Unit 9 Science and Technology新编大学英语第二版第四册课文翻译

Unit 9 Science and Technology

Too Fast?

People who were born just before World War I remember waving at automobiles as

they passed. Seeing a car was like watching a parade—exciting and out of the ordinary.

The airplane—it was spelled "aeroplane" then—was another new invention. Refrigerators

were "iceboxes," and a man delivered the ice for the box in the summer and the coal for

the stove in the winter. Now, the iceman, like the blacksmith, survives only in literature.

Today, change comes so fast that working people can become obsolete because their

occupations vanish in the middle of their lives. Knowledge, and thus the rate of change,

increases geometrically. Every idea gives birth to a dozen new ones, and each of them has

a dozen children. The people of the pre-World War I generation had hardly assimilated

the inventions of that era before they were attacked by a new batch of even more

sophisticated inventions. The Atomic Age dawned in 1945, August 6 to be exact, and then,

before we could catch our breath, the Space Age arrived.

Change was not always this rapid. Certain important inventions, like the telephone,

the airplane, the automobile, and the radio, had been invented by 1914, but the effects of

these inventions upon the lives of ordinary citizens were not felt until many years later.

We now have the technology to develop machines before people are ready to use them.

For example, we have the technology to enable people to pay their bills by phone—but

even people with phones resist. The change is too much too fast. People don't want to talk

to machines, especially if the machines talk back to them.

It is certain that technology, especially computer technology, will rule our lives to a

greater and greater degree. This situation will not necessarily prove positive or negative

in effect. Many people would be more comfortable if change came more slowly, but on the

other hand, there are many for whom every innovation is like a new toy. They can't wait

for the next invention to be available. When scientists talk about the remarkably

adaptable nature of people, they probably have these people in mind.

But there is a limit to everyone's ability to adapt. What will happen to us when

change comes so rapidly that we can no longer adjust to it? These same scientists who

talk about our adaptable nature also tell us that change is to some degree emotionally

painful to everyone. What then, will happen to us when change comes so rapidly that we

can no longer stand the pain, and we refuse to change?

We have read a lot about scientific and technological change, but that is only part of

the picture of modern life. There is often a great lag between scientific discovery and cultural acceptance. For example, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, proposed over

one hundred years ago and accepted by all serious scholars for generations, is still

rejected by large segments of society. These segments see science as contradicting a

higher religious authority. They see science as questioning and destroying their beliefs

and culture.

The problem is not easily solved because it is in the nature of science to question, and

it is in the nature of human beings not to want to question the things they believe in.

Science is not merely a field of study like chemistry or physics or biology. Science is a

method of looking at the world, a method that requires an open mind, objectivity, and

proof based upon observation or experimentation. It is a method that ignores religion,

race, nationality, economics, morality, and ethics. It pays attention only to the results of

research. The scientific method has shown us endless marvels and wonders, but methods

can't provide all the answers. Science cannot tell us whether or not to drop a bomb: That

is a moral or political question. Science only tells us how to make one.

As we have already said, technological innovations are being made at faster and

faster rates. The future will be even more revolutionary than the past. Will we, as a

species, survive the revolutions that we have begun? There is plenty of evidence to think

that we will. Our species has enormous potential that we have just begun to use. For

example, we have only begun to control the environment. One day technology will make

every desert bloom. It's simple, really. To do so, all we need to do is lower the cost of

converting sea water into fresh water. Then, when the deserts bloom, will they provide

enough food for our growing numbers? Most likely, they will. We have only just begun to

discover the possibilities of highly intensive desert agriculture. We already have the