Read carefully the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
Everyone likes
to blame his sense of defeat on someone else and for sometime scientists have
been a favourite scapegoat. I want to look at their responsibility, and for
that matter at everybody’s responsibility, rather more closely. They do have a
special responsibility; do not let us argue that out of existence; but it is a complicated
one; and it is not the whole responsibility. For example, science obviously is
not responsible for the readings of the people who do not take their private
quarrels beyond the stage of insult to carry their public quarrels to the point
of war. Many animals fight for their needs, and some for their mere greeds, to
the point of death. Bucks fight for females, and birds for their territories.
The fighting habits of man are odd because he displays them only in groups. But
they were not supplied by scientists. On the contrary, science has helped to
end several kinds of group murder, such as witch hunting and the taboos of the
early nineteenth century against disinfecting
hospitals.
Questions:
1. Who have been
made a favourite scapegoat for wars?
2. Who have a
special responsibility? What kind of responsibility is that?
3. Why do birds
and beasts fight?
4. Why are the
fighting habits of man odd?
5. How has
science helped to end group murders?
6. Find words in
the passage having the meanings given below:
(i) a person
blamed for the wrong doings of others
(ii) made
complex
(iii) clearly or
plainly
(iv) areas of
land
(v) strange or
peculiar
(vi) acts or
things forbidden by religion or custom
