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  3. When imaginative men turn their eyes towards space and wonder whether life exists in and any part of it, they may cheer themselv

When imaginative men turn their eyes towards space and wonder whether life exists in and any part of it, they may cheer themselv

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问题    When imaginative men turn their eyes towards space and wonder whether life exists in and any part of it, they may cheer themselves by remembering that life need not resemble closely the life that exists on Earth. Mars looks like the only planet where life like ours could exist, and even this is doubtful. But there may be other kinds of life based on other kinds of chemistry, and they may multiply on Venus or Jupiter. At least we cannot prove at present that they do not.
   Even more interesting is the possibility that life on their planets may be in a more advanced state of evolution. Present-day man is in a peculiar and probably temporary stage. His individual units retain a strong sense of personality. They are, in fact, still capable under favorable circumstances of leading individual lives. But man’s societies are already sufficiently developed to have enormously more power than the individuals have.
   It is not likely that this transitional situation will continue very long on the evolutionary time scale. Fifty thousand years from now man’s societies may have become so close-knit that the individuals retain no sense of separate personality. Then little distinction will remain between the organic parts of the multiple organisms and the inorganic parts (machines) that have been constructed by it. A million years further on man and his machines may have merged as closely as the muscles of the human body and the nerve cells that set them in motion.
   The exploration of space should be prepared for some such situation. If they arrive on a foreign planet that has reached an advanced stage (and this is by no means impossible), they may find it being inhabited by a single large organism composed of many closely cooperating units.
   The units may be "secondary"—machines created millions of years ago by a previous form of life and given the will and ability to survive and reproduce. They may be built entirely of metals and other durable materials. If this is the case, they may be much more tolerant of their environment, multiplying under conditions that would destroy immediately any organism made of carbon compounds and dependent on the familiar carbon cycle.
   Such creatures might be relics of a past age, many millions of years ago, when their planet was favorable to the origin of life, or they might be immigrants from a favored planet. (401 words)
Even most imaginative people have to admit that ______.
选项 A、human societies are as advanced as those on some other planets
B、planets other than Earth are not suitable for life like ours to stay
C、it is difficult to distinguish between organic parts and inorganic parts of the human body
D、organisms are more creative than machines
答案B
解析 意为：“地球以外的星球不适合像我们(人)这样的生命的生存。”第一段指出，当富有想像力的人遥望太空，冥想其他星球上是否存在生命的时候，如果他们记住那里的生命没有必要像地球上的生命一模一样，他们就不会悲观(即；他们就会相信也许有其他生命存在)。火星似乎是我们这样的生命能够存在的惟一星球，但是，即使这种说法也是值得怀疑的。然而，也许有其他种类的有机生命存在，他们也许在金星和木星上繁衍，至少我们目前无法证明他们没在那些星球上繁衍(do not当理解为do not multiply on Venus and Jupiter)。
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