Passage One

(1) A recent article indicated that business schools were going to encourage the study of ethics as part of the curriculum. If graduate schools have to discover ethics, then we are truly in serious trouble. I no more believe that ethics can be taught past the age of 10 than I believe in the teaching of so-called creative writing. There are some things that you are born with, or they are taught by your parents, your priest or your grade-school teacher, but not in college or in graduate school. I believe that businesses should go back to basics in recruiting, should forget about the business schools and recruit the best young liberal arts students we can find.

(2) The issue of ethics, both in business and in politics, takes on a sharper focus in the money culture of a service economy than in our earlier industrial days. For the businessmen and the politicians, virtually the only discipline that can be applied is ethical. Financial scandals are not new, nor is political corruption. However, the potential profit, and the ease with which they can be made from insider trading, market manipulation, conflict-of-interest transactions and many other illegal or unethical activities are too great and too pervasive to be ignored. At the same time, those institutions that historically provided the ethical basis to the society—the family, the church and the primary school— are getting weaker and weaker. Hence, our dilemma.

(3) The application of ethics, as well as overall judgment, is made even more difficult by the increasing application of rapidly changing technology to major problems in our society. How does a layman deal with the questions raised by “Star Wars”, genetic engineering, AIDS and the myriad issues relating to the availability and affordability of life-saving drugs and other medical technology? It is clear that one cannot abdicate to the technocrats the responsibility of making judgment on these issues.

(4) Two important risks accompany the discarding of our value system when dealing with a money culture and high technology. The first risk is that more people will turn to radical religion and politics. People always search for frameworks that provide a certain amount of support. If they do not find it in their family, in their school, in their traditional church or in themselves, they will turn to more absolute solutions. The second risk is the polarization of society. We have created hundreds of paper millionaires and quite a few billionaires. But alongside the wealth and glamour of Manhattan and Beverly Hills, we have seen the growth of a semipermanent or permanent underclass.

(5) The most important function of higher education is to equip the individual with the capacity to compete and to fulfill his or her destiny. A critically important part of this capacity is the ability to critically evaluate a political process that is badly in need of greater public participation. This raises the issue of teaching ethics in graduate schools. Ethics is a moral compass. Ideally, it should coincide with enlightened self-interest, not only to avoid jail in the short run but to avoid social upheaval in the long run. It must be embedded early, at home, in grade school, in church. It is highly personal. I doubt it can be taught in college.

(6) Yet what is desperately needed in an increasingly complex world dominated by technicians is the skepticism and the sense of history that a liberal arts education provides. History, philosophy, logic, English, and literature are more important to deal with today’s problems than great technical competence. These skills must combine with an ethical sense acquired early in life to provide the framework needed to make difficult judgments. We most certainly need the creativity of great scientific minds. But all of us cannot be technical experts, nor do we need to be. In the last analysis, only judgment, tempered by a sense of history and a healthy skepticism of cant and ideology will give us the wherewithal to make difficult choices. (此文选自 The New York Times )

Passage Two

(1) One of the obvious problems with predicting the future effects of climate change is that they haven’t happened. This makes climate studies highly dependent on models, which invariably and unavoidably make simplifying assumptions. This means that using their results to say anything of practical import needs care and caveats, both of which can often be in short supply, or stripped out to make a point.

(2) However, it is now ever more possible for studies of climate change to look at the past, not the future. The 20th century saw a fair amount of warming, and it is sometimes possible to compare what this warming did and didn’t do with what future warming might or might not do. This is what a paper published in Nature this week does in an attempt to re-examine, and perhaps close down, long-running debates about malaria and climate change.

(3) Both the malaria parasite and the mosquitoes which spread it respond to temperature and moisture. Understanding those responses makes it possible to model what changes in climate might mean to the incidence of the disease. Such models have suggested that in a warmer world the area subject to endemic malaria would increase, perhaps quite a lot, though some places would see a reduction due to increased aridity. The caveats here include noting that the climate models can make no great claims to accuracy at the regional level and that such an approach does almost nothing to deal with changes in land use, wealth and public health programs.

(4) One of the main thrusts of the new Nature paper is to see how much of what happened to the spread of malaria in the 20th century can be explained by what happened to the climate. The answer, according to Peter Gething of Oxford University and his colleagues, is not much. They conclude that claims that a warming climate has led to more widespread disease and death due to malaria are largely at odds with the evidence, which shows the areas effected shrinking, and the size of the effect shrinking too. Increases in the spread and severity of the disease burden foreseen over the next 40 years by the biological models are far smaller than the decreases in comparable measures seen over the past century.

(5) The second tack of their argument is to compare the sort of effect seen in biology-based models of where malaria might spread with both models of and data on the effects direct intervention against the disease can have. Again the effects due to climate are small, even negligible, compared with the effects that interventions have achieved already and might achieve in decades to come. The marginal areas where climate might enlarge the area at risk are also, the article argues, the areas where the greatest declines in transmission have recently been seen thanks to increased intervention.

(6) The conclusion is clear. People who are thinking about what to do about malaria should bear in mind that the biological basis of its distribution may change in a warmer world. Those thinking about the overall danger that climate change represents should not spend their time worrying about its impact on malaria.

(7) Is there a wider conclusion to draw about computer models such as those that underlay frightening statements about malaria in a climate-changed world? Perhaps; but like the models themselves, it comes with caveats.

(8) Scientists tend to model what can be modeled, and natural scientists, in particular, tend to prefer models that incorporate at least some aspects of the underlying processes which they are interested in, rather than working purely on empirical correlations. This means that if you search the scientific literature for approaches to the future, you will tend to find answers based on natural processes. If other knowledge suggests that natural processes aren’t the most important aspect of the problem at hand, then it’s a good idea to look at the models with that provision in the forefront of your mind.

(9) The other vital lesson is that the caveats matter. Pretty much every paper presenting a biology-based model of malaria’s dependence on climate contains a warning that changes in economy, technology and society matter too, and aren’t in the model. To transmit the model’s results without important caveats is reckless.

(10) If one is going to be optimistic about the future of malaria, one might also, with caution, be optimistic about the future of assessments of climate change. Things can, over time, get better, especially when the record of what has happened to date gets taken seriously. They will do so quicker if people accept both the usefulness and limits of models of the future, as well as the appeal of models of the past.

(此文选自 The Economist)

Passage Three

(1) Not even the combined powers of Spiderman, Iron Man. the Incredible Hulk, Captain America and the X-Men could keep The Mouse at bay. On August 31st Walt Disney announced it was buying Marvel Entertainment for $ 4 billion, just days after the comic-book publisher had celebrated 70 glorious years of independence, during which it had created many of the most famous cartoon characters not invented by Disney itself.

(2) In fact, Marvel did not put up much of a fight, accepting what most analysts think was a generous price. Disney will get access both to Marvel’s creative minds and—potentially far more valuable in an age when familiar stories rule the box office—an archive containing around 5,000 established characters, only a fraction of which have yet made the move from paper to the silver screen.

(3) Marrying Marvel’s characters with Disney’s talent for making money from successful franchises is a good idea. In recent years Disney has proved the undisputed master at exploiting the same basic content through multiple channels, including films, websites, video games, merchandising, live shows and theme parks.

(4) The edgier, darker Marvel characters should fill a hole in Disney’s much cuddlier portfolio. This currently covers most people from newborn babies, through the addictive Baby Einstein DVDs, to adults, through its Touchstone label. Disney’s own cartoons, and the newer ones created by Pixar, an animation studio it bought in 2006 for $7 billion, appeal to children. Hannah Montana, a hit television show, caters to pre-teen girls. The Marvel characters should be just the thing for boys of the same age, whom Disney has found especially hard to attract of late.

(5) However, many of Marvel’s best-known characters already have contractual obligations to various rival media conglomerates that will not be easily or quickly undone. Sony has an indefinite hold on Spider-Man; News Corporation exerts similar control over the X-Men. Universal owns distribution rights to the Hulk and long-term theme-park rights in Florida to several characters. This is a pity, because Disney’s theme parks are a part of its business where teenage boys would particularly welcome the contrast that Marvel’s superheroes would provide to the Magic Kingdom’s oppressive wholesomeness.

(6) Another risk is one that often presents itself in mergers, especially those involving creative types: a clash of cultures. Happily for Marvel, Disney is no longer the corporate control-freak it was under its former boss, Michael Eisner. His successor, Bob Iger, has turned out to be a relatively hands-off boss, with the Pixar acquisition a model of the sort of treatment Marvel can expect. Indeed, John Lasseter, the chief creative force behind Pixar, reportedly played an important role in reassuring Marvel’s talent that their culture would be safe in Disney’s hands.

(7) Also fully behind the deal is Stan Lee, a living legend of the cartoon world who helped create many of Marvel’s best-known characters during the 1960s. Mr. Lee, who recently launched his first digital comic as part of a partnership between his new firm and Disney, has predicted that the Disney-Marvel merger will prove “a terrific deal which will be extremely beneficial to both companies. The synergy between them is perfect.” Ironically, in the 1960s, Mr. Lee tried, without success, to convince his bosses to turn Marvel into a multimedia company like Disney. Now, albeit in a roundabout way, one of his outlandish fantasies is about to become a reality.

(此文选自 The Economist)

Passage Four

(1) Training to become a barrister or solicitor is a competitive and expensive business. The legal profession has made efforts to become more accessible to aspiring lawyers from all backgrounds and to increase the diversity of its members, but the financial cost remains an enormous barrier for many. Faced with paying university tuition fees, the ridiculously expensive costs of the professional training courses and then funding themselves through a training contract or pupillage, many find themselves starting their working life with enormous debts.

(2) That’s the scary part, but don’t be discouraged. Bursaries, scholarships and grants that do not have to be repaid are available to students during undergraduate law degrees through to the graduate diploma in law and professional training courses and training contracts or pupillage. Unfortunately, finding where that help comes from, can be a challenge and a bit time-consuming. Here’s a guide to what’s on offer at the different stages of your journey into the law that might help make it a bit less bumpy.

(3) Most universities now charge the maximum ￡9,000 a year tuition fees for students on their undergraduate law degrees. While that fee may seem daunting, remember that you do not have to pay it upfront and you will not have to start paying back tuition fee loans until the April after you graduate and are earning at least ￡21,000 a year. Most universities and colleges offer bursaries and scholarships to help students with their tuition fees, accommodation, maintenance and other expenses. They will, this year spend ￡290m on bursaries and reduced tuition fees for poorer students—a fact criticised this week by the government’s social mobility advisor Alan Milburn. He suggested that the money should instead be targeted at helping children from less well off families stay in school.

(4) Anyway, for the moment the bursaries and grants remain. Some are made available to first year students either on the basis of their academic achievements at school or financial need, while others are given to reward students for performance during their degree. Details of available funding, criteria, application processes and deadlines can be found on the websites of the individual universities and colleges. It is worth checking both the awards provided by the university, which are open to all students, as well as those provided by the law school or faculty, offered only to students studying a law degree.

(5) To get you started, here are a couple that caught my eye: Among some of the undergraduate awards available at University College London are the Freshfields Scholarships. International law firm Freshfields provides two awards of ￡10,000 per year of study, for law students from less privileged backgrounds. Recipients also benefit from eight weeks a year of paid work experience at the firm and an award under the college’s bursary scheme to provide additional support of up to ￡3,500. The awards are designed to assist candidates who aspire to be City lawyers and who have little or no family history of higher education and would become first generation graduates. Queen Mary University London offers scholarships and bursaries to around 50% of its undergraduate body. Among them are a number of ￡1,000 bursaries awarded on the basis of a student’s academic record before joining, as well as second and final year bursaries recognising students’ success while at university. Students from families on a low income—up to ￡25,000 a year—can apply for bursaries from their universities to help cover tuition and maintenance fees, under the National Scholarship Programme. A list of participating universities and colleges can be downloaded from the Directgov website.

(6) The site also has details of tuition fee loans, maintenance loans and maintenance grants for living expenses. You should apply in the spring of the year that your course starts. Competition is fierce and students are advised to apply as early as possible. If you have children or dependant adults you may be able to apply for additional grants to cover childcare. Those in full-time higher education with children under 15, or under 17 if they have special educational needs, can apply for a childcare grant of up to ￡148.75 a week for one child and ￡255 for two or more children. Students with disabilities may also be able to benefit from the Disabled Students’ Allowances.

(此文选自 The Guardian )

Passage Three

Passage Four