2018年翻譯資格考試中級筆譯模擬題：世界實驗室
英譯漢
The World Wide Lab
The 20th century was the golden age of the laboratory. Answers to the great research questions were sought within sheltered chambers, where small groups of specialized experts scaled down (or up) phenomena in joyful isolation. Call it the era of trickle-down science: knowledge emerged from a confined center of rational enlightenment, then slowly became known to the rest of society. Science was what was made inside the walls where white coats were at work. Outside the laboratories boundaries began the realm of mere experience—not experiment.
Today, all this is changing. Indeed, it would be an understatement to say that soon nothing, absolutely nothing, will be left of this top-down model of scientific influence.
First, the laboratory has extended its walls to the whole planet. Instruments are everywhere. Houses, factories, and hospitals have become lab outposts. Think, for instance, of global positioning systems: thanks to satellite networks, geologists and biologists can now take measurements outside their laboratories with the same degree of precision they achieve inside. Meanwhile, a worldwide network of environmental sensors monitors the planet in real time. And research satellites observe it from above, as if the earth were under a microscope. The difference between outdoor science and lab science has slowly eroded.
Second, you no longer need a white coat or a Ph.D. to research specific questions. Take the AFM, a French patient advocacy group that focuses on ignored genetic diseases. It has hired researchers, pushed for controversial procedures like genetic therapy, and built an entire industry, producing at once a new social identity and a new research agenda. In the U.S., the audacity to challenge the experts, to storm the labs, started with AIDS activists and breast cancer groups; not it has spread to interested parties of all sorts, from patients who organize their own clinical trials to environmentalists who do their won fieldwork. A crucial part of doing science is formulating the questions to be solved; it’s clear that scientists are no longer alone in this endeavor.
Third, there is the question of scale. The size and complexity of scientific phenomena under examination has grown to the point that scaling them down to fit in a laboratory is becoming increasingly difficult. Think of global warming: to be sure, labs are running complex models on huge computers. But how do you simulate a phenomenon that is happening on us, with us, through the action of each of us as much as those of entire oceans and the high atmosphere? If the working hypothesis for global warming is that it’s a product of human activity, isn’t the only way to test this hypothesis to stop our harmful emissions and see—later and collectively—what has happened?
The sharp divide between a scientific inside, where experts are formulating theories, and a political outside, where non-experts are getting by with human values, is evaporating. And the more it does, the more the fate of humans is linked to that of things, the more a scientific statement(“the earth is warming)resembles a political one(“the earth is warming!). The matters of fact of science become matters of concern of politics.
參考譯文:
20世紀是實驗室的黃金時期。一組一組的專家們抱著愉快的心情躲在實驗室里分析各種現(xiàn)象，他們正是在這些隱蔽的實驗室探索那些偉大研究課題的答案。我們把這個叫做滴入式科學時代，即研究成果先從實驗室出來，然后再慢慢向社會傳播�？茖W是實驗室里那些穿大白褂的研究人員得出的。研究室之外是實踐的領(lǐng)域——而不是實驗。
今天，所有的這一切都變了。當然，說在科學影響方面這種自上而下的模式將不復(fù)存在，只是輕描淡寫。
首先，實驗室已將領(lǐng)域擴張到了全世界，到處都是儀器。房子，工廠，醫(yī)院已經(jīng)成了實驗場所。比方說全球定位系統(tǒng)：由于衛(wèi)星的覆蓋網(wǎng)絡(luò)，地質(zhì)學家和生物學家可以在實驗室外面進行測量而且精確度和在實驗室里測量的一樣。同時，全球的環(huán)境監(jiān)測器隨時對地球進行觀察，就仿佛把地球置于一個顯微鏡下面。室外科學和實驗室科學之間的差異正在慢慢消失。
其次，不再非得是穿白大褂的研究人員或者是博士才可以對具體的問題進行研究。像AFM，一個法國病人組織，主要針對不被重視的基因疾病。這個組織專門請了研究人員，力圖在諸如基因治療這樣備受爭議的研究上取得進展，而且他們建立了一整套體系，這套體系在為該組織獲得新的社會地位的同時還設(shè)置了一個新的研究日程。在美國，關(guān)心艾滋病的活動家們和乳癌組織首先大膽地對專家們提出挑戰(zhàn)并且攻擊實驗室。這種影響現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)擴大到了各種利益集團，從自己組織臨床試驗的病人到親自進行實地調(diào)查的環(huán)境保護者。做科學最關(guān)鍵的就是闡述那些等待解決的問題，很顯然，在這方面科學家們不再是單獨的團體。
再次，還有范圍的問題。要想到等待檢測的科學現(xiàn)象的范圍縮小到適合實驗室的研究是越來越難了。想想全球變暖的問題：可以肯定的是，復(fù)雜的模型在實驗室里巨大的電腦上運行。但是怎么樣模擬我們身上以及周圍正在發(fā)生的現(xiàn)象?還有我們的行為所引起的整個海洋和大氣層上空所發(fā)生的現(xiàn)象?如果全球變暖是由人類活動的這一假設(shè)可行的話，那么檢測這個假設(shè)的唯一方法是不是就是停止釋放有害氣體然后集中來看會發(fā)生什么?
實驗室內(nèi)部是科學家們構(gòu)思假設(shè)的地方，而外部是非科學家們靠人類價值勉強維持的政治，這兩者之間的差異正在消失。而且，這種差異越消失，人類的命運就越與政治聯(lián)系在一起�？茖W的表述(地球正在變暖!)體現(xiàn)的是政治的表述(地球正在變暖!)�？茖W的事實變成了與政治利益有關(guān)的事情。
