2016届山西长治高考英语二轮复习阅读理解精练（5）_高考复习指南

2016届山西长治高考英语二轮复习阅读理解精练（5）

　　It seems obvious now how we acquire knowledge and understanding．To start with, you need questions．Then, to find answers, you observe the world around you and study the facts．After that you consider possible answers and test each to find the right ones．Although today we are more accustomed to typing a few key words into a search engine and waiting for the Internet to spit the answer out for us, modern scientists and thinkers are still solving the world’s problems with this type of analysis---- luckily for us．

　　However, in the 17th century when Francis Bacon suggested that this type of thinking was the way to gain knowledge, he was going against the views of the day．At that time, people believed more in religion than in facts, and people like Galileo Galilei, who proved scientific ideas such as “ the Earth is not the centre of the universe”, were often punished by the church with no one coming to their defence．The church and many people tended to ignore the facts and were unwilling to challenge that they had always comfortably believed．They preferred to make assumptions about the world based on the experience of others．In fact, when Galilei proved that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, instead of believing him, people chose to believe ancient views put forward by the great philosopher Aristotle （384-322BC）．

　　This also shows how people didn’t want to search for their own understanding or educate themselves．And this is still often true today．People feel that if someone important and respected says that something is right, then it must be so．But even though Aristotle was a great man who inspired many great scientists and philosophers after him, he was wrong at times．And Galilei too made mistakes．He is now known as the father of astronomy but he believed that the earth moved round the sun in a perfect circle．He was wrong．Therefore our understanding of the world around us is constantly growing and changing．In other words, we learn more every day and none of us can ever sit back and say “We know it all．”