I don't get this CR question!!!!HELP?

[4903abcd]

<p>The passage:</p>

<p>

As a scientist, I find that only one vision of the city really gets my hackles up-the notion that a city is somehow “unnatural.” a blemish on the face of nature.</p>

<p>The argument goes like this: Cities remove human beings from their natural place in the world. They are a manifestation of the urge to conquer nature rather than to live in harmony with it. Therefore, we should abandon both our cities and our technologies and return to an earlier, happier state of existence, one that presumably would include many fewer human beings than now inhabit our planet.</p>

<p>There is an important hidden assumption behind this attitude, one that needs to be brought out and examined if only because it is so widely held today. This is the assumption that nature, left to itself. will had a state of equilibrium (a “balance of nature”) and that the correct role for humanity is to find a way to fit into that balance. lf you think this way, you are likely to feel that all of human history since the Industrial (if not the Agricultural)Revolution represents a wrong turning-a blind alley something like the failed Soviet experiment in central planning. Cities, and particularly the explosive postwar growth of suburbs (“urban sprawl”) are agencies that destroy the balance of nature, and hence are evil presences on the planet.</p>

<p>What bothers me about this point of view is that it implies that human beings, in some deep sense, are not part of nature. “Nature,” to
[line 28] many environmental thinkers, is what happens when there are no people around. As soon as we show up and start building towns and cities, “nature” stops and something infinitely less worthwhile starts. lt seems to me that we should begin our discussion of cities by recognizing that they aren’t unnatural, any more than beaver dams or anthills are unnatural. Beavers, ants, and human beings are all part of the web of life that exists on our planet. As part of their survival strategy, they alter their environments and build shelters. There is nothing “unnatural” about this.</p>

<p>Nor is there anything unnatural about downtown areas. Yes, in the town the soil has been almost completely covered by concrete, buildings, and asphalt: often there is no grass or undisturbed soil to be seen anywhere. But this isn’t really unnatural. There are plenty of places in nature where there is no soil at all -think of cliffsides in the mountains or along the ocean. From our point of view, the building of Manhattan simply amounted to the exchange of a forest for a cliffside ecosystem</p>

<p>Look at the energy sources of the downtown ecosystem. There is, of course, sunlight to provide warmth. ln addition, there is a large amount of human-made detritus that can serve as food for animals: hamburger buns, apple cores, and partially filled soft drink containers. All of these can and do serve as food sources. Indeed, urban yellow jackets seem to find sugar-rich soft drink cans an excellent source of “nectar” for their honey–just notice them swarming around waste containers during the summer.</p>

<p>A glimpse of downtown, in fact, illustrates that the city can be thought of as a natural system on at least three different levels. At the most obvious level, although we don’t normally think in these terms, a city is an ecosystem, much as a salt marsh or a forest is. A city operates in pretty much the same way as any other ecosystem, with its own peculiar collection of flora and fauna. This way of looking at cities has recently received the ultimate academic, accolade-the creation of a subfield of science, called"urban ecology," devoted to understanding it.</p>

<p>At a somewhat deeper level, a natural ecosystem like a forest is a powerful metaphor to aid in understanding how cities work. Both systems grow and evolve, and both require a larger environment to supply them with materials and to act as a receptacle for waste. Both require energy` from outside sources to keep them functioning, and both have a life cycle-birth, maturity, and death.</p>

<p>**Finally, our cities are like every other natural system in that, at bottom, they operate according to a few well-defined laws of nature. There is, for example, a limit to how high a tree cart grow, set by several factors including the kinds of forces that exist between atoms in wood. There is also a limit to how high a wood (or stone or steel) building can be built-a limit that is influenced by thosesame interatomic forces.
**
So let me state this explicitly: A city is a natural system, and we can study in the same way we study other natural systems and how they got to be the way they are.

</p>

<p>Q. The discussion of limits in bolded lines suggests that</p>

<p>A. natural principles significantly affect human endeavors.</p>

<p>I don’t get what this answer even means. The principles affect human endeavors? What is the endeavor they are talking about? Is it the energy required “from outside sources to keep them functioning?” Then how is this the answer? Can someone please explain?</p>

[SherifAhmed]

<p>i think endeavors here means the trials made by the humans for the development of extraordinary cities, the writer mentions some scientific facts(which are"nature principles") that affect the the size of development made to the earth by humans.
anybody corrects me if you pick smth wrong.</p>

[Fat_Nerd]

<p>The answer is correct. Take a look again at the answer, and truly understand each and every word. Then look at the designated paragraph. It checks out, and I’ll tell you why.</p>

<p>Human endeavors, meaning human efforts in order to accomplish anything, or reach any sort of goal. Natural principles, means that the same principles that are used in nature.</p>

<p>Now when I say, that “our cities are like every other natural system in that, at bottom, **they operate according to a few well-defined laws of nature.**There is, for example, a limit to how high a tree cart grow, set by several factors including the kinds of forces that exist between atoms in wood. There is also a limit to how high a wood (or stone or steel) building can be built-a limit that is influenced by thosesame interatomic forces.” Here, I have compared my city to nature in every way. I’ve stated that a city is like a natural system, where they operate with the same laws. Then I presented some examples supporting my point, along with stating the very same limitations of nature are present in cities as well. What have I done here? I’ve stated that natural principles significantly affect human endeavors.</p>

<p>*Human endeavors refers to the human efforts made in order to build and regulate cities, and make them function accordingly.</p>

[4903abcd]

<p>Thanks for the explanation!
But wouldn’t that be just stating the correlation between natural principles and human endeavors? I don’t get how the natural principle “affects” human endeavors.</p>

<p>Also, I get that human endeavors are human efforts to regulate cities. But isn’t that kind of a stretch? The passage only states, “There is also a limit to how high a wood (or stone or steel) building can be built-a limit that is influenced by thosesame interatomic forces.” If so, isn’t it implying the self-regulation of cities based on scientific principles rather than “human endeavors?” I don’t get where human endeavors suddenly came from.</p>

<p>Maybe I might be thinking too much…But if anyone can explain. I would really appreciate it. :)</p>

[Fat_Nerd]

<p>If you can’t understand why this is the correct answer, then eliminate all the other answers which are obviously much farther from the topic than the correct answer. State them for me here, so I can tell you why they don’t work at all, if you want.</p>

[Cichlidkeeper]

<p>Bump 10 char</p>

[Wood5440]

<p>Natural principles affect human endeavors by limiting them. We do not try to do things we know are impossible. And even if we do endeavor to do the impossible, natural principles will affect our efforts and doom them to failure. Finally, even when our endeavors are possible, natural principles will determine the means we will employ to go about achieving our goal.</p>