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How Men Face the Fat Problem It is a pleasure to see men of a certain age worrying about their weight. Listening to them is not such a pleasure. Because the men are new at the game, they don’t hesitate to discuss the fat problem incessandy. However, women of the same age do not discuss the fat problem, especially not in mixed company. They prefer to face the problem with quiet dignity. Discussing the problem might only draw attention to some stray body part that may be successfully tucked away under an article of clothing. The age at which a man begins to explore the fat problem can vary. The actual problem can manifest itself in the early 30’s, but broad-range discussion usually starts later. There are early nonverbal symptoms. I’ve watched the rugged journalist who shares my apartment sneak by with a Diet Coke. His shirts are no longer neady tucked in to display a trim waist. Recendy he has begun to verbalize his anxiety. He tells me, with a sheepish grin, that he is taking his suits to Chinatown to have them “tailored“. Still-older men have lost their dignity and ratde on unabashedly. Often, wives and children play important roles in their fat-inspection rituals. Take my oldest brother, a former college football player. His daughter says that several times a day he will stand at attention and call out, “Fat, medium or thin?“ She knows the correct answer: medium. Thin would be an obvious stretch, and fat may not get her that new video. According to his wife, he stands in front of the mirror in the morning(before the day’s meals take their toll), puts his hands behind his head and lurches into a side bend, then clutches the roll that has developed and says, “Am I getting fatter?“ His wife is expected to answer, “You look like you may have lost a few pounds. “ And then there are the ex-husbands, a pitiful group. They are extremely vocal. When I go to the movies with one, he confides that he is suffering from great hunger because he is dieting. He hasn’t eaten since the pancakes and sausages he wolfed down that morning. He pauses in his monologue while he buys his popcorn. After the movie, we sprint to a restaurant, where he again pauses to devour a basket of bread. Before he orders his chaste salad and soup, he grows plaintive. Do I think he’s fat?

Intelligence: a Changed View 1 Intelligence was believed to be a fixed entity,some faculty of the mind that we all possess and which determines in some way the extent of our achievements. Its value therefore, was as a predictor of children’s future learning. If they differed markedly in their ability to learn complex tasks, then it was clearly necessary to educate them differently and the need for different types of school and even different ability groups within school was obvious. Intelligence tests could be used for streaming children according to ability at an early age; and at 11 these tests were superior to measures of attainment for selecting children for different types of secondary education. 2 Today, we are beginning to think differently. In the last few years,research has thrown doubt on the view that innate intelligence can ever be measured and on the very nature of intelligence itself. There is considerable evidence now which shows the great influence of environment both on a-chievement and intelligence. Children with poor home backgrounds not only do less well in their school work and intelligence tests but their performance tends to deteriorate gradually compared with that of their more fortunate classmates. 3 There are evidences that support the view that we have to distinguish between genetic intelligence and observed intelligence. Any deficiency in the appropriate genes will restrict development no matter how stimulating the environment. We cannot observe and measure innate intelligence, whereas we can measure the effects of the interaction of whatever is inherited with whatever stimulation has been received from the environment. Researches have been investigation what happens in this interaction. 4 Two major findings have emerged from these researches. Firsdy, the greater part of the development of observed intelligence occurs in the earliest years of life. It is estimated that 50 per cent of measurable intelligence at age 17 is already predictable by the age of four. Secondly, the most important factors in the environment are language and psychological aspects of the parent-child relationship. Much of the difference in measured intelligence between “privileged“ and “disadvantaged“ children may be due to the latter’s lack of appropriate verbal stimulation and the poverty of their perceptual experiences. 5 These research findings have led to a revision in our understanding of the nature of intelligence. Instead of it being some largely inherited fixed power of the mind,we now see it as a set of developed skills which a person copes with any environment. These skills have to be learned and, indeed, one of them is learning how to learn. 6 The modern ideas concerning the nature of intelligence are bound to have some effect on our school system. In one respect a change is already occurring. With the move toward comprehensive education and the development of unstreamed classes, fewer children will be given the label “low IQ“which must inevitably condemn a child in his own,if not society’s eyes. The idea that we can teach children to be intelligent in the same way that we can teach them reading or arithmetic is accepted by more and more people. A Main results of recent researches B Popular doubt about the new view C Effect of environment on intelligence D Intelligence and achievement E Impact on school education F A changed view of intelligence

A born to be more intelligent or less intelligent B have a better chance to develop his intelligence C taught to be more intelligent D that intelligence was something a baby was born with E and because of the lack of communication with his classmates F and partly has to do with a child’s living environment

Prolonging Human Life Prolonging human life has increased the size of the human population. Many people alive today would have died of childhood diseases if they had been born 100 years ago. Because more people live longer, there are more people around at any given time. In fact, it is a decrease in death rates, not an increase in birthrates, that has led to the population explosion. Prolonging human life has also increased the dependency load. In all societies, people who are disabled or too young or too old to work are dependent on the rest of society to provide for them. In hunting and gathering cultures, old people who could not keep up might be left behind to die. In times of famine, infants might be allowed to die because they could not survive if their parents starved, whereas if the parents survived they could have another child. In most contemporary societies, people feel a moral obligation to keep people alive whether they can work or not. We have a great many people today who live past the age at which they want to work or are able to work; we also have rules which require people to retire at a certain age. Unless these people were able to save money for their retirement, somebody else must support them. In the United States many retired people live on social security checks which are so little that they must live in near poverty. Older people have more illness than young or middle-aged people; unless they have wealth or private or government insurance, they must often “go on welfare“ if they have a serious illness. When older people become senile or too weak and ill to care for themselves, they create grave problems for their families. In the past and in some traditional cultures, they would be cared for at home until they died. Today, with most members of a household working or in school, there is often no one at home who can care for a sick or weak person. To meet this need, a great many nursing homes and convalescent hospitals have been built. These are often profit-making organizations, although some are sponsored by religious and other nonprofit groups. While a few of these institutions are good, most of them are simply “dumping grounds“ for the dying in which “care“ is given by poorly paid, overworked, and under-skilled personnel.

Trying to Find a Partner One of the most striking findings of a recent poll in the UK is that of the people interviewed, one in two believes that it is becoming more difficult to meet someone to start a family with. Why are many finding it increasingly difficult to start and sustain intimate relationships? Does modern life really make it harder to fall in love? Or are we making it harder for ourselves? It is certainly the case today that contemporary couples benefit in different ways from relationships. Women no longer rely upon partners for economic security or status. A man doesn’t expect his spouse to be in sole charge of running his household and raising his children. But perhaps the knowledge that we can live perfectly well without a partnership means that it takes much more to persuade people to abandon their independence. In theory, finding a partner should be much simpler these days. Only a few generations ago, your choice of soulmate(心上人)was constrained by geography, social convention and family tradition. Although it was never explicit, many marriages were essentially arranged. Now those barriers have been broken down. You can approach a builder or a brain surgeon in any bar in any city on any given evening. When the world is your oyster(牡蛎),you surely have a better chance of finding a pearl. But it seems that the old conventions have been replaced by an even tighter constraint: the tyranny of choice. The expectations of partners are inflated to an unmanageable degree: good looks, impressive salary, kind to grandmother, and right socks. There is no room for error in the first impression. We think that a relationship can be perfect. If it isn’t, it is disposable. We work to protect ourselves against future heartache and don’t put in the hard emotional labor needed to build a strong relationship. Of course, this is complicated by realities. The cost of housing and child-rearing creates pressure to have a stable income and career before a life partnership.

Congratulations, It Will Be A Boy! Until just a few years ago, making a baby boy or a girl was pretty much a hit-or-miss affair. Not anymore. Parents who have access to the latest genetic testing techniques can now predetermine their baby’s sex with great accuracy, as Monique and Scott Collins learned to their delight two years ago, when their long-wished-for daughter Jessica was born after genetic prescreening(基因筛选). And baby Jessica is just the beginning. Within a decade or two, it may be possible to screen kids almost before conception(怀孕)for an enormous range of attributes(特性), such as how tall they are likely to be, what body type they will have, their hair and eye color, what sort of illness they will be naturally resistant to, and even, conceivably(可想见地), their IQ and personality type. In fact, if gene therapy lives up to its promise, parents may someday be able to go beyond weeding out(筛去)undesirable traits and start actually inserting the genes they want—perhaps e-ven genes that have been crafted(创造)in a lab. Before the new millennium is many years old, parents may be going to fertility clinics(生殖诊所)and picking from a list of options the way car buyers order air conditioning and chrome-alloy(铬合金)wheels. “It is the ultimate shopping experience : designing your baby,“ says biotechnology critic Jeremy Rifkin, who is appalled by the prospect. “But in a society used to cosmetic surgery(整容手术), this is not a big step. “ The prospect of designer(定制)babies, like many of the ethnical conundrums(难题)posed by the genetic revolution, is confronting the world so rapidly that doctors, ethicists(伦理学家), religious leaders and politicians are just starting to grapple with(与......进行格斗)the implications—and trying to decide how they feel about it all. They still have a bit of time. Aside from gender, the only traits they can now be identified at the earliest stages of development are about a dozen of the most serious genetic diseases. Gene therapy in embryos(胚胎)is at least a few years away. And the gene or combination of genes responsible for most of our physical and mental attributes has not even been identified yet. Besides, say clinicians, even if the techniques for making designer babies are perfected within the next decade, they should be applied in the service of disease prevention, not improving on nature.

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