The first outline of The Ascent of Man was written in July 1969 and the last foot of film was shot in December 1972. An undertaking as large as this, though wonderfully exhilarating, is not entered lightly. It demands an unflagging intellectual and physical vigour, a total immersion, which I had to be sure that I could sustain with pleasure; for instance, I had to put off researches that I had already begun; and I ought to explain what moved me to do so.
《科学进化史》最早的提纲史在1969年7月写下的，电影的最后一个镜头是在1972年拍摄的。如此巨大的项目，虽然让人尤为欣喜，并没有非常容易的开头。这需要不屈不挠的智力和强壮的体格支持，完全的投入，而我必须要清楚我是乐意这样做的。例如，我得放下已经开始了的研究，我得解释我为什么要这样做。

There has been a deep change in the temper of science in the last 20 years: the focus of attention has shifted from the physical to the life sciences. As a result, science is drawn more and more to the study of individuality. But the interested spectator is hardly aware yet how far-reaching the effect is in changing the image of man that science moulds. As a mathematician trained in physics, I too would have been unaware, had not a series of lucky chances taken me into the life sceinces in middle age. I owe a debt for the good fortune that carried me into two seminal fields of science in one lifetime; and though I do not know to whom the debt is due, I conceived The Ascent of Man in gratitude to repay it.
在过去的20年里，科学的性质有了很大的变化：重点由物理科学转移到了生命科学上。因此，因此科学研究越来越注重个体研究。但是对此感兴趣的大众却难以明白这变化将在多大程度上改变科学铸造的人类形象。作为一个学理科的数学家，如果没有如此幸运的机会让我在中年时进入到生命科学中，我想我也会一直不明白。这份让我这一生能进入两个具有开创性的科学领域的幸运，我不知道应该偿还谁，但是我想《科学进化史》应该可以作为感激之物以报答。

The invitaion to me from the British Broadcasting Corporation was to present the development of science in a series of television programmes to match those of Lord Clark on Civilisation. Television is an admirable medium for exposition is several ways: powerful and immediate to the eye, able to take the spectator bodily into the places and processes that are described, and conversational enough to make him conscious that what he witnesses are not events but the actions of people. The last of these merits is to my mind the most cogent, and it weighed most with me in agreeing to cast a personal biography of ideas in the form of television essays.  The point is that knowledge in general and science in particular does not consist of abstract but of man-made ideas, all the way from its beginnings to its modern and idiosyncratic models. Therefore the underlying concepts that unlock nature must be shown to arise early and in the simplest cultures of man from his basic and specific faculties. And the development of science which joins them in more and more complex conjunctions must be seen to be equally human: discoveries are made by men, not merely by minds, so that they are alive and charged with individuality. If telvesion is not used to make these thoughts concrete, it is wasted.
英国广播公司邀请我参与制作一个关于科学的电视系列节目，这是为了同罗德克拉克的《文明的轨迹》搭配。电视有几个方面让其成为极好的展示传媒：视觉效果强烈而直接，可以让观众对正在描述的地方和过程产生如同亲历一样，交流足够让他产生他正在看的不是事件而是人类活动。最后这一点是所有有点中我最看中的，以致于我心里一只想给我自己拍一个自传，以电视散文的形式讲述我的观点。问题是所有的知识，尤其是科学并非有抽象事物组成，而是人类的想法，从从开始到成熟，到特殊模式都是人类的想法。因此，要打开自然的大本，根本的思想就是要从人类最初的发展，最简单的文化开始，从他最基本的活动和特定的活动入手。科学的发展，使得他们成为越来越复杂的结合，这些都必须放在人类同等的位置上来看：是人类发现，不只是脑子发现，所以他们是鲜活的并由个体控制。如果电视不用来把这些思想具体化，那么真的是一种浪费。

posted on 2007-12-09 23:14 nanami 阅读(163) 评论(1)  编辑  收藏 所属分类: 研究生英语翻译＋杂杂 网摘收藏