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  3. The (Non) Risks of Mobile Phones Do mobile phones cause explosions at petrol stations? That question has just been exhaustiv

The (Non) Risks of Mobile Phones Do mobile phones cause explosions at petrol stations? That question has just been exhaustiv

admin2013-07-11  52
问题                     The (Non) Risks of Mobile Phones
    Do mobile phones cause explosions at petrol stations? That question has just been exhaustively answered by Adam Burgess, a researcher at the University of Kent, in England. Oddly, however, Dr.Burgess is not a physicist, but a sociologist. For the concern rests not on scientific evidence of any danger, but is instead the result of sociological factors: it is an urban myth, supported and propagated by official sources, but no less a myth for that. Dr. Burgess presented his findings this week at the annual conference of the British Sociological Association.
    Mobile phones started to become widespread in the late 1980s, when the oil industry was in the middle of a concerted safety drive, Dr. Burgess notes. This was, in large part, a response to the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988, when 167 people died in an explosion on an Oil platform off the Scottish coast. The safety drive did not apply merely to offshore operations, employees at some British oil-company offices are now required to use handrails while walking up and down stairs, for example. So nobody questioned the precautionary ban on the use of mobile phones at petrol stations. The worry was that an electrical spark might ignite explosive fumes.
    By the late 1990s, however, phone makers having conducted their own research realised that there was no danger of phones causing explosions since they could not generate the required sparks. But it was too late. The myth had taken hold.
    One problem, says Dr. Burgess, is that the number of petrol-station fires increased in the late 1990s, just as mobile phones were proliferating. Richard Coates, BP’s fire-safety adviser, investigated many of the 243 such fires that occurred around the world between 1993 and 2004. He concluded that most were indeed caused by sparks igniting petrol vapour, but the sparks themselves were the result of static electricity, not electrical equipment. Most drivers will have experienced a mild electric shock when climbing out of their vehicles. It is caused by friction between driver and seat, with the result that both end up electrically charged. When the driver touches the metal frame of the vehicle, the result is sometimes a spark.
    A further complication was the rise of the internet, where hoax memos, many claiming to originate from oil companies, warned of the danger of using mobile phones in petrol stations. Such memos generally explain static fires quite accurately, but mistakenly attribute them to mobile phones. Official denials, says Dr. Burgess, simply inflame the suspicions of conspiracy theorists.
    Despite the lack of evidence that mobile phones can cause explosions, bans remain in place around the world, though the rules vary widely. For Dr. Burgess, such concerns are part of a broader pattern of unease about mobile phones. There is a curious discrepancy, he notes, between the way that such phones have become indispensable, and the fact that they are also vaguely considered to be dangerous. The safety of mobile phones would appear to be not so much the province of the hard science of physics, as of the soft science of sociology.
Which of the following has contributed to the suspicion that mobile phones are not safe?
选项 A、The lack of response from phone manufacturers.
B、Increase in the number of petrol-stations.
C、Misinformation spread over the internet.
D、Official effort to disguise the truth.
答案C
解析 本题考查推理引申。第五段指出，由于网络上欺骗性备忘录的出现，使有关手机的谣言变得更为复杂，因此可知[C]是促使人们怀疑手机安全性的因素之_。[A]错在thelack of，由第三段可知，手机生产者并不是没有反应，而是反应得太晚，无法阻止已经传播开来的传言。原文第四段首句提到的是“加油站火灾数量的增加”，[B]项偷梁换柱，为错误项。[D]具有干扰性，因为第五段末句提到，官方的否认只会加剧阴谋理论家的怀疑。但对这句话的理解要联系上文。上文论述“网络传播手机爆炸的谣言”，最后一句接着指出“官方否认备忘录中有关手机引起火灾的说法，只会加重怀疑”。这里否认的并不是“事实”，排除[D]。
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