2016年下半年翻譯考試初級(jí)筆譯資料(六)

　　Since Darwin, biologists have been-firmly convinced that nature works without plan or meaning, pursuing no aim by the direct road of design. But today we see that this conviction is a fatal error. Why should evolution, exactly as Darwin knew it and described it, be planless and irrational? Do not aircraft design engineers work, at precisely that point where specific calculations and plans give out, according to the same principle of evolution, when they test the serviceability of a great number of statistically determined forms in the wind tunnel, in order to choose the one that functions best? Can we say that there is no process of natural selection when nuclear physicists, through thousands of computer operations, try to find out which materials, in which combinations and with what structural form, are best suited to the building of an atomic reactor? They also practise no designed adaptation, but work by the principle of selection. But it would never occur to anyone to call their method planless and irrational.

　　【參考譯文】

　　達(dá)爾文以后的生物學(xué)家們一直相信，大自然的運(yùn)行是沒(méi)有計(jì)劃沒(méi)有意義的，不會(huì)按照預(yù)先設(shè)定的途徑實(shí)現(xiàn)任何目的。但是，今天我們知道，這一看法是個(gè)嚴(yán)重的錯(cuò)誤。為什么恰如達(dá)爾文所理解和描述的那樣，進(jìn)化就該是無(wú)計(jì)劃和無(wú)理性的呢?飛機(jī)設(shè)計(jì)師們利用風(fēng)洞檢測(cè)根據(jù)統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)制造的大量機(jī)體模型的耐用性能，在具體運(yùn)算和計(jì)劃不起作用的情況下，為選出功能最佳的設(shè)計(jì)，他們不也正是根據(jù)同樣的進(jìn)化原理進(jìn)行工作的嗎?核物理學(xué)家經(jīng)過(guò)上萬(wàn)次的計(jì)算機(jī)運(yùn)算，試圖找出哪些材料，以怎樣的結(jié)合方式，以及什么結(jié)構(gòu)形式最適宜用于建造原子核反應(yīng)堆，我們能夠說(shuō)這中間沒(méi)有自然選擇的過(guò)程么?他們進(jìn)行的適應(yīng)性調(diào)節(jié)也未經(jīng)過(guò)事先設(shè)計(jì)，而是根據(jù)選擇原理進(jìn)行的。但是人們從未認(rèn)為這種方法是無(wú)計(jì)劃、無(wú)理性的。