【英语语言学习】科技对人类发展的重要作用

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Steven Johnson's new book, "How We Got To Now," is a history of the modern world. His vision is that technology has shaped people and society. And he follows six innovations which he believes brought us to where we are today. His big six are the development of glass, refrigeration, recorded sound, purified water, clocks and artificial light. Each of these, he argues, changed civilization and continues to affect our lives in profound ways. Steven Johnson joins us from our studios in New York City. Welcome.

STEVEN JOHNSON: Thank you. It's great to be here.

WERTHEIMER: In the introduction to the book, you cast it as an exploration of the hummingbird¹ effect, which you define as an evolutionary² principle that two different things might evolve together.

JOHNSON: Yeah. When we see - I mean, in evolution, the kind of metaphor³ I was using is flowers evolve alongside insects. And they create this elaborate kind of dance of pollination⁴. But in the middle of this, this hummingbird appears that figures out a way to kind of evolve the strategy of hovering⁵ next to flowers. And so what seems to be a relationship between insects and flowers ends up having a transformation⁶ on the anatomy⁷ of a bird. And it's a metaphor basically for all the technological⁸ changes that happen over history where we see a technology invented for one purpose ends up having this amazing, unexpected effect on all these other fields.

WERTHEIMER: So given as an example of an unexpected development in a related field.

JOHNSON: So one of my favorite stories is the story about the printing press and Gutenberg. And everybody thinks they know the story of Gutenberg. That he invents a printing press and because people are reading and circulating these books, it instigates⁹ these changes in science and religion and so on. But it also has this other funny effect which is as Europeans first begin to read, a significant proportion of them suddenly realized that they are farsighted, that they need spectacles to read books. And so all across Europe, people start to make lenses. And so suddenly, Europe is awash with expertise¹⁰ in manipulating glass. And before long, the telescope and the microscope are invented, which very quickly set off these revolutions in both biology and astronomy and all of these other fields.

WERTHEIMER: Now one of your bolder assertions, in a book which is full of bold assertions, is that glass actually helped create the modern focus on the self and the individual during the enlightenment. Now defend that greatly.

JOHNSON: Well, one of the things that's really interesting to think about is that we didn't really have clear, reliable mirrors until right before the beginning of the Renaissance¹¹. And most human beings really lived their whole life without actually seeing themselves in a clear reflection. They would occasionally catch little glimpses if the light was, you know, correct on a pond or something like that. So people suddenly had an image of themselves. And there was an extraordinary explosion in self-portraiture because the mirror enabled people like Rembrandt to paint these very detailed¹² images of their own face. The whole culture starts to kind of pivot¹³ towards introspection and kind of self-examination.

WERTHEIMER: Now I must say that we are interested, of course, in the invention that allows us to be here today - radio. The first radios did not transmit the sound of words, it was Morse code. And then a guy named Lee de Forest came along, and he changed that.

JOHNSON: Yeah, de Forest is a fascinating figure because he did a number of amazing things, but he also had this history of kind of failing. And one of his visions was that he really wanted music to be played over the radio - this new technology that he was helping¹⁴ to event. And he held one of the first broadcasts of live music. And he had these kind of listening parties around the city. But the technology just wasn't there at all. And what they ended up hearing just sounded like noise with the occasional hint of music somehow, you know, beneath the static. And it was roundly considered a complete failure. And ironically, eventually radio did, you know, become a mainstream¹⁵ technology about 5 to 10 years later. And the music that ended up thriving on radio was jazz. And de Forest hated jazz. He thought it was the worst thing in the world. He was a classical music and opera buff. And he was appalled¹⁶ that his creation was transmitting this - what he considered to be very second-rate musical form.

WERTHEIMER: Now in your book, you do mention inventors, the folks doing the innovating¹⁷, but one gets the impression that often they had no idea of the larger significance of what they had done.

JOHNSON: What seems to happen is that a certain kind of idea becomes imaginable at a certain moment in time. So however smart you are, however, you know, however advanced your understanding of physics might be, you can't invent, you know, a microwave oven in 1650. It's just not possible. But as technology advances, as science advances, certain ideas then become available to us as things that we can imagine.

There's a great story that I love about this French inventor who was trying to invent the phonograph right around the time - it was actually a little bit before Edison started to invent the phonograph. But he was trying to capture recorded audio. But he made this kind of wonderful mistake where he, in fact, successfully invented and patented a device to capture sound waves out of the air and kind of record them onto a cylinder¹⁸. But he failed to include a feature where you could listen to the audio that you had recorded. And that's the curse, you know, you get to the point in society where you can imagine a new technology. But if you're working on the cutting edge of it, sometimes you have these blind spots where you just can't see that extra feature that will ultimately make or break the device.

WERTHEIMER: Steven Johnson. His new book is "How We Got To Now." It's also a series on PBS, and it starts next month. Steven Johnson, thank you very much.

JOHNSON: It was a pleasure.

1 hummingbird   

n.蜂鸟

参考例句：

• The hummingbird perches on a twig of the hawthorn.小蜂鸟栖在山楂树枝上。
• The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backward.蜂鸟是唯一能倒退向后飞的鸟。

2 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。

3 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

4 pollination   

n.授粉

参考例句：

• The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
• Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉，谷物的长势就会受阻。

5 hovering   

鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• The helicopter was hovering about 100 metres above the pad. 直升机在离发射台一百米的上空盘旋。
• I'm hovering between the concert and the play tonight. 我犹豫不决今晚是听音乐会还是看戏。

6 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

7 anatomy   

n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织

参考例句：

• He found out a great deal about the anatomy of animals.在动物解剖学方面，他有过许多发现。
• The hurricane's anatomy was powerful and complex.对飓风的剖析是一项庞大而复杂的工作。

8 technological   

adj.技术的；工艺的

参考例句：

• A successful company must keep up with the pace of technological change.一家成功的公司必须得跟上技术变革的步伐。
• Today,the pace of life is increasing with technological advancements.当今， 随着科技进步，生活节奏不断增快。

9 instigates   

n.使（某事物）开始或发生，鼓动( instigate的名词复数 )v.使（某事物）开始或发生，鼓动( instigate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He always instigates the boy to do evil. 他总是鼓动那孩子做坏事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Instigates a collective leave-taking movement which affects the normal operation of the Company. 煽惑或鼓动集体休假而影响本公司正常运作者。 来自互联网

10 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。

11 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

12 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

13 pivot   

v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的

参考例句：

• She is the central pivot of creation and represents the feminine aspect in all things.她是创造的中心枢轴，表现出万物的女性面貌。
• If a spring is present,the hand wheel will pivot on the spring.如果有弹簧，手轮的枢轴会装在弹簧上。

14 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

15 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

16 appalled   

v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• They were appalled by the reports of the nuclear war. 他们被核战争的报道吓坏了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 innovating   

v.改革，创新( innovate的现在分词 )；引入（新事物、思想或方法），

参考例句：

• In this new century, the company keeps innovating and developing new products. 新世纪伊始，公司全面实施形象工程及整合营销，不断改革创新，开发高新产品。 来自互联网
• Beijing is backward most prime cause is innovating at system lack. 北京落后的最根本原因在于制度缺乏创新。 来自互联网

18 cylinder   

n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸

参考例句：

• What's the volume of this cylinder?这个圆筒的体积有多少？
• The cylinder is getting too much gas and not enough air.汽缸里汽油太多而空气不足。