英国卫报:你还在相信统计数据吗?(5)

The emergence¹ in the late 17th century of government advisers² claiming scientific authority, rather than political or military acumen³, represents the origins of the "expert" culture now so reviled⁴ by populists. These path-breaking individuals were neither pure scholars nor government officials, but hovered⁵ somewhere between the two. They were enthusiastic amateurs who offered a new way of thinking about populations that privileged aggregates⁶ and objective facts. Thanks to their mathematical prowess, they believed they could calculate what would otherwise require a vast census⁷ to discover.

17世纪晚期出现的政府顾问声称自己拥有科学权威，而不是政治或军事智慧，这代表了如今被民粹主义者痛斥的“专家”文化的起源。这些开创性的人既不是纯粹的学者，也不是政府官员，而是介于两者之间。他们是热情的业余爱好者，他们提供了一种新的方式来思考特权人口总数和客观事实。多亏了他们高超的数学能力，他们相信自己能够计算出需要大量人口普查才能发现的东西。

There was initially⁸ only one client for this type of expertise⁹, and the clue is in the word "statistics". Only centralised nation states had the capacity to collect data across large populations in a standardised fashion and only states had any need for such data in the first place. Over the second half of the 18th century, European states began to collect more statistics of the sort that would appear familiar to us today. Casting an eye over national populations, states became focused upon a range of quantities: births, deaths, baptisms, marriages, harvests, imports, exports, price fluctuations¹⁰. Things that would previously¹¹ have been registered locally and variously at parish level became aggregated¹² at a national level.

最初，这类专业知识只有一个客户，线索就在“统计”这个词中。只有中央集权的国家才有能力以一种标准化的方式收集大量人口的数据，而且也只有国家一开始就需要这些数据。18世纪下半叶，欧洲国家开始收集更多的统计数据，这些数据在我们今天看来很熟悉。各国着眼于本国人口，开始集中关注一系列数据：出生、死亡、洗礼、结婚、收成、进口、出口、价格波动。以前在地方和教区一级登记的东西现在集中到全国一级。

New techniques were developed to represent these indicators¹³, which exploited both the vertical¹⁴ and horizontal dimensions of the page, laying out data in matrices and tables, just as merchants had done with the development of standardised book-keeping techniques in the late 15th century. Organising numbers into rows and columns offered a powerful new way of displaying the attributes of a given society. Large, complex issues could now be surveyed simply by scanning the data laid out geometrically across a single page.

新的技术被开发出来来表现这些指标，利用了页面的垂直和水平维度，用矩阵和表格来排列数据，就像商人在15世纪晚期发展标准化簿记技术所做的那样。将数字排列成行和列提供了一种显示特定社会属性的强大的新方式。现在，大而复杂的问题可以通过扫描以几何形式排列在单页上的数据来进行调查。

1 emergence   

n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体

参考例句：

• The last decade saw the emergence of a dynamic economy.最近10年见证了经济增长的姿态。
• Language emerges and develops with the emergence and development of society.语言是随着社会的产生而产生，随着社会的发展而发展的。

2 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

3 acumen   

n.敏锐，聪明

参考例句：

• She has considerable business acumen.她的经营能力绝非一般。
• His business acumen has made his very successful.他的商业头脑使他很成功。

4 reviled   

v.辱骂，痛斥( revile的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The tramp reviled the man who drove him off. 流浪汉辱骂那位赶他走开的人。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The old man reviled against corruption. 那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 hovered   

鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• A hawk hovered over the hill. 一只鹰在小山的上空翱翔。
• A hawk hovered in the blue sky. 一只老鹰在蓝色的天空中翱翔。

6 aggregates   

数( aggregate的名词复数 )； 总计； 骨料； 集料（可成混凝土或修路等用的）

参考例句：

• Snowflakes are loose aggregates of ice crystals. 雪花是冰晶的松散凝结。
• Our airplanes based in Europe should be included in the aggregates. 我们驻欧飞机应包括在总数内。

7 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

8 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

9 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

10 fluctuations   

波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table. 他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• There were so many unpredictable fluctuations on the Stock Exchange. 股票市场瞬息万变。

11 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

12 aggregated   

a.聚合的，合计的

参考例句：

• He aggregated her to a political party. 他吸收她参加一政党。
• The audiences aggregated a million people. 观众总数达100万人。

13 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

14 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。