考博试题

[D] Martians may live by entirely different rules.

50. What is the best title of the text?

[A] Does Mars Harbor Life?

[B]If We Find ET, Will We Know It?

[C] Will the Twin Robots Live Up to Us?

[D] Why Search ET As We Don’t Know It?

Passage4

The announcement by South Korean scientists that they had created human embryos by cloning and extracted embryonic stem cells has raised concerns around the world. The technique, scientists at Seoul National University said, was not designed to make babies but to further the process known as therapeutic cloning, a possible treatment for a multitude of diseases.

Advances in stem-cell technology have been hailed as holding potential cures for many crippling illnesses, such as diabetes, spinal cord injuries and Parkinson’s disease. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, stem cells can be manipulated by scientists to develop into many other human cells. But opponents say using embryos, even ones just several minutes old, is destroying a human life. Embryos are destroyed when stem cells are removed.

Although cloning may be technically possible, the moral issues will be the great dilemma, said Arthur Kaplan, medical ethicist and director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics. “I think the big question is: If you make this kind of thing in a dish, have you created a human life?” Kaplan said. “Can you make something that people have strong moral views about in terms of destroying it, in order to benefit other people? And that’s going to be the key debate”.

Kaplan said splitting the debate into two issues---cloning for making babies and cloning for research purposes---would help in making sensible policy. But may people believe all such experiments should be banned---both in the United States and around the world.

Last year, a ban on human cloning passed the U.S. House of Representatives but failed to get approval by the Senate over questions of whether cloning for research purposes could be allowed. The United Nations decided at the end of last year to delay any decision on a human cloning ban for two years.