万物简史 第4期:引言(4)

 　　"Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary¹ line,你不光自古以来一直非常走运，属于一个受到优待的进化过程，but you have also been extremely, make that miraculously² fortunate in your personal ancestry³.

　　而且在自己的祖宗方面，你还极其--可以说是奇迹般地--好运气。

　　Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans,想一想啊，在38亿年的时间里，在这段比地球上的山脉、河流和海洋还要久远的时间里，every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate,你父母双方的哪个祖先都很有魅力，都能找到配偶，healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently⁴ blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so.

　　都健康得能生儿育女，都运气好得能活到生儿育女的年龄。

　　Not one of your pertinent⁵ ancestors was squashed, devoured⁶, drowned, starved, stranded⁷, stuck fast,这些跟你有关的祖先，一个都没有被压死，被吃掉，被淹死，被饿死，被卡住，untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected⁸ from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic⁹ material to the right partner at the right moment早年就受了伤，或者无法在其生命过程中在恰当的时刻把一小泡遗传物质释放给恰当的伴侣，in order to perpetuate¹⁰ the only possible sequence of hereditary¹¹ combinations that could result-eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly-in you.

　　以使这惟一可能的遗传组合过程持续下去，最终在极其短暂的时间里令人吃惊地--产生了你。

　　This is a book about how it happened, in particular how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something,本书要说一说这事儿是怎样发生的--尤其是我们怎样从根本不存在变成某种存在，and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also some of what happened in between and since.

　　然后那种存在的一小点儿又怎样变成了我们。我还要说一说在此期间和在此以前的事。

　　That's a great deal to cover, of course, which is why the book is called A Short History of Nearly Everything, even though it isn't really.

　　这当然要涉及好多事情，所以这本书就叫做《万物简史》，虽然实际上并非如此，也不可能如此。

　　It couldn't be. But with luck by the time we finish it will feel as if it is.",但是，要是运气好的话，等你读完本书的时候，你也许会在一定程度上有那种感觉。"

1 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。

2 miraculously   

ad.奇迹般地

参考例句：

• He had been miraculously saved from almost certain death. 他奇迹般地从死亡线上获救。
• A schoolboy miraculously survived a 25 000-volt electric shock. 一名男学生在遭受2.5 万伏的电击后奇迹般地活了下来。

3 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。

4 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

5 pertinent   

adj.恰当的；贴切的；中肯的；有关的；相干的

参考例句：

• The expert made some pertinent comments on the scheme.那专家对规划提出了一些中肯的意见。
• These should guide him to pertinent questions for further study.这些将有助于他进一步研究有关问题。

6 devoured   

吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
• The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。

7 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。

8 deflected   

偏离的

参考例句：

• The ball deflected off Reid's body into the goal. 球打在里德身上反弹进球门。
• Most of its particles are deflected. 此物质的料子大多是偏斜的。

9 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

10 perpetuate   

v.使永存，使永记不忘

参考例句：

• This monument was built to perpetuate the memory of the national hero.这个纪念碑建造的意义在于纪念民族英雄永垂不朽。
• We must perpetuate the system.我们必须将此制度永久保持。

11 hereditary   

adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的

参考例句：

• The Queen of England is a hereditary ruler.英国女王是世袭的统治者。
• In men,hair loss is hereditary.男性脱发属于遗传。