2023考研英語閱讀科學(xué)究竟有什么用

　　What is it for

　　科學(xué)究竟有什么用

　　Scinece in the 20th century and beyond; by JonAgar;

　　20世紀后科學(xué);喬艾格著;

　　SCIENCE works with problems by making them into manageable, manipulableabstractions. Jon Agar s ambitious new book sets out to synthesise the insights of manyrecent historians of science. These might be anything from a field biologist s notes of lemmingpopulations on Spitzbergen to a physicist s creation of muon tracks in a cloud chamber, orfrom a set of equations in the mathematical imagination to a vast computer model of theworld s climate.

　　用科學(xué)的方法處理問題就是將這些問題轉(zhuǎn)化成易管理且可操作的抽象概念。喬艾格將近代眾多科學(xué)史家的見解都融入在他的新作當中，真可謂是大膽的創(chuàng)作。在這本書中你將會看到野外生物學(xué)家對于斯匹茨卑根群島上的旅鼠種群的闡述，物理學(xué)家在云室里創(chuàng)建的介子軌跡，利用數(shù)學(xué)概念思考出的一組方程式，以及巨型計算機模型中的全球氣候。

　　Doing science is making these abstractions. The history of science is understanding howparticular abstractions come to be accepted as the right way of producing solutionsandhow problems get chosen in the first place. Sometimes the problems are those of the peoplepaying for the science; sometimes they are posed by developments the scientists areinterested in; sometimes they are problems that grow out of science itself.

　　科學(xué)研究就是這么抽象。科學(xué)史就是在逐步認知如何以適當?shù)姆绞浇鉀Q某些特殊的抽象事物，使它們被大眾接受，以及如何在第一時間發(fā)現(xiàn)所面臨的問題。有些時候是獻身科學(xué)事業(yè)的人們遺留了許多問題，有時候是科學(xué)家們針對他們所感興趣的發(fā)展領(lǐng)域而提出了某些問題，而有時是科學(xué)本身產(chǎn)生了問題。

　　As Mr Agar shows, the great problem-posing processes of the 20th century were its wars.The two world wars and the cold war ratcheted up the spending on science, changing itsorganisational basis, its political setting and its subject matter. The less obvious aspects ofwar and sciencefor example, the introduction of psychoanalysis into British medicinecourtesy of shellshockare given their due, as well as the central Faustian tragedy of thedevelopment of the atom bomb.

　　正如艾格先生所說，許多重大問題都是在二十世紀的戰(zhàn)爭期間被提出的。二戰(zhàn)和冷戰(zhàn)都加大了花費在科學(xué)上面的時間和精力，改變了其組織基礎(chǔ)、政治環(huán)境和作戰(zhàn)目的。而戰(zhàn)爭和科學(xué)較不明顯的方面也受到了一定的關(guān)注，例如，由于彈震癥的出現(xiàn)將精神分析學(xué)引入英國醫(yī)學(xué)中，又如原子彈的研發(fā)也受到了某種認可。

　　The bomb that graces the cover of the book has come to stand for the power of science.But Mr Agar s history is more illuminating on the less obvious story of science s role inproblems of control. Throughout the book, the reader is struck by how much people haveseen a lack of control over others as a problem, and science as a source of solutions.

　　一朵核爆蘑菇云出現(xiàn)在本書精美的封面上，引申出強大的科學(xué)力量。但是艾格先生更傾向于闡述科學(xué)在控制問題上所起到的作用，即使這個作用并非顯而易見。通讀全書，讀者會震驚于因為缺乏控制而在諸多方面所引起的問題，而科學(xué)便是解決這一問題的唯一途徑。

　　Lewis Terman, developer of intelligence tests, for example, dreamed of psychology asa science of human engineering in the 1920s. Eugenicists sought, by combining, in thewords of J.B.S. Haldane, the offices of the policeman, the priest and the procurer, tocontrol both the actions of their social inferiors and the course of evolution. Devotees andfellow travellers, such as Julian Huxley and H.G. Wells, saw in the biological sciences theultimate collective control of human destinies. The Rockefeller Foundation dreamed ofbringing the dangerous psychobiology of sex under rational control as part of itsScience of Man programme. And Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, sought to combinethe human and the machine into a systeminitially, but not only, an anti-aircraft systemthat was defined by the way in which it controlled itself.

　　舉例來說，智力測驗的開發(fā)者路易斯推曼在1920年代將心理學(xué)設(shè)想為人體工程學(xué)。優(yōu)生學(xué)家根據(jù)遺傳學(xué)家霍爾丹的學(xué)說，并與警方、牧師和拉皮條者通力合作，力圖控制弱勢群體的行為和人類的進化過程。像朱利安赫胥黎這樣的生物學(xué)家和與其志同道合的赫伯特喬治威爾斯認為生物科學(xué)可最終控制的人類的整體命運。作為人類科學(xué)計劃的一部分，洛克菲勒基金會希望對危險的性心理生物學(xué)進行理性控制。控制論的創(chuàng)立者諾伯特維納力圖將人類和機器結(jié)合在一個系統(tǒng)中，即防空系統(tǒng)，這是最初的形式，但并非單一形式，該系統(tǒng)的性質(zhì)是自控。

　　At first blush these look like futures that simply failed. But the story is more complex.The Rockefeller Foundation s vision of a Science of Man led it to foster a new molecularbiology at CalTech and other institutions. Today s control of crops through their genes andchildren through their pharmaceuticals can both be traced back, in part, to thatintervention. And then there is the remarkable story of Song Jian. A Chinese engineer whohad been schooled in control theory in Moscow just after Stalin s death , he rose to pre-eminence in China s military-industrial complex. Attending a meeting on control theory inHelsinki in the 1970s, he became convinced of the power of crude computer models likethose of the Club of Rome s Limits to Growth. Importing such modelling to his power baseat the Chinese missile and space-flight ministry he became crucial in the enactment ofthe one-child policy in the 1980s.

　　乍看下，這些內(nèi)容毫無希望可言，但其實并非如此。洛克菲勒基金會對于人類科學(xué)的愿景促使其在加州理工學(xué)院和其他院校發(fā)展了分子生物學(xué)這個新學(xué)科。如今，通過基因可以對農(nóng)作物進行控制，并且通過藥物能對兒童進行控制，在某種程度上都能對事物進行一定的干預(yù)。接下來看一看宋健的非凡故事。他是一名中國工程師，就在斯大林病逝后不久，他前往莫斯科學(xué)習(xí)控制理論，隨后在中國的共軍聯(lián)合體中成為一名出類拔萃的人物。1970年代，宋健在赫爾辛基參加了一場有關(guān)控制理論的會議，他開始認識到原始計算機模型的力量，正如羅馬俱樂部發(fā)表的《增長的極限》依據(jù)的計算機模型一樣，隨后他便將這類模型引入他在中國導(dǎo)彈與航天部門的動能基地加以研究。他也是1980年代獨生子女政策的主要制定者。

　　Mr Agar s book is somewhat biased towards the physical sciences and it has some oddgaps. Seeing the molecular biology of the 1960s as an information science, Mr Agar overlooksPeter Mitchell, whose breakthrough in understanding that cells store energy, not inmolecules, but in potential differences revealed an aspect of life hitherto undreamed of.There is nothing on the fluoridation of water, and too little on nutrition.

　　艾格先生在書中對自然科學(xué)的存有一些偏見，但該書在某些領(lǐng)域的也有空白。他不僅將1960年代的分子生物學(xué)視為信息科學(xué)，還忽視了彼得米切爾的觀點，這位生物化學(xué)家的一項突破性研究是細胞能夠通過電位差而不是分子儲存能量，這個理論體現(xiàn)在生活中的方方面面，至今為止都讓人類難以想象。書中也沒有對飲水加氟法進行闡述，在營養(yǎng)學(xué)方面也較少被提及。

　　Some of the later material on trends too close to the present might well have beenomitted. Given the central role of war, a book limited to what Eric Hobsbawm has called theshort 20th century1914 to 1991might have served better. But overall, Mr Agar hasabstracted and made manageable a range of rich and informed analysis. Anyone whothinks seriously about science, and about how it is used, will find it a very useful source ofnew ways to appreciate both problems and solutions.

　　后期對科學(xué)趨勢的一些研究由于很接近當今的研究而被省略了。鑒于埃里克霍布斯鮑姆稱二十世紀乃是個短暫的世紀，以及戰(zhàn)爭在本書起到的核心作用，這樣的安排比較妥當。但總體來說，艾格先生在本書中做出了一系列充分且通透的分析，雖然抽象，但易于掌握。認真研究并運用科學(xué)的人都會發(fā)現(xiàn)書中許多有用的科學(xué)方法會幫助他們解決問題并發(fā)現(xiàn)對策。

　　What is it for

　　科學(xué)究竟有什么用

　　Scinece in the 20th century and beyond; by JonAgar;

　　20世紀后科學(xué);喬艾格著;

　　SCIENCE works with problems by making them into manageable, manipulableabstractions. Jon Agar s ambitious new book sets out to synthesise the insights of manyrecent historians of science. These might be anything from a field biologist s notes of lemmingpopulations on Spitzbergen to a physicist s creation of muon tracks in a cloud chamber, orfrom a set of equations in the mathematical imagination to a vast computer model of theworld s climate.

　　用科學(xué)的方法處理問題就是將這些問題轉(zhuǎn)化成易管理且可操作的抽象概念。喬艾格將近代眾多科學(xué)史家的見解都融入在他的新作當中，真可謂是大膽的創(chuàng)作。在這本書中你將會看到野外生物學(xué)家對于斯匹茨卑根群島上的旅鼠種群的闡述，物理學(xué)家在云室里創(chuàng)建的介子軌跡，利用數(shù)學(xué)概念思考出的一組方程式，以及巨型計算機模型中的全球氣候。

　　Doing science is making these abstractions. The history of science is understanding howparticular abstractions come to be accepted as the right way of producing solutionsandhow problems get chosen in the first place. Sometimes the problems are those of the peoplepaying for the science; sometimes they are posed by developments the scientists areinterested in; sometimes they are problems that grow out of science itself.

　　科學(xué)研究就是這么抽象。科學(xué)史就是在逐步認知如何以適當?shù)姆绞浇鉀Q某些特殊的抽象事物，使它們被大眾接受，以及如何在第一時間發(fā)現(xiàn)所面臨的問題。有些時候是獻身科學(xué)事業(yè)的人們遺留了許多問題，有時候是科學(xué)家們針對他們所感興趣的發(fā)展領(lǐng)域而提出了某些問題，而有時是科學(xué)本身產(chǎn)生了問題。

　　As Mr Agar shows, the great problem-posing processes of the 20th century were its wars.The two world wars and the cold war ratcheted up the spending on science, changing itsorganisational basis, its political setting and its subject matter. The less obvious aspects ofwar and sciencefor example, the introduction of psychoanalysis into British medicinecourtesy of shellshockare given their due, as well as the central Faustian tragedy of thedevelopment of the atom bomb.

　　正如艾格先生所說，許多重大問題都是在二十世紀的戰(zhàn)爭期間被提出的。二戰(zhàn)和冷戰(zhàn)都加大了花費在科學(xué)上面的時間和精力，改變了其組織基礎(chǔ)、政治環(huán)境和作戰(zhàn)目的。而戰(zhàn)爭和科學(xué)較不明顯的方面也受到了一定的關(guān)注，例如，由于彈震癥的出現(xiàn)將精神分析學(xué)引入英國醫(yī)學(xué)中，又如原子彈的研發(fā)也受到了某種認可。

　　The bomb that graces the cover of the book has come to stand for the power of science.But Mr Agar s history is more illuminating on the less obvious story of science s role inproblems of control. Throughout the book, the reader is struck by how much people haveseen a lack of control over others as a problem, and science as a source of solutions.

　　一朵核爆蘑菇云出現(xiàn)在本書精美的封面上，引申出強大的科學(xué)力量。但是艾格先生更傾向于闡述科學(xué)在控制問題上所起到的作用，即使這個作用并非顯而易見。通讀全書，讀者會震驚于因為缺乏控制而在諸多方面所引起的問題，而科學(xué)便是解決這一問題的唯一途徑。

　　Lewis Terman, developer of intelligence tests, for example, dreamed of psychology asa science of human engineering in the 1920s. Eugenicists sought, by combining, in thewords of J.B.S. Haldane, the offices of the policeman, the priest and the procurer, tocontrol both the actions of their social inferiors and the course of evolution. Devotees andfellow travellers, such as Julian Huxley and H.G. Wells, saw in the biological sciences theultimate collective control of human destinies. The Rockefeller Foundation dreamed ofbringing the dangerous psychobiology of sex under rational control as part of itsScience of Man programme. And Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, sought to combinethe human and the machine into a systeminitially, but not only, an anti-aircraft systemthat was defined by the way in which it controlled itself.

　　舉例來說，智力測驗的開發(fā)者路易斯推曼在1920年代將心理學(xué)設(shè)想為人體工程學(xué)。優(yōu)生學(xué)家根據(jù)遺傳學(xué)家霍爾丹的學(xué)說，并與警方、牧師和拉皮條者通力合作，力圖控制弱勢群體的行為和人類的進化過程。像朱利安赫胥黎這樣的生物學(xué)家和與其志同道合的赫伯特喬治威爾斯認為生物科學(xué)可最終控制的人類的整體命運。作為人類科學(xué)計劃的一部分，洛克菲勒基金會希望對危險的性心理生物學(xué)進行理性控制。控制論的創(chuàng)立者諾伯特維納力圖將人類和機器結(jié)合在一個系統(tǒng)中，即防空系統(tǒng)，這是最初的形式，但并非單一形式，該系統(tǒng)的性質(zhì)是自控。

　　At first blush these look like futures that simply failed. But the story is more complex.The Rockefeller Foundation s vision of a Science of Man led it to foster a new molecularbiology at CalTech and other institutions. Today s control of crops through their genes andchildren through their pharmaceuticals can both be traced back, in part, to thatintervention. And then there is the remarkable story of Song Jian. A Chinese engineer whohad been schooled in control theory in Moscow just after Stalin s death , he rose to pre-eminence in China s military-industrial complex. Attending a meeting on control theory inHelsinki in the 1970s, he became convinced of the power of crude computer models likethose of the Club of Rome s Limits to Growth. Importing such modelling to his power baseat the Chinese missile and space-flight ministry he became crucial in the enactment ofthe one-child policy in the 1980s.

　　乍看下，這些內(nèi)容毫無希望可言，但其實并非如此。洛克菲勒基金會對于人類科學(xué)的愿景促使其在加州理工學(xué)院和其他院校發(fā)展了分子生物學(xué)這個新學(xué)科。如今，通過基因可以對農(nóng)作物進行控制，并且通過藥物能對兒童進行控制，在某種程度上都能對事物進行一定的干預(yù)。接下來看一看宋健的非凡故事。他是一名中國工程師，就在斯大林病逝后不久，他前往莫斯科學(xué)習(xí)控制理論，隨后在中國的共軍聯(lián)合體中成為一名出類拔萃的人物。1970年代，宋健在赫爾辛基參加了一場有關(guān)控制理論的會議，他開始認識到原始計算機模型的力量，正如羅馬俱樂部發(fā)表的《增長的極限》依據(jù)的計算機模型一樣，隨后他便將這類模型引入他在中國導(dǎo)彈與航天部門的動能基地加以研究。他也是1980年代獨生子女政策的主要制定者。

　　Mr Agar s book is somewhat biased towards the physical sciences and it has some oddgaps. Seeing the molecular biology of the 1960s as an information science, Mr Agar overlooksPeter Mitchell, whose breakthrough in understanding that cells store energy, not inmolecules, but in potential differences revealed an aspect of life hitherto undreamed of.There is nothing on the fluoridation of water, and too little on nutrition.

　　艾格先生在書中對自然科學(xué)的存有一些偏見，但該書在某些領(lǐng)域的也有空白。他不僅將1960年代的分子生物學(xué)視為信息科學(xué)，還忽視了彼得米切爾的觀點，這位生物化學(xué)家的一項突破性研究是細胞能夠通過電位差而不是分子儲存能量，這個理論體現(xiàn)在生活中的方方面面，至今為止都讓人類難以想象。書中也沒有對飲水加氟法進行闡述，在營養(yǎng)學(xué)方面也較少被提及。

　　Some of the later material on trends too close to the present might well have beenomitted. Given the central role of war, a book limited to what Eric Hobsbawm has called theshort 20th century1914 to 1991might have served better. But overall, Mr Agar hasabstracted and made manageable a range of rich and informed analysis. Anyone whothinks seriously about science, and about how it is used, will find it a very useful source ofnew ways to appreciate both problems and solutions.

　　后期對科學(xué)趨勢的一些研究由于很接近當今的研究而被省略了。鑒于埃里克霍布斯鮑姆稱二十世紀乃是個短暫的世紀，以及戰(zhàn)爭在本書起到的核心作用，這樣的安排比較妥當。但總體來說，艾格先生在本書中做出了一系列充分且通透的分析，雖然抽象，但易于掌握。認真研究并運用科學(xué)的人都會發(fā)現(xiàn)書中許多有用的科學(xué)方法會幫助他們解決問題并發(fā)現(xiàn)對策。