Dolly on the dinner table?

　　Don’t worry about it

　　The Food and Drug Administration has declared that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat, paving the way for cloned products to show up in grocery stores across the land, likely without any special labels or warnings.

　　This makes sense because there is absolutely no evidence to show that there is anything unsafe about milk or meat from cloned cows, goats or pigs. (Actually, the FDA is holding off on deciding whether cloned sheep are a safe source of chops, saying not enough information is available yet.) But many of us hear the words “meat from cloned animals” and get queasy. Dolly, fairly or not, is to blame.

　　Dolly, whose remains are on display at the Royal Museum of Scotland, spent her six years on earth as the object of scorn, fear, derision and slander. The media had a field day upon her birth telling us that Dolly was the key to resurrecting the dead, creating vicious clone armies and a world in which everyone would be trailed by a hapless clone whose internal organs would be available on demand to prolong lives threatened by disease or old age.

　　But worse was to follow. Soon wacky cults like the Raelians and nutty scientists were hollering about cloning rich people, cult leaders, and generally unsavory types to the rapt and stupefied attention of a media unable to discern the fact that dressing in a Star Trek uniform and displaying a very bad hair dye job did not prove your bona fides as the cloner most to be feared.

　　All of this nonsense took a toll. It made Americans forget that cloning is nothing more than artificially creating twins. It made us forget that every drop of wine we drink comes from cloned grapes.

　　Dolly got a bad rap. And it has stuck. But the FDA is right to follow the evidence and let products from clones enter the marketplace.

　　If people want these products labeled so they can choose not to buy them, that’s their right.

　　But, before you decide, remember the only thing you really have to fear from cloned animals is what human beings have done to ruin their reputations!

　　考研詞匯：

　　pave[peiv]

　　v.鋪砌，鋪(路)

　　[真題例句]53. What can be inferred from the passage?[2000年閱讀1]

　　[D] A long history of success may pave the way for further development.

　　[例句精譯] 53. 從本文我們可推知什么?

　　[D] 長期經濟成功的歷史可能為進一步的發展鋪平道路。

　　scorn[skɔ:n]

　　v./n. 輕蔑，藐視

　　[真題例句]Few would dispute that the term applies to the Unabomber, whose manifesto, published in 1995, scorns(v.) science and longs for return to a pretechnological utopia.[1998年閱讀3]

　　[例句精譯] 將該詞(反科學)用在仇視現代文明的恐怖主義者身上，也不會引起多大爭議，它在1995年公開發表蔑視科學、渴望回到前技術時代理想社會的聲明。

　　vicious[ˈviʃəs]

　　a.惡毒的，兇殘的，邪惡的

　　[真題例句]47. Misled people tend to think that using an animal in research is.[2003年閱讀2]

　　[C] inevitable but vicious

　　[例句精譯] 47�北徽`導的人們往往認為：在研究中使用動物。

　　[C] 不可避免但邪惡

　　prolong[prəˈlɔŋ]

　　v.拉長，延長

　　[真題例句]On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted�瞫uicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modern medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying.[2002年閱讀4]

　　[例句精譯] 另一方面，許多醫療界人士承認，致使醫助自殺這場爭論升溫的部分原因是由于病人們的絕望情緒，對這些病人來說，現代醫學延長了臨終前肉體的痛苦。

　　discern[diˈsə:n]

　　v.①認出，發現;②辨別，識別

　　[真題例句]63. Discerned (①) from the perplexing picture of population growth the 1980 census provided, America in 1970s.[1998年閱讀4]

　　[B] witnessed a southwestern shift of population

　　[例句精譯] 63�备鶕�1980年人口統計提供的人口增長的復雜圖表可以看出，美國在20世紀70年代。

　　[B] 經歷了人口向西南地區的遷移

　　artificial[ˌɑ:tiˈfiʃəl]

　　a.①人工的，人造的;②人為的，矯揉造作的

　　[真題例句]Indeed the quest for true artificial (①) intelligence has produced very mixed results.[2002年閱讀2]

　　[例句精譯] 實際上對真正的人工智能的追求已經產生了各種各樣的效果。

　　[真題例句]The casual friendliness of many Americans should be interpreted neither as superficial nor as artificial (②), but as the result of a historically developed cultural tradition.[1997年閱讀2]

　　[例句精譯] 很多美國人不經意表現的友好不應被看做是表面或虛假的應酬，而應該看成是文化傳統歷史發展的結果。

　　背景常識介紹：

　　自從科學家研究出第一只克隆羊多利之后，10年以來，不斷地有克隆豬、牛、羊、馬等牲畜問世，用于科學研究或飼養。

　　美國食品藥物管理局日前表示，該局今年年底將完成相關風險評估，明年有可能出臺批準克隆牲畜的肉、奶在美國上市銷售的規定。這意味著克隆動物的肉奶制品，最終可能堂而皇之地擺上美國人的餐桌。據估計，美國現有克隆動物的數量在600頭至2000頭之間，科學家也一直在研究克隆牲畜的食用價值與前景。

　　多利出現在餐桌上?對此不要擔心

　　食品藥品管理局已經宣布從克隆動物身上取得的肉和奶是可以安全食用的，從而為在可能沒有任何標簽和警告的情況下，使克隆產品進入食品店鋪平了道路。

　　這樣做很有意義，因為現在還沒有足夠的根據來說明從克隆牛、克隆羊、克隆豬身上得到的奶和肉有任何的不安全性。(實際上，食品藥品管理局說沒有足夠可以利用的信息，從而在拖延判斷克隆羊是否是安全的食品來源。)但是我們中的很多人一聽到“從克隆動物身上得到的肉”這樣的字眼就會作嘔。多利，不管公平與否，是有責任的。

　　多利遺留的東西現在都陳列在蘇格蘭的皇家博物館，作為被藐視、恐懼、嘲笑和詆毀的對象，她在地球上度過了六年的時間。媒體在一個重要的日子宣布了多利的出生，告訴我們多利是使死亡復活的關鍵，創造了各種克隆群體和一個世界。在這個世界里，每個人都會被一個不幸的克隆人跟隨著，他們的內部器官可以用來延續那些受到疾病或老齡威脅的生命。

　　但是更糟的事情接著來了。不久像Raelians這樣的古怪教派和狂熱的科學家都抱怨說，克隆富人、古怪的領導人和那些使媒體專注驚訝的通常令人討厭的類型并不能辨別這樣一個事實，即穿上Star Trek的外衣以及染上非常差的頭發并不能證明你認為克隆人令人害怕是一種好意。

　　這些不合理的話造成了一種混亂。它使得美國人忘記了克隆只不過是人為地創造雙胞胎而已。它使我們忘記了我們喝的每一滴酒都來自克隆的葡萄。

　　多利受到了糟糕的指責。她已經忍受了。但是食品藥品管理局公正地依據證據使克隆產品進入了市場。

　　如果人們想讓這些產品貼上標簽，那么他們可以選擇不去買它們，這是他們的權利。

　　但是，在你決定之前，只需記住一件事，你對克隆動物真正需要害怕的是人類怎樣毀壞了他們的聲譽!