The first outline of The Ascent of Man was written in July 1969and the last foot of film was shot in December 1972. An undertaking aslarge as this, though wonderfully exhilarating, is not entered lightly. It demands an unflagging intellectual and physical vigour, a total immersion, which I had to be sure that I could sustain with pleasure; for instance, Ihad to put off researches that I had already begun; and I ought to explai-n what moved me to do so.

　　There has been a deep change in the temper of science in the last20 years: the focus of attention has shifted from the physical to the life sciences. As a result, science is drawn more and more to the study of in-dividuality. But the interested spectator is hardly aware yet how far-reaching the effect is in changing the image of man that science moulds. Asa mathematician trained in physics, I too would have been unaware, had not a series of lucky chances taken me into the life sciences in middle age. I owe a debt for the good fortune that carried me into two seminal fields of science in one lifetime; and though I do not know to whom the debt is due, I conceived The Ascent of Man in gratitude to repay it.

　　The invitation to me from the British Broadcasting Corporation was to present the development of science in a series of television programmes to match those of Lord Clark on Civilisation. Television is an admirable medium- for exposition in several ways: powerful and immediate to the eye, able to take the spectator bodily into the places and processes that are described, and conversational enough to make him conscious that what he witnesses are not events but the actions of people. The last of these merits is to my mind the most cogent, and it weighed most with me in agreeing to cast a personal biography of ideas in the form of television essays. The point is that knowledge in general and science in particular does not consist of abstract but of man-made ideas, all the way from its beginnings to its modern and idiosyncratic models. Therefore the underlying concepts that unlock nature must be shown to arise early and in the simplest cultures of man from his basic and specific faculties. And the development of science which joins them in more and more complex conjunctions must be seen to be equally human: discoveries are made by men, not merely by minds, so that they are alive and charged with individuality. If television is not used to make these thoughts concrete, it is wasted.

　　參考答案：

　　不是因?yàn)槲覀兒ε驴吹剿麜?huì)因失誤而給他輝煌的生涯畫上遺憾的一筆。從善意的角度說，我們想讓邁克知道，我們?nèi)匀恍蕾p他，至少在我們的記憶中，他仍然是英雄。事實(shí)上，我們不想讓他重返球場(chǎng)，即使他是邁克爾·喬丹。我們覺得這是個(gè)貿(mào)然之舉，我們不想看到自信的商標(biāo)蛻變成一種自負(fù)的象征。我們不想讓他重返球場(chǎng)，因?yàn)闆]有人喜歡賣弄。失誤呢?那將會(huì)很有趣。

　　但是我們是有著225年樂觀歷史的美國(guó)人，我們都是好心人。當(dāng)喬丹幾天前宣布他將在九月重返NBA時(shí)，我們?cè)鵀橹�一振。宣布的前一天，他說過：“我盼望能打球，并希望事情能如愿以償。有些人懷疑，有些人緊張，都屬正常。”《時(shí)代》周刊和美國(guó)有線新聞網(wǎng)上周做的一項(xiàng)民意調(diào)查表明，每?jī)蓚�(gè)美國(guó)人當(dāng)中就有一個(gè)人希望喬丹盡快重返賽場(chǎng)。只有21%的人們認(rèn)為，如果他的重返導(dǎo)致一場(chǎng)徹底失敗，將會(huì)損害他的傳奇。事實(shí)上只有28%的人認(rèn)為運(yùn)動(dòng)員應(yīng)該在他的運(yùn)動(dòng)巔峰時(shí)期引退。

　　與喬丹關(guān)系密切的人告訴《時(shí)代》周刊，當(dāng)喬丹第一次談到重返它與其他人共同擁有的華盛頓奇才隊(duì)并為之效力時(shí)，一些他最信任的顧問試圖私下打消他的愿望。“但他們說，如果試圖阻止他，只能鑒定他的決心，”一位NBA人士如是說。

　　喬丹復(fù)出所產(chǎn)生的問題不僅僅在于他不可能重現(xiàn)1998年的神話，那一年，他以一個(gè)精彩的最后一秒投籃，使球隊(duì)贏得了冠軍，也為自己贏得了第六只金指環(huán)。問題是他重返的動(dòng)機(jī)——他需要人們的關(guān)注，需要在38歲體力不支時(shí)，仍然打球。這一切都有悖于他所創(chuàng)造的神話——一個(gè)展示絕對(duì)控制力的神話。如果說二十世紀(jì)的第一個(gè)球星巴比·魯斯是一個(gè)身材魁梧肥胖的魯莽之夫和酒鬼天才，喬丹則證明了剛毅所能帶來的優(yōu)雅風(fēng)度，并以此結(jié)束了二十世紀(jì)。巴比對(duì)觀眾的頤指氣使被喬丹無奈聳肩的魅力所取代。喬丹代表著成功，因?yàn)樗�的名字沒有被他的政治傾向、他的觀點(diǎn)或是他的超級(jí)明星個(gè)性所玷污。喬丹迷就是典雅和自信迷。