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  3. Many objects in daily use have clearly been influenced by science. However, their form and function, their dimensions and appear

Many objects in daily use have clearly been influenced by science. However, their form and function, their dimensions and appear

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问题     Many objects in daily use have clearly been influenced by science. However, their form and function, their dimensions and appearance, were determined by technologists, designers, inventors, and engineers using nonscientific modes of thought. Many features and qualities of the objects that a technologist thinks about cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in the mind by a visual, nonverbal process, pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry or thermos-dynamics (热动力学), because they were first the picture in the minds of those.
    The creative shaping process of a technologist’s mind can be seen in nearly every artifact that exists. For example, in designing a diesel engine, a technologist might express individual ways of nonverbal thinking on the machine by continually using an intuitive sense of rightness and fitness. What would be the shape of the combustion chamber? Where should the valves be placed? Would it have a long or short piston? Such questions have a range of answers that are supplied by experience, by physical requirement, by limitations of available space, and not in the least by a sense of form. Some decisions, such as wall thickness and pin diameter, may depend on scientific calculations, but the nonscientific component design remains primary.
    Design courses, then should be an essential element of engineering curricula.  Nonverbal thinking, a central mechanism in engineering design, involves perceptions, which is the special technique of the artists, not the scientist. Because perceptive processes are not assumed to need "hard thinking", nonverbal thought is sometimes seen as a primitive stage in the development of cognitive processes and inferior to verbal mathematical thought.
    If courses in design, which in a strongly analytical engineering curriculum provide the background required for practical problem-solving, are not provided, we can expect to encounter silly but costly errors occurring in advanced engineering systems. For example, early modes of high-speed railroad cars loaded with sophisticated controls were unable to operate in a snowstorm because the fan sucked snow into the electrical system.  Absurd random failures that plague automatic control systems are a reflection of the chaos that results when design is assumed to be primarily a problem in mathematics.  
Why is the example of diesel engine used in the passage?
选项 A、To challenge the argument that errors in engineering design are unavoidable.
B、To support the idea that engineering design involves more than a sense of form.
C、To criticize the view that mathematics is a necessary part of the study of design.
D、To questions the idea that design courses form a part of engineering curricula.
答案B
解析 因果推断题。第二段中引用柴油发动机例子是为了说明，由“supplied by experience，by physical requirement，by limitations of available space，and not in the least by a sense of form”可知其构造主要由经验、物理条件、有限空间和对形态把握的感觉决定。因此正确答案为B项。
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