What were the actuatl results? Well, over 60 per cent of the teacher-subjects continued to obey Milgram up to the 450-volt limit! In repetitions of the experiment in other countries, the percentage of obedient teacher-subjects was even higher, reaching 85 per cent in one country. How can we possible account for this vast discrepancey between what calm, rational, knowledgeable people predict in the comfort of their study and what pressured, flustered, but cooperative \'teachers\' actually do in the laboratory of real life?
One\'s first inclination might be to argue that there must be some sort of built-in animal aggression instinct that was activated by the experimental, and the Milgram\'s teacher-subjects were just following a genetic need to discharge this pent-up primal urge onto the pupil by administering the electrical shosck. A modern hard-core sociobiologist might even go so far as to claim that this aggressive instinct evolved as an advantageous trait, having been of survival value to our ancestors in their struggle against the hardships of life on the plains and in the caves, ultimately finding its way into our genetic make-up as a remnant of our ancient animal ways.
An alternative to this notion of genetic programming is to see the teacher-subjects\' actions as a result of the social environment under which the experiment was carried out. As Milgram himself pointed out, \'Most subjects in the experiment see their behaviour in a larger context that is benevolent and useful to society - the pursuit of scientific truth. The psychological laboratory has a strong claim to legitimacy and evokes trust and confidence in those who perform there. An action such as shocking a victim, which in isolation apears evil, acquires a completely different meaning when placed in this setting\'.
Thus, in this explanation the subject merges his unique personality and personal and moral code with that of larger institutional structures, surrendering individual properties like loyalty, self-sacrifice and discipline to the service of malevolent systems of authority.
Here we have two radically different explanations for why so many teacher-subjects were willing to forgot their sense of personal responsibility for the sake of an institutional authority figure. The problem for biologists, psychologists and anthropologists is to sort out which of these two polar explanations is more plausible. This, in essence, is the problem of modern sociobiology - to discover the degree to which hard-wired genetic programming dictates, or at least strongly biases, the interaction of animals and humans with their environment, that is, their behaviour. Put another way, sociobiology is concerned with elucidating the biological basis of all behaviour.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
1 a biological explanation of the teacher-subjects\' behaviour
2 the explanation Milgram gave the teacher-subjects for the experiment
3 the identity of the pupils
4 the expected statistical outcome
5 the general aim of sociobiologial study
6 the way Milgram persuaded the teacher-subjects to continue
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
7 The teacher-subjects were told that they were testing whether
(A) a 450-volt shock was dangerous
(B) punishment helps learning
(C) the pupils were honest
(D) they were stuited to teaching
8 The teacher-subjects were instructed to
(A) stop when a pupil asked them to
(B) denounce pupils who made mistakes
(C) reduce the shock level after a correct answer
(D) give punishment according to a rule
9 Before the experiment took place the psychiatrists
(A) believed that a shock of 150 volts was too dangerous
(B) failed to agree on how the teacher-subjects would respond to instructions
(C) underestimated the teacher-subjects\' willingness to comply with experimental procedure
(D) thought that many of the teacher-subjects would administer a shock of 450 volts
2009英语语言文学 英语综合 阅读理解 Passage 3
The Truth about the Environment
For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list of our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and that the planet\'s air and water are becoming ever more polluted.
But a quick look at the facts shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so, since the book \'The Limits to Growth\' was published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world\'s population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exggerated, or are transient - associated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form of pollution - the release of greenhouse gases that causes global warming - does appear to be a phenomenon that is going to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an inappropriate response to it.
Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining and four factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and reality.
One is the lopsidedness built into scientific research. Scientific funcing goes mainly to areas with many problems. That may be wise policy, but it will also create an impression that many more potential problems exist than is the case.
Secondly, environmental groups need to be noticed by the mass media. They also need to keep the money rolling in. Understandably, perhaps, they sometimes overstate their arguments. In 1997, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a press release entitled: \'Two thirds of the world\'s forests lost forever\'. The truth turns out to be nearer 20%.
Though these groups are run overwhelmingly by selfless folk, they nevertheless share many of the characteristics of other lobby groups. That would matter less if people applied the same degree of scepticism to environmental lobbying as tehy do to lobby groups in other fields. A trade organisation arguing for, say, weaker pollution controls is instantly seen as self-interested. Yet a green organisation opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic, even if an impartial view of the controls in question might suggest they are doing more harm than good.
A third source of confusion is the attitude of the media. People are clearly more cuirous about bad news than good. Newspapers and broadcasters are there to provide what the public wants. That, however, can lead to significant distortions of perception. An example was America\'s encounter El Nino in 1997 and 1998. This climatic phenomenon was accused of wrecking tourism, causing allergies, melting the ski-slopes and causing 22 deaths. However, according to an artical in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the damage it did was estimated at US$4 billing but the benefits amounted to some US$19 billion. These came fromhigher winter temperatures (which saved an estimated 850 lives, reduced heating costs and diminished spring floods caused by meltwaters).
The fourth factor is poor individual perception. People worry that the endless rise in the amount of stuff everyone throws away will cause the world to run out of places to dispose of waste. Yet, even if America\'s trash output continues to rise as it has done in the past, and even if the American population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish America produces through the entire 21st centurey will still take up only on 12,000th of the area of the entire United States.
