万物简史 第521期:丰富多彩的生命(17)

 Yet there is surprisingly little agreement on how many phyla there are or ought to be. 然而，令人吃惊的是，在关于有多少门或诙有多少门的问题上，人们的看法大相径庭。

Most biologists fix the total at about thirty, but some opt¹ for a number in the low twenties, 许多生物学家坚持认为总数大约是30个门，但有的认为20来个门比较合适，

while Edward O. Wilson in The Diversity of Life puts the number at a surprisingly robust² eighty-nine. 而爱德华·O·威尔逊在《生命的多样性》一书里提出的数字高达令人吃惊的89门。

It depends on where you decide to make your divisions — whether you are a "lumper" or a "splitter," as they say in the biological world. 这取决于你以什么立场来进行分类——即生物学界人士所说的，取决于你究竟是个“聚合分类学家”还是个“分离分类学家”。

At the more workaday level of species, the possibilities for disagreements are even greater. 在更平常的层面上，对物种叫法不一的可能性更大。

Whether a species of grass should be called Aegilops incurva, Aegilops incurvata, 一种山羊草究竟应该被叫做Aegilops incurva，Aegilops incurvata

or Aegilops ovata may not be a matter that would stir many nonbotanists to passion, 还是Aegilops ovata，也许不是个大问题，不会激起许多非植物学家的热情，

but it can be a source of very lively heat in the right quarters. 但在有关的人士当中可以引发非常激烈的争辩。

The problem is that there are five thousand species of grass and many of them look awfully³ alike even to people who know grass. 问题在于，世界上总共有5000种草，其中许多连懂草的人看起来也极其相像。

In consequence, some species have been found and named at least twenty times, 结果，有几种至少被发现和命名了20次，

and there are hardly any, it appears, that haven't been independently identified at least twice. 好像几乎没有哪种草不是被独立发现至少两次的。

The two-volume Manual of the Grasses of the United States devotes two hundred closely typeset pages to sorting out all the synonymies, 两卷本的《美国草志》甩了密密麻麻的200页来清理所有的同义词，

as the biological world refers to its inadvertent but quite common duplications. 都是植物学界漫不经心地经常使用的重复名称。

And that is just for the grasses of a single country. 那还仅仅牵涉到一个国家的草类。

To deal with disagreements on the global stage, 为了解决在全球范围存在的差异，

a body known as the International Association for Plant Taxonomy arbitrates on questions of priority and duplication. 一个名叫国际植物分类学协会的组织对次序和重复的问题做出裁决。

 

1 opt   

vi.选择，决定做某事

参考例句：

• They opt for more holiday instead of more pay.他们选择了延长假期而不是增加工资。
• Will individual schools be given the right to opt out of the local school authority?各个学校可能有权选择退出地方教育局吗？

2 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。

3 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。