研究生英语阅读教程中高级本 unit4 翻译

Is One Successful by Chance or by Fate?

一个人的成功靠机遇还是命运？

In the scientific world of controlled experiment, chance is seldom acknowledged as a contributing factor in important discoveries. There are, however, rare exceptions. In 1945 three men shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery and isolation of penicillin. How rare was this serendipitous event and was the discovery of penicillin really the result of an unexpected chance observation by a single researcher?

在控制试验的领域，机遇很少时候会被认为是重大发现的主要原因。但是，却也有例外。1945年，三名科学家由于发现并提取青霉素而获得诺贝尔生理学或医学家奖。这个偶然发现的事件是多么难得，青霉素的发现真是由一个研究者在不可预料的情形下偶然发现的观察结果吗？

The scientific method is typically noted for its orderliness and control; In fact, we are taught that without these characteristics, experimental research may yield invalid results. Therefore, chance should play little or no role in the process of the scientific method. But what is chance? When is chance truly an accident and when is it foreseeable? Historically, some chance discoveries have led to startling new ideas that eventually directed important further scientific investigation of natural phenomena.

科学方法通常以规律性与可操作性而著称；事实上，如果我们没有这些要素的引导，试验性研究就可能得到无效的结果。因此，在科学方法发展的过程中，机遇所起的作用微乎其微。但是，什么是机遇呢？机遇真的是偶然的吗？它是可以预见吗？在历史上，一些偶然的发现产生了令人吃劲的新思想，并且这些思想最终指引着对于自然现象的进行进一步的科学调研。

If the role of science is to examine the world around us in a way which uncovers new and sometimes unexpected information, then science itself is intrinsically surprising. Even a deliberate scientific search for information may lead to an unexpected chance observation or discovery. But to have meaning, every observation or discovery must fit into a pre-existing pattern of ideas in the observer’s mind. Just as a word means little out of context, a new observation or discovery needs a proper context in which to fit in order to be most meaningful. In other words, the mind must be prepared to receive the germ of a new idea. What is “chance” for the unprepared mind may be a

fascinating springboard to new ideas for the prepared mind.

如果科学是通过揭示新事物和意外现象来探索我们周围的世界，那科学的本质是令人吃惊的，甚至一位老练的科学家在查找信息的时候，会有意外的观察与发现。但是这意味着，每一次观察与发现必须与观察者头脑中的某些预想的东西相吻合。就像一个词离开了语境就没有了意义，一个新观察和新发现需要一个与之相适应的背景，才会使其变得更有意义。换而言之，头脑必须做好接受新思想萌芽的准备。

对于没有准备的人而言，称作机遇的东西，对于那些已经为新思想做好准备的人们就是具有吸引力的跳板。

Louis Pasteur wrote,” in the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind. ”Discovery, like learning, is a phenomenon that takes place in the human brain. The brain configures an event as a new pattern based on previous assumptions that were present at the onset of the event. Lewis Thomas, renowned science author and former president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center stated,” I’m not as fond of the notion of serendipity as I used to be. It seems to me now that as you get research going …things are bound to begin happening if you’ve got your wits about you. You create the lucky accidents.” Many scientists agree with that position.

Louis Pasteur写到，“在观察领域，机会只垂青那些有准备的大脑。”像学习一样，发现是一种在人类大脑里面发生的现象。大脑对形成一个新东西的事件是基于先前的假定，这个先前的假定是一开始就存在的。Lewis Thomas，著名科学作者，曾是纪念斯隆-凯特林癌症中心主席说：“像以前一样，我不怎么喜欢运气这个观念，现在对我来说似乎是这样的，当你在研究的时候，如果你能随机应变，某些事总能发生，偶然幸运的事是由你自己创造的。”许多科学家同意这样的看法。

Let’s return to a discussion of the discovery and isolation of penicillin—a process which involved a series of chance events spanning at least half a century and building on knowledge gained as early as 1,5000 BC. It was at this time that written records described the use of molds and fermented materials as therapeutic agents. Similarly, the use of chemicals as medicines is described in ancient Greek writing of fifth century BC. These early treatments—which probably either cured or killed the patients—were carried out without a firm understanding of either the active agents or the cellular processes involved. It was not until the late nineteenth century that progress was made on this front and a concerted effort was made to identify and isolate substances that would inhibit or destroy the causative agents of known