Lesson 45
Of men and galaxies
人和星系

First listen and then answer the following question.
听录音，然后回答以下问题。

What is the most influential factor in any human society?

In man's early days. competition with other creatures must have been critical. But this phase of our development is now finished. Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays in dealing with primitive conditions. I am sure that, without modern weapons, I would make a very poor show of disputing the ownership of a cave with a bear, and in this I do not think that I stand alone. The last creature to compete with man was the mosquito. But even the mosquito has been subdued by attention to drainage and by chemical sprays.
Competition between our selves, person against person, community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was.
But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology. It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment, because the environment that determines our evolution is no longer essentially physical. Our environment is chiefly conditoned by the things we believe. Morocco and California are bits of the Earth in very similar latitudes, both on the west coasts of continents with similar climates, and probably with rather similar natural resources. Yet their present development is wholly different, not so much because of different people wish to emphasize. The most important factor in our environment is the state of our own minds.
It is well known that where the white man has invaded a primitive culture, the most destructive effects have come not from physical weapons but from ideas. Ideas are dangerous. The Holy Office knew this full well when it caused heretics to be burned in days gone by. Indeed, the concept of free speech only exists in our modern society because when you are inside a community, you are conditioned by the conventions of the community to such a degree that it is very difficult to conceive of anything really destructive. It is only someone looking on from outside that can inject the dangerous thoughts. I do not doubt that it would be possible to inject ideas into the modern world that would utterly destroy us. I would like to give you an example, but fortunately I cannot do so. Perhaps it will suffice to mention the unclear bomb. Of making the effect on a reasonably advanced technological society, one that still does not possess the bomb, of making it aware of the possibility, of supplying sufficient details to enable the thing to be constructed. Twenty or thirty pages of information handed to any of the major world powers around the year 1925 would have been sufficient to change the course of world history. It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one, that twenty or thirty pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it. I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain, but of course outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or, to be more accurate, we can think only a very little way outside, and then only if we are very original.
FRED HOYLE Of Men and Galaxies

New words and expressions 生词和短语
dispute
v. 争夺
mosquito
n. 蚊子
subdue
v. 征服
drainage
n. 下水系统
envision
n. 预想
Morocco
n. 摩洛哥
latitude
n. 纬度
heretic
n. 异教徒，异端邪说
conceive
v. 想像
suffice
v. 足够
nuclear
adj. 原子弹的
original
adj.有独到见解的

参考译文
在人类早期，人类与其他生物的竞争一定是必不可少的。但这个发展阶段已经结束。确实，我们今天缺乏对付原始环境的实践和经验。我断定，如果没有现代化的武器，要我和一只熊去争洞穴，我会出洋相的；我也相信，出洋相者并非我一人。能与竞争的生物最后只有蚊子，然而即使蚊子，也由于我们注意清理污水和喷洒化学药品就被制服了。
然而人类之间的战争，人与人，团体与团体，依然在进行着，而且和以前一样激烈。
但是，人与人的竞争并不像生物生物学中想像的那样是一个简单过程。它已不是为争得物质环境所决定的东西所决定。摩洛哥和加利福尼亚是地球上纬度极其相似的两个地方，都在各自大陆的西海岸，气候相似，自然资源也可能相似。但是，这两个地方目前的发展程度完全不一样。这倒不是因为人民不同，而是由于居民头脑中的思想不同。 这是我要强调的论点。我们环境中最重要的因素就是我们的思想状况。
众所周知，凡是白人侵入原始文化的地方，破坏作用最大的不是杀人的武器，而是思想。思想是危险的。宗教法庭对此是非常清楚的，因此从前它总是把异教徒烧死。的确，言论自由的概念只存在于我们现代社会中，因为当你生活在一个社团中时，社团的风俗习惯会严格地制约你，使你很难有破坏性的想法。只有外部的旁观者才能灌输危险的思想。向现代世界灌输一种思想以便摧毁我们人类是可能的事，对此我并不怀疑。我愿为你举个例子，但幸亏我举不出。也许提一下核弹就足以证明了。对一个沿未拥有核弹、但科技相当发达的社会，如果告诉它制造核弹的可能性，而且向它提供制造核弹的细节，那么可以设想，这将对这个社会产生何等的影响。如果把二三十页的情报交给1952年前后的任何一个世界强国，就足以改变世界历史的进程。二三十页材料中的思想和情报会便当今的世界翻天覆地，甚至毁灭这个世界。这是个离奇的想法。不过我认为这个想法是正确的。我常常试图想像这些纸上所写的东西，不过我是做不到的，因为我和你们大家一样，是当今世界上的凡人。我闪不能脱离我们大脑所限定的模式去问题，我们只能稍微离开一点儿，就这也需要我们独创的思想。

感谢大耳朵网友"兜兜兜兜"提供的听力原文

第45课

New words and expressions 生词短语

infant ：婴儿(会说点话)

baby ：婴儿(不会说话)

the infant industry ：新兴产业

in its infancy ： 在它的初始阶段

vulnerable ：脆弱的

be vulnerable to...： 受不了...

fragile ：脆弱

barefaced ：厚颜无耻的

defenceless ：脆弱的(不设防的,无保护的)

imperceptible ：感觉不到的

(大多数 p 开头的形容词，反义词加 im)

invisible ：看不到的

indiscernible： 观察不到的

minute ：微小的

subtle ：细微的

steep ：急转直下的（陡峭的）

steep demand ：苛刻的要求

ageing ：老化

aged wine： 陈酿

odds ：可能性

likelihood ：可能性

It’s odds that…

The odds are…

There are odds… ： …有可能

odd : 怪异的 奇数的 剩余的

virtual : 实际的

robust ：强健的 （乐百氏）

muscular ：强壮的

athletic ：壮的

thickset : 粗壮的

Lesson45

At the age of twelve years, the human body is at its most vigorous. It has yet to reach its full size and strength, and its owner his or her full intelligence; but at this age the likelihood of death is least. Earlier we were infants and young children, and consequently more vulnerable; later, we shall undergo a progressive loss of our vigour and resistance which, though imperceptible at first, will finally become so steep that we can live no longer, however well we look after ourselves, and however well society, and our doctors, look after us. This decline in vigour with the passing of time is called ageing. It is one of the most unpleasant discoveries which we all make that we must decline in this way, that if we escape wars, accidents and diseases we shall eventually die of old age, and that this happens at a rate which differs little from person to person, so that there are heavy odds in favour of our dying between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. Some of us will die sooner, a few will live longer-- on into a ninth or tenth decade. But the chances are against it, and there is a virtual limit on how long we can hope to remain alive, however lucky and robust we are.

Normal people tend to forget this process unless and until they are reminded of it. We are so familiar with the fact that man ages, that people have for years assumed that the process of losing vigour with time, of becoming more likely to die the older we get, was something self-evident, like the cooling of a hot kettle or the wearing-out of a pair of shoes. They have also assumed that all animals, and probably other organisms such as trees, or even the universe itself, must in the nature of things 'wear out'. Most animals we commonly observe do in fact age as we do if given the chance to live long enough; and mechanical systems like a wound watch or the sun, do in fact run out of energy in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (whether the whole universe does so is a moot point at present). But these are not analogous to what happens when man ages A run-down watch is still a watch and can be rewound. An old watch, by contrast, becomes so worn and unreliable that it eventually is not worth mending. But a watch could never repair itself it does not consist of living parts, only of metal, which wears away by friction. We could, at one time, repair ourselves well enough, at least, to overcome all but the most instantly fatal illnesses an accidents. Between twelve and eighty years we gradually lose this power; an illness which at twelve would knock us over, at eighty can knock us out, and into our grave. If we could stay as vigorous as we are at twelve, it would take about 700 years for half of us to die, and another 700 for the survivors to be reduce by half again.

ALEX VOMFORT The Process of Ageing

参考译文

十二岁时，人体处于茁壮成长时期。这时人的身材和力量尚未长足，他或她的智力也有待完善；但在这个年龄死亡的可能性最小。在此之前，人们还是婴儿和小孩，因此较为脆弱，在此之后

人们将经历精力和抵抗力的日趋衰退，虽然起初难以觉察，终将急转直下而频临死亡，不管人们对自己多么当心，也不管社会和医生对人们照顾得多么周到，都将无济于事。这种与时俱来的精力

衰退称为老化。它是我们无一例外都要作出的最不愉快的发现之一，发现我们必然会如此这般地衰老，发现就算我们躲过了战争、意外事故和疾病，我们也终将“老死”，还发现其发生率并不因

人而异，以至于我们死于65岁至80岁之间的机会极大。我们当中的一些人会早一些死，少数会活得长一些——活到八旬或九旬。这种机遇不多，人们的期望年龄存在事实上的极限，不管人们有多么幸运和健壮。

正常人要是不被提醒，往往会忘记这个过程。我们对人会老化这一事实熟悉之深，以致多年来人们就认为精力与日俱减和越老越容易死是不言自明的事，正像热锅变凉或是鞋子会穿破一样。

人们还假定所有的动物以及或许是树木之类的有机体甚至连宇宙本身，一定都具有“耗尽”的性质。我们平常看到的大多数动物，如果让它们活得够长的话，也都会像我们那样老化；上紧发条的表

之类的机械系统，或是太阳，也会按照热力学第二定律耗尽能量（整个宇宙是否也会这样，目前还有争论）。但这一切都不能同人老化时的情况相比。发条松掉的表仍是一块表，可以再上足发条。

而旧表磨损已甚且不可靠，终至不值得再修。表永远不会修复自身——它不是由有生命的部件组成，而是用金属制成的，金属会因磨擦而损耗。我们则在某时期能修复自身——至少还能战胜除

急性致命以外的各种疾病和意外事故。从12岁到80岁，我们逐渐失去这种能力；12岁时能使我们病倒的疾病，在80岁时可能会使我们一蹶不振而进入坟墓。如果我们能一直像12岁时那样精力充沛，那就需要700年我们中的一半才会死去，而剩下的要减少一半又得再过700年。