当代研究生英语读写教程上Unit3课文+翻译.doc

Unit 3
1 The first mistake is to think of mankind as a thing in itself. It isn’t.
第一个错误是把人看作是某种独立的事物。其实并不是。
It is part of an intricate web of life.
人是复杂的生命网络系统中的 一部分。
And we can’t think even of life as a thing in itself. It isn’t. 我们甚至不能将生命本身视为某种独立的事物。它确实不是。
It is part of the intricate structure of a planet bathed by energy from the Sun. 生命是一颗沐浴着太阳能的行星上的复杂结 构的一部分。
2 The Earth, in the nearly 5 billion years since it assumed approximately its present form, has undergone a vast evolution.
地球自从呈目前的形状近 50 亿年以来，已经历了一场巨大的演变。
When it first came into being, it very likely lacked what we would today call an ocean and an atmosphere. 在形成的初期，地球上很可能没有我们今天 称之为海洋和大气层之类的东西。
These were formed by the gradual outward movement of material as the solid interior settled together.
当地球的内部固体紧压在一起时，物质的逐渐向外运动就形成了海洋和大气层。
3 Nor were ocean, atmosphere, and solid crust independent of each other after formation. 地球形成之后，海洋、大气层以及坚固的地壳之间也并非相互独立。
There is interaction always: evaporation, condensation, solution, weathering.
它们之间总有相互作用：蒸发，凝结，溶 解，风化，等等。
Far within the solid crust there are slow, continuing changes, too, of which hot springs, volcanoes, and earthquakes are the more noticeable manifestations here on the surface.
在坚固的地壳内很深之处也有不断的缓慢变化，其中温泉、火山、以及地震是在地球表面上较为 引人注目的地质运动。
4 Between 2 billion and 3 billion years ago, portions of the surface water, bathed by the energetic radiation from the Sun, developed complicated compounds in organization sufficiently versatile to qualify as what we call "life".在 20 亿到 30 亿年前期间，一部分地球表面的水在太阳能的作用下，形成了结构复杂的化合物，这些化合物灵 活多变，足以形成我们称之为“生命”的东西。
Life forms have become more complex and more various ever since.
生命形式从那时起就变得更为复杂，更为丰富多彩。
5 But the life forms are as much part of the structure of the Earth as any inanimate portion is.
但是生命形式和地球上许多无生命的部分一样，是地球结构中的一部分。
It is all an inseparable part of a whole.
它是整个地球体系中不可分割的一部 分。
If any animal is isolated totally from other forms of life, then death by starvation will surely follow.
如果把任何动物与其他的生物形式完全隔离开，那么该动物肯定要饿死。
If isolated from water, death by dehydration will follow even faster. 要是没有水，由于脱水很快就会死亡。
If isolated from air, whether free or dissolved in water, death by asphyxiation will follow still faster.
要是没有空气，不论是充分的空气还是溶于水的空气。动物会因窒息死得更快。
If isolated from the Sun, animals will survive for a time, but plants would die, and if all plants died, all animals would starve.
要是没有太阳，动物可能会存活一 段时间，但是植物会枯死，如果所有植物枯死，那么所有的动物将会饿死。
6 It works in reverse, too, for the inanimate portion of Earth is shaped and molded by life.
反过来情况也一样。地球的无机世界是由生命造就成形的。
The nature of the atmosphere has been changed by plant activity (which adds to the air the free oxygen it could not otherwise retain).
大气层的性质已经被植物活动所改变(植物活动给空气增添了大量的游离氧气，而这是通过其他方式所不能获取的)。
The soil is turned by earthworms, while enormous ocean reefs are formed by coral.
蚯蚓翻松土壤，珊瑚形成一 个个巨大的海礁。
7 The entire planet, plus solar energy, is one enormous intricately interrelated system.
整个地球，加上太阳能，形成了一个错综复杂、相互联系的巨大系统。
The entire planet is a life form made up of nonliving portions and a large variety of living portions (as our own body is made up of nonliving crystals in bones and nonliving water in blood, as well as of a large variety of living portions).
整个星球是一种由无机部分和各种各样 的有机生命构成的生命形式(正如我们自己身体那样，既是由各种各样的有机邵分构成，又是由骨骼中的无机晶体和 血液中的无机水分所构成)。
8 In fact, we can pursue the analogy.
事实上，我们可以将上述类推继续进行下去。
A man is composed of 50 trillion cells of a variety of types, all interrelated and interdependent. 人是由各种类型的细胞构成的，这些细胞多达 50 万亿，它们之间相互 联系，相互依赖。
Loss of some of those cells, such as those making up an entire leg, will seriously handicap all the rest of the organism: serious damage to a relatively few cells in an organ, such as the heart or kidneys, may end by killing all 50 trillion. 如果丧失某些细胞，比如说失去构成整条腿的那些细胞，将会严重影响有机体的其余部分；如果某一器官(如心脏或肾)中较少的细胞受到严重损害，可能会最终导致所有 50 万亿细胞的死亡。
9 In the same way, on a planetary scale, the chopping down of an entire forest may not threaten Earth’s life in general, but it will produce serious changes in the life forms of the region and even in the nature of the water runoff and, therefore, in the details of geological structure.
同样，从全地球的规模考虑，砍掉一整片森林不会在总体上对地球生命构成威胁，但是这样做会对该地区的生 态形式造成严重的影响，甚至会造成水的流失，因此引起地质结构的细微变化。
A serious decline in the bee population will affect the numbers of those plants that depend on bees for fertilization, then the numbers of those animals that depend on those particular bee-fertilized plants, and so on. 蜜蜂数量的大量减少将影响依赖蜜 蜂授粉的那些植物的数量，然后又影响到靠蜜蜂授粉的植物生存的动物的数量，依此类推。
10 Or consider cell growth. 还可以以细胞的生长为例。
Cells in those organs that suffer constant wear and tear—as in the skin or in the intestinal lining—grow and multiply all life long.
不断受到磨损的器官的细胞(如皮肤、肠内壁)自始至终都在不断发育、增长。Other cells, not so exposed, as in nerve and muscle, do not multiply at all in the adult, under any circumstances.
另外一些较为隐蔽的细胞，如神经细胞、肌肉细胞，在成年之后再也不会增长。
Still other organs, ordinarily quiescent, as liver and bone, stand ready to grow if that is necessary to replace damage.
还有一些器官，通常为肝脏和骨骼之类的 静止器官，在需要替换受损部位的时候随时可以生长。
When the proper repairs are made, growth stops.
当完成适当的修复任务以后，便停止生长。
11 In a much looser and more flexible way, the same is true of the "planet organism" (which we study in the science called ecology).
同样， “行星有机体”(这正是我们在生态学中研究的)也是如此，只不过是按照一种较为松散、更加灵活的方式 运行罢了。
If cougars grow too numerous, the deer they live on are decimated, and some of the cougars die of starvation, so that their "proper number" is restored. 如果美洲狮的数量太多，它们赖以生存的鹿就会被过度捕杀，一些美洲狮就会饿死。这样一来，美洲狮 就恢复到一个 “适当的数量”
If too many cougars die, then the deer multiply with particular rapidity, and cougars multiply quickly in turn, till the additional predators bring down the number of deer again.
如果美洲狮死得过多，那么鹿的数量就会迅速得到增长，美洲狮反过来就会迅速繁衍，直到新增加的美洲狮将鹿的数量再一次减少。
Barring interference from outside, the eaters and the eaten retain their proper numbers, and both are the better for it.
如果排除外界的干扰，食肉动物和被吃动物都保持一个适当的数量，这样对双方都有好处。
(If the cougars are all killed off, deer would multiply to the point where they destroy the plants they live off, and more would then die of starvation than would have died of cougars.)
(如果美洲狮被斩尽杀绝，鹿肯定会大量繁衍，直到吃光它们赖以生存的植物。这样，更多的 鹿会饿死，而不是葬身狮腹。)
12 The neat economy of growth within an organism such as a human being is sometimes—for what reason, we know not—disrupted, and a group of cells begins growing without limit.
某些有机组织(比如人)内的净增长有时候会受到干扰， 有机体中的部分细胞开始无限制地增长?这究竟是因为 什么原因，我们尚不得而知。

This is the dread disease of cancer, and unless that growing group of cells is somehow stopped, the wild growth will throw all the body structure out of true and end by killing the organism itself.
这就是令人生畏的癌症。除非以某种方式阻止癌细胞日益增长，否则疯长的癌细胞将 会扰乱整个身体的结构，最终导致有机体本身的死亡。
13 In ecology, the same would happen if, for some reason, one particular type of organism began to multiply without limit, killing its competitors and increasing its own food supply at the expense of that of others.
在生态学领域，如果出于某种原因，一种有机体开始无限度地不断繁衍，消灭竞争对手，以毁掉其他物类的食 物为代价来增加自己的食物，那么将会发生同样的情况。
That, too, could end in the destruction of the larger system—most or all of life and even of certain aspects of the inanimate environment. 这也可能会导致更大的生物体系的毁灭?? 绝大部分或所 有生命，甚至无生命环境中的某些方面。
14 And this is exactly what is happening at this moment. 这就是此时此刻正在发生的事。
For thousands of years, the single species Homo sapiens, to which you and I have the dubious honor of belonging, has been increasing in numbers.
数千年来，人类这惟一的种群在数量上一直不断上升。我们大家都属于这一种 群，这可说不上是什么光彩的事。
In the past couple of centuries, the rate of increase has itself increased explosively.
在过去几世纪，人口增长率一直呈爆炸趋势。
15 At the time of Julius Caesar, when Earth’s human population is estimated to have been 150 million, that population was increasing at such a rate that it would double in 1000 years if that rate remained steady.
在凯撒时代，世界人口估计为　1.5 亿。如果按当时那样的速度平稳地增长，世界人口再 1,000 年增加一倍。
Today, with Earth‘s population estimated at about 4000 million (26 times what it was in Caesar’s time), it is increasing at a rate which, if steady, will cause it to double in 35 years.
今天，世界人口大约为 40 亿(是凯撒时代的 26 倍)，如果目前的增长率稳定不变，那么世界人口 将在 35 年之后翻倍。
16 The present rate of increase of Earth’s swarming human population qualifies Homo sapiens as an ecological cancer, which will destroy the ecology just as surely as any ordinary cancer would destroy an organism.
目前世界人口的急剧增长率使人类可以被称为生态恶性肿瘤。这种恶性肿瘤肯定会摧毁 生态环静正如普通的癌细胞会摧毁人的肌体一样。
17 The cure? Just what it is for any cancer. The cancerous growth must somehow be stopped.
有什么治疗方法吗?正如任何癌症的治疗方法一样，必须以某种方式使癌细胞停止增长。
18 Of course, it will be. If we do nothing at all, the growth will stop, as a cancerous growth in a man will stop if nothing is done. The man dies and the cancer dies with him. And analogously, the ecology will die and man will die with it.
当然，它会停止增长的。如果我们不采取任何措施，这种增长终将停止，就像人体中癌细胞的增长一样，不加 治疗，人死了，癌细胞也随之死亡。与此类似，生态也会毁灭，人类也会随之灭亡。
19 How can the human population explosion be stopped? By raising the death rate or by lowering the birthrate.
那么怎样才能制止人口爆炸?要么提高死亡率，要么降低出生率。
There are no other alternatives. The death rate will rise spontaneously and finally catastrophically, if we do nothing—and that within a few decades.
除此之外，再没有别的选择了。如果我们不采取任何措施，在未来几十年中死亡率将会自动上升，而且最终将极具灾难性。
To make the birthrate fall, somehow (almost any how, in fact), is surely preferable, and that is therefore the first order of mankind’s business today.不管怎样(事实上，几乎可以说无论如何)，使出生率下降肯定更为可取，因此这是人类今天应着手解决的头等大事。
20 Failing this, mankind would stand at the bar of abstract justice (for there may be no posterity to judge) as the mass murderer of life generally, his own included, and mass disrupter of the intricate planetary development that made life in its present glory possible in the first place.
如果人类处理不好这一问题， 那就会作为大规模杀害生灵(包括杀害自身)的凶手， 作为大规模破坏地球错综复杂的进化发展(是这种进化发展最初形成了目前生命的繁荣景象)的罪魁祸首而受到抽象正义法庭的审判?? 因为到那时可 能已没有子孙后代来审判他了。