【四六级考试网 - 大学英语四六级考试(CET)试题】：
Passage Three

 

　　Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:

　　It is hard to predict how science is going to turn out, and if it is really good science it is

　　impossible to predict. If the things to be found are actually new, they are by definition unknown in

　　advance. You cannot make choices in this matter. You either have science or you don' t, and if

　　you have it you are obliged to accept the surprising and disturbing pieces of information, along

　　with the neat and promptly useful bits.

　　The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are

　　profoundly ignorant about nature. Indeed, I regard this as the major discovery of the past hundred

　　years of biology. It is, in its way, an illuminating piece of news. It would have amazed the

　　brightest minds of the 18th century Enlightenment(启蒙运动) to be told by any of us how little we

　　know and how bewildering seems the way ahead. It is this sudden confrontation with the

　　depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of the 20th century

　　science to the human intellect. In earlier times, we either pretended to understand how things

　　worked or ignored the problem, or simply made up stories to fill the gaps. Now that we have he-

　　gun exploring in earnest, we are getting glimpses of how huge the questions are, and how far

　　from being answered. Because of this, we are depressed. It is not so bad being ignorant if you are

　　totally ignorant; the hard thing is knowing in some detail the reality of ignorance, the worst

　　spots and here and there the not - so - bad spots, but no true light at the end of the tunnel nor

　　even any tunnels that can yet be trusted.

　　But we are making a beginning, and there ought to be some satisfaction. There are

　　probably no questions we can think up that can' t be answered, sooner
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