万物简史 第504期:多灾多难的生命进程(24)

 Sifting meticulously¹, the volunteers collected every last tooth and vertebra and chip of bone — everything that had been overlooked by previous diggers. 志愿者们精心筛选，捡起了剩下的每一颗牙齿、每一根脊骨和每一片骨头——反正是以前的发掘者留下的一切东西。

The work took three years. 这项工作花了三年时间。

When finished they found that they had more than tripled the global total of dinosaur² fossils from the late Cretaceous. 当工作结束的时候，他们发现自己已经——为这颗行星——把白垩纪末期的恐龙化石增加了两倍多。

The survey established that dinosaurs³ remained numerous right up to the time of the KT impact. 这次调查确认，到发生KT撞击事件的时候，恐龙的数量还相当多。

"There is no reason to believe that the dinosaurs were dying out gradually during the last three million years of the Cretaceous," Sheehan reported. “没有理由认为。在白垩纪的最后300万年里恐龙在渐渐消失。”希恩在报告里说。

We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability⁴ as life's dominant⁵ species 我们习惯于认为，我们自己成为生命的主导物种是不可避免的，

that it is hard to grasp that we are here only because of timely extraterrestrial bangs and other random⁶ flukes. 因此无法理解我们之所以在这里，仅仅是因为来自天外的撞击发生得合时以及其他无意中的侥幸事儿。

The one thing we have in common with all other living things 我们与其他生物只有一个共同点，

is that for nearly four billion years our ancestors have managed to slip through a series of closing doors every time we needed them to. 那就是，在将近40亿年时间里，在每个必须的时刻，我们的祖先成功地从一系列快要关上的门里钻了进去。

Stephen Jay Gould expressed it succinctly⁷ in a well-known line: 斯蒂芬·杰伊·古尔德有句名言，简要地表达了这个意思：

"Humans are here today because our particular line never fractured — never once at any of the billion points that could have erased⁸ us from history." “今天人类之所以存在，是因为我们特定的家族从来没有中断过——在10亿个有可能把我们从历史上抹掉的关键时刻一次也没有中断过。”

We started this chapter with three points: Life wants to be; life doesn't always want to be much; life from time to time goes extinct. 我们在本章开头部分提出了三点：生命想存在；生命并不总是想大有作为；生命不时灭绝。

To this we may add a fourth: Life goes on. 我们也许可以再加上一点：生命在前进。

And often, as we shall see, it goes on in ways that are decidedly amazing. 我们将会看到，生命往往以极其令人吃惊的方式前进着。

 

1 meticulously   

adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心

参考例句：

• The hammer's silvery head was etched with holy runs and its haft was meticulously wrapped in blue leather. 锤子头是纯银制成的，雕刻着神圣符文，而握柄则被精心地包裹在蓝色的皮革中。 来自辞典例句
• She is always meticulously accurate in punctuation and spelling. 她的标点和拼写总是非常精确。 来自辞典例句

2 dinosaur   

n.恐龙

参考例句：

• Are you trying to tell me that David was attacked by a dinosaur?你是想要告诉我大卫被一支恐龙所攻击？
• He stared at the faithful miniature of the dinosaur.他凝视著精确的恐龙缩小模型。

3 dinosaurs   

n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西

参考例句：

• The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 inevitability   

n.必然性

参考例句：

• Evolutionism is normally associated with a belief in the inevitability of progress. 进化主义通常和一种相信进步不可避免的看法相联系。
• It is the tide of the times, an inevitability of history. 这是时代的潮流，历史的必然。

5 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

6 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

7 succinctly   

adv.简洁地；简洁地，简便地

参考例句：

• He writes simply and succinctly, rarely adding too much adornment. 他的写作风格朴实简练，很少添加饰词。 来自互联网
• No matter what question you are asked, answer it honestly and succinctly. 总之，不管你在面试中被问到什么问题，回答都要诚实而简明。 来自互联网

8 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》