科學(xué)美國人60秒聽力練習(xí)：暴力事件減少

　　科學(xué)美國人60秒英文文本

　　“Believe it or not, violence has been in decline for long stretches of time. And today are probably living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence.” Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker at the ScienceWriters 2011 conference in Flagstaff on October 17th. His new book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

　　“The decline of violence has not been steady. It has not brought violence down to zero. And it is not guaranteed to continue. But…it is a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from the waging of wars and genocides to the spanking of children and the treatment of animals.”

　　One example is homicide rates. “It turns out that homicide records go back in Europe in many places for centuries…a medieval Englishman was at least 35 times more likely to be murdered than his modern counterpart. This is true not just in England, but in every European country for which statistics have been gathered.”

　　科學(xué)美國人60秒中文翻譯：

　　“無論您是否相信，暴力事件已經(jīng)在相當(dāng)長的一段時(shí)間內(nèi)保持下降趨勢(shì)，如今我們可能生活在人類有史以來最安全的時(shí)期。”史蒂芬•平克于2011年10月17日在美國小鎮(zhèn)Flagstaff舉行的“科學(xué)作家2011”大會(huì)上講到。

　　“暴力事件的減少還不穩(wěn)定，不管怎樣暴力事件還是時(shí)有發(fā)生，而且并不能保證這種下降趨勢(shì)可以持續(xù)下去。但顯而易見這是一次持久的歷史演變，從發(fā)動(dòng)戰(zhàn)爭到種族滅絕，從虐待兒童到治療動(dòng)物都體現(xiàn)著發(fā)展。

　　以兇殺案為例，“記錄證明，兇殺案在歐洲的許多國家都時(shí)常發(fā)生，中世紀(jì)英國的兇殺案件發(fā)生的次數(shù)竟是現(xiàn)在的35倍之多。這不僅僅是在英國，數(shù)據(jù)統(tǒng)計(jì)顯示在歐洲的大部分地區(qū)事實(shí)都是這樣。