英语听力文摘 English Digest 343、人人都会读心术？

Mind Reading
读心术

Sometimes we get letters here asking whether psychics are for real. Well, despite the t.v. shows, there isn’t any scientific evidence that psychic powers, such as mind-reading,  actually exist. That doesn’t prove they don’t exist–just that, so far, there’s no reason to think they do.

Still, the famous scientist and popular writer Isaac Asimov made an interesting observation about mind-reading once. Many people across the centuries have claimed they could read other people’s minds. If this is true, Asimov points out, then mind-reading would be a fact of nature. It would at least in some people be one of things that the human brain can do, just like dreaming or maintaining your body temperature. That would mean that mind-reading would have to be the result of evolution.

If, somehow, brains could read other brains directly, there would indeed be a very strong evolutionary¹ advantage to it. In Asimov’s example, even a simple version of mind-reading, such as a chicken being able to sense an approaching fox’s brain as it thinks “food, food, food,” would be a huge advantage! Animals of any species² that could do rudimentary mind-reading should survive much better than ones that couldn’t, and should pass on their mind-reading gene³ quite effectively.

Do you see the problem? The fact that there is a debate at all over whether mind-reading exists suggests that it doesn’t. If it were a real phenomenon, versions of it should be widespread, the way normal vision is. We would expect it to be everywhere . . . not just in a few “special” people with nothing up their sleeves.

 

我们有时会收到观众来信询问通灵人是否真实存在。实际上，除了电视节目，没有任何科学依据证明特异功能的存在，例如读心术。但这也不能证明它们不存在。只是目前为止，我们没有理由相信它们存在。

不过，著名科学家及作家艾萨克•阿西莫夫做过一次有趣的观察，是关于读心术的。在过去的几个世纪里，很多人声称自己会读心术。如果真的是那样，艾萨克•阿西莫夫指出，那么读心术便是一种本性。人的大脑是可以做到的，就像做梦或者维持体温。这意味着读心术是进化的结果。

如果大脑能够直接解读其他大脑，必然会有一个强大的进化优势。在阿西莫夫的实例中，即使是读心术的简单版本，例如鸡能感觉到正在靠近的狐狸的大脑在想“食物，食物，食物”，这就是一个很大的优势。那些可以做最基本的读心术的动物比不会读心术的动物生存得更好，并且会高效地传授它们的读心术基因。

明白了吗？关于读心术是否存在的争论表明它根本不存在。如果读心术真实存在的话，它的版本应该更广泛，方式更正常。我们希望它无处不在，而不只是发生在几个毫无根据的"特殊"的人身上。

 

 

1 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

2 species   

n.物种，种群

参考例句：

• Are we the only thinking species in the whole of creation?我们是万物中惟一有思想的物种吗？
• This species of bird now exists only in Africa.这种鸟现在只存在于非洲。

3 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。