万物简史 第536期:丰富多彩的生命(32)

 Only slightly less devoted¹, and certainly more unexpected, was Alfred C. Kinsey, 虽然没有那么潜心，但肯定是更加出人意料的是，

who became famous for his studies of human sexuality in the 1940s and 1950s. 在20世纪40-50年代，艾尔弗雷德·C·金西以研究人类的性活动出了名。

But before his mind became filled with sex, so to speak, Kinsey was an entomologist, and a dogged one at that. 可以说，在脑子里充满性问题之前，金西是一位昆虫学家，而且是一位执著昆虫学家。

In one expedition lasting² two years, he hiked 2,500 miles to assemble a collection of 300,000 wasps³. 在一次历时两年的探险活动中，他跋涉了4000公里，采集了30万件黄蜂标本。

How many stings he collected along the way is not, alas⁴, recorded. 在此过程中他被螫过多少次，哎呀，没有记录下来。

Something that had been puzzling me was the question of how you assured a chain of succession in these arcane⁵ fields. 令我感到费解的是，在这种冷门的领域，你怎么能确保有接班人。

Clearly there cannot be many institutions in the world that require or are prepared to support specialists in barnacles or Pacific snails⁶. 显而易见，需要或愿意支持藤壶专家或太平洋蜗牛专家的机构并不多。

As we parted at the Natural History Museum in London, 我们在伦敦自然史博物馆分手的时候，

I asked Richard Fortey how science ensures that when one person goes there's someone ready to take his place. 我问理查德·福泰，当一个人离去的时候，科学界是怎么确保有人来接他的班的。

He chuckled⁷ rather heartily⁸ at my naivete. 听了我幼稚的问题以后他纵情地格格一笑：

"I'm afraid it's not as if we have substitutes sitting on the bench somewhere waiting to be called in to play. “恐怕不像是有替补队员坐在板凳儿上等着被叫上场的情况。

When a specialist retires or, even more unfortunately, dies, that can bring a stop to things in that field, sometimes for a very long while." 要是有一名专家退休或不幸去世，那个领域的事情有可能中断，有时候要中断很长时间。”

And I suppose that's why you value someone who spends forty-two years studying a single species of plant, even if it doesn't produce anything terribly new? “我想，正是由于这个原因，要是有人花了42年时间来研究一种植物，即使没有出什么很新的成果，你们也会觉得很宝贵，对吗？”

Precisely⁹, he said, "precisely." And he really seemed to mean it. “一点儿不错，”他说，“一点儿不错。”他说的确实好像是真话。

 

1 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

2 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

3 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中

4 alas   

int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等)

参考例句：

• Alas!The window is broken!哎呀！窗子破了！
• Alas,the truth is less romantic.然而，真理很少带有浪漫色彩。

5 arcane   

adj.神秘的，秘密的

参考例句：

• The technique at one time was arcane in the minds of most chemists.这种技术在大多数化学家心目中一度是神秘的。
• Until a few months ago few people outside the arcane world of contemporary music had heard of Gorecki.直至几个月前，在现代音乐神秘殿堂之外很少有人听说了戈莱斯基。

6 snails   

n.蜗牛；迟钝的人；蜗牛( snail的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I think I'll try the snails for lunch—I'm feeling adventurous today. 我想我午餐要尝一下蜗牛——我今天很想冒险。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Most snails have shells on their backs. 大多数蜗牛背上有壳。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

8 heartily   

adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很

参考例句：

• He ate heartily and went out to look for his horse.他痛快地吃了一顿，就出去找他的马。
• The host seized my hand and shook it heartily.主人抓住我的手，热情地和我握手。

9 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。