26. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out, "A technologist thinks about objects that can not be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions: they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process...The designer and the inventor.., are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist".
[参考译文] 正如尤金·弗格森所指出的那样:"一个技术专家思考那些不能被简化成 能被清楚的语言描述的东西。这些东西在他的思维中是通过一种视觉的、非语言表述的过程宋处理的设计者和发明者能够在他们的脑中装配并作那些还不存在的装置。"
27. Robert Fulton once wrote, "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheel, etc, like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea".
[参考译文] 罗伯特·法欧特曾经这样写到:"一个技师会坐在杠杆、螺丝钉、楔子、 轮子等等当中,就像一个诗人沉浸在字母表的字母中,把这些字母看成自己思想的展示,在这样的展示中,每种新的次序安排都传达了一种新的思想。"
28. In the last three chapters, he takes off his gloves and gives the creationists a good beating. He describes their programs and, tactics, and, for those unfamiliar with the ways of creationists, the extent of their deception and distortion may come as an unpleasant surprise.
[参考译文] 在最后三章中,他脱下手套,将神造论者好好地揍了一顿。他描述了他 们的活动和战术,而且,对于那些对神造论者的做事方式刁;熟悉的人来说,神造论者的欺骗和扭曲事实的程度可能会令这些人有一种不快的诧异。
29. On the dust jacket of this fine book, Stephen Jay Gould says: "This book stands for reason itself." And so it does-and all wound be well were reason the only judge in the creationism/evolution debate.
[参考译文] 在这本杰出的书的外纸封面上,史蒂芬·杰伊·古尔德写道:"这本书本 身就代表理性。"而它确实是这样的--而且如果理性成为神造论/地化论之间的辩论中的惟一评判标准的话,一切就都好办了。
30. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australia's Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die.
[参考译文] 经过了六个月的争论以及最后16个小时激烈的议会辩论,澳大利亚北部地区成了世界上第一个允许医生终止希望死去的绝症病人生命的立法当局。
31. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back.
[参考译文] 一些机构终于松了一口气,但是其他一些机构,包括教堂,倡导生命之 权的团体和澳大利亚医学协会,尖锐地抨击这个法案,指责法案的通过过于匆忙。但是大势已定,不可逆转。
32. In Australia- where an aging population, life-extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their partother states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia.
[参考译文] 在澳大利亚--人口老龄化,延长寿命的技术和变化看的社会态度,这些因素都在发挥作用一一其他的州也会考虑制定相似的关于安乐死的法律。
33. There are, of course, exceptions. Small--minded officials, rude waiters, and ill mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet it is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment.
[参考译文] 当然,例外是存在的。在美国,心胸狭窄的官员,粗鲁的传者,和没有 礼貌的出租车司机也并不少见。然而人们常常得出这样的观察意见,这使得它值得被讨论一下。
34. We live in a society in which the medicinal and social use of substances (drugs) is pervasive: an aspirin to quiet a headache, some wine to be sociable, coffee to get going in the morning, a cigarette for the nerves.
[参考译文] 我们生活在一种药品(毒品)的医学用途和社会用途都很广泛的社会里: 一片用来止头痛的阿斯匹林,一些用来社交的葡萄酒,早上自己提提神所喝的咖啡,一支用来定神的香烟。
35. Dependence is marked first by an increased tolerance, with more and more of the substance required to produce the desired effect, and then by the appearance of unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the substance is discontinued.
[参考译文] 对药品的依赖性首先表现为不断增长的耐药量,要产生想得到的效果所需要的药品剂量越来越大,然后表现为当停止用药后,令人不快的停药症状的出现。
36. "Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers?" Senator Robert Dole asked Time Warner executives last week. "You have sold your souls, but must you corrupt our nation and threaten our children as well?"
[参考译文] 上星期参议员罗博特多尔质问时代华纳公司的高级管理人员们:"难道这 就是你们希望能够成就的事业?你们已经出卖了自己的灵魂,但是难道你们还非要腐化我们的国家,威胁我们的孩子们吗?"
37. "The test of any democratic society, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column', "lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude, however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be..."
[参考译文] "对任何一个民主社会的考验,"他在《华尔街杂志》的一个专栏文章中 写到,"不在于它能够多有效地控制各种意见的表达,而在于这个社会是否能给予思考和表达的尽可能广泛的自由,不管有时候这种结果是多么的富有争议或令人不快…"
38. During the discussion of rock singing verses at last month's stockholders' meeting, Levin asserted that "music is not the cause of society's ills" and even cited his son, a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who uses rap to communicate with students.
[参考译文] 在-上个月的股东大会上关于摇滚歌词的讨论中,莱文宣称说:"音乐不是 社会问题的原因",他甚至还以他的儿子为例。他的儿子是纽约州布朗克斯的一个教师,并用说唱音乐与学生们进行沟通。
39. Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as "steering the economy to a soft landing" of "a touch on the brakes" , makes it sound like a precise science. Nothing could be further from the truth.
[参考译文] 有很多用于描述货币政策的词汇,例如"轻踩刹车"以"操纵经济软着陆",使货币政策听起来像是一门精确的科学。没有什么比这更远离实际情况的了。
40. Economists have been particularly surprised by favorable inflation figures in Britain and the United States, since, conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America's, have little productive slack.
[参考译文] 经济学家们对英国和美国的有利的通货膨胀数据尤其感到惊讶,因为传 统的计量方法显示两国的经济,特别是美国的经济,几乎没有生产萧条的时候。
41. The most thrilling explanation is, unfortunately, a little defective. Some economists argue that powerful structural changes in the world have upended the old economic models that were based upon the historical link between growth and inflation.
[参考译文] 很不幸,这最令人震惊的解释有一点缺陷。一些经济学家认为世界经济结构的强有力的变化已经结束了那个以经济增长和通货膨胀的历史关联为基础的旧的经济模式。
42. The Aswan Dam, for example, stopped the Nile flooding but deprived Egypt of the fertile silt that floods left-all in return for a giant reservoir of disease which is now so full of silt that it barely generates electricity.
[参考译文] 例如,阿斯旺大坝使得尼罗河不再洪水泛滥,但是它也夺去了埃及以前 所享有的洪水留下的肥沃淤泥--这些换宋的就是这么个疾病滋生的水库,现在这个水库积满了淤泥,几乎不能发电了。
43. New ways of organizing the workplace--all that re-engineering and downsizing--are only one contribution to the overall productivity of an economy, which is driven by many other factors such as joint investment in equipment and machinery, new technology, and investment in education and training.
[参考译文] 企业重组的新方法--所有那些重新设计、缩小规模的做法--只是对 一个经济的整体生产力做出了一方面的贡献。这种经济还受许多其他因素的驱动,比如结合设备和机械上的投资、新技术,以及在教育和培训上的投资。
44. His colleague, Michael Beer, says that far too many companies have applied re-engineering in a mechanistic fashion, chopping out costs without giving sufficient thought to long-term profitability.
[参考译文] 他的同事迈克尔·比尔说,有太多的公司已经用一种机械的方式实行公司内部的重新设计,在没有充分考虑长期赢利的能力下削减了成本。
45. Defenders of science have also voiced their concerns at meetings such as "The Flight from S.cience and Reason" , held in New York City in 1995, and "Science in the Age of (Mis) information, which assembled last June near Buffalo.
[参考译文] 科学卫士们在会议上也表述了他们的关注,比如1995年在纽约市举行的 "逃离科学与理性"会议,以及去年6月在布法罗附近召开的"(错误) 信息时代的科学"会议。
46. A survey of news stories in 1996 reveals that the antiscience tag has been attached to many other groups as well, from authorities who advocated the elimination of the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to Republicans who advocated decreased funding for basic research.
[参考译文] 一项关于1996年新闻报道的调查显示,反科学的标签还可以贴在许多其 他团体身上,从提倡消灭最后存留的天花病毒的权威机构,到鼓吹削减基础研究经费的共和党人(都被贴上了反科学的标签)。
47. The 'true enemies of science, argues Paul Ehrllch of Stanford University, a pioneer of environmental studies, are those who question the evidence supporting global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and other consequences of industrial growth.
[参考译文] 环境研究的先驱、斯坦福大学的保罗·厄尔里西认为,科学真正的敌人 是那些对支持全球变暖、臭氧层损耗以及工业发展的其他后果的证据提出置疑的人。
48. This development--and its strong implication for US politics and economy in years ahead--has enthroned the South as America's most densely populated region for the first time in the history of the nation's head counting.
[参考译文] 这种发展--以及其对美国政治、经济在未来几年的潜在的强有力的影 响一一使得南部在全国人口普查中有史以来首次成为美国人口最密集的地区。
49. Often they choose--and still are choosing--somewhat colder climates such as Oregon, Idaho and Alaska in order to escape smog.crime and other plagues of urbanization in the Golden State.
[参考译文] 他们常常选择--现在依然这样选择--居住在那些气候较为寒冷的地区, 比如俄勒冈、爱达荷,还有阿拉斯加,为的是逃避烟雾、犯罪, 以及"金州"(加利福尼亚)城市化进程中的其他问题。
50. As a result, California's growth rate dropped during the 1970's, to 18.5 percent--little more than two thirds the 1960's growth figure and considerably below that of other Western states.
[参考译文] 结果,加利福尼亚的人口增长率在20世纪70年代时下降到了18.5%一 一稍高于60年代增长率的三分之二,大大低于西部其他各州。