daily life.

2. Paragraph 2 is a transitional paragraph, from her own experience to the life deeds of Steve Jobs.

3. The last two paragraphs mainly focus on Jobs’ influence on us as an innovator.

4. Prometheus brings fire to human, which changes their life and civilization. In the metaphorical comparison, Jobs also brings fire to Apple technology. He changed our notion of technology.