万物简史 第574期:达尔文的非凡见解(23)

He was never knighted, though he was buried in Westminster Abbey — next to Newton. He died at Down in April 1882. Mendel died two years later.

尽管他死后被埋在威斯敏斯特大教堂——牛顿的身旁，但是他生前从未被授予爵位。达尔文死于1882年4月下旬。两年后孟德尔也去世了。

Darwin's theory didn't really gain widespread acceptance until the 1930s and 1940s, with the advance of a refined theory called, with a certain hauteur¹, the Modern Synthesis, combining Darwin's ideas with those of Mendel and others. For Mendel, appreciation² was also posthumous³, though it came somewhat sooner. In 1900, three scientists working separately in Europe rediscovered Mendel's work more or less simultaneously⁴. It was only because one of them, a Dutchman named Hugo de Vries, seemed set to claim Mendel's insights as his own that a rival made it noisily clear that the credit really lay with the forgotten monk⁵.

直到20世纪30-40年代，随着一门被称为“现代组合理论”略有些大摇大摆的登场（该理论将达尔文的和孟德尔的及其他一些人的思想进行了综合归纳），达尔文的理论才开始真正为众多的人所接受。而对于孟德尔来说，他生前也是默默无闻，死后不久却哀荣备至。1900年，三位欧洲的科学家几乎同时分别重新发现了孟德尔的理论。其中一个是名为雨果·德弗里斯的荷兰科学家，他将孟德尔的成果据为己有，结果被他的一位对手捅了马蜂窝，事情闹得沸沸扬扬。真相大白之后，人们才意识到荣誉应该归于一位被遗忘的修道士。

The world was almost ready, but not quite, to begin to understand how we got here — how we made each other. It is fairly amazing to reflect that at the beginning of the twentieth century, and for some years beyond, the best scientific minds in the world couldn't actually tell you where babies came from.

世界已经作好了准备，但还不够充分，开始明自我们是怎么来到这个世界上的，我们是怎么在互相竞争中形成的。直到20世纪初期，甚至是以后的一段时间里，即使是世界最优秀的科学家也不能明白无误地告诉你婴儿是从哪里来的，这实在是一件十分令人惊讶的事。

And these, you may recall, were men who thought science was nearly at an end.

而这些人，你大概回忆得起来，就是那些认为科学已经快要发展到尽头了的人。

1 hauteur   

n.傲慢

参考例句：

• Once,she had been put off by his hauteur.她曾经对他的傲慢很反感。
• A deeper shade of hauteur overspread his features,but he said not a word.一阵傲慢的阴影罩上了他的脸，可是他一句话也没有说。

2 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

3 posthumous   

adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的

参考例句：

• He received a posthumous award for bravery.他表现勇敢，死后受到了嘉奖。
• The legendary actor received a posthumous achievement award.这位传奇男星在过世后获得终身成就奖的肯定。

4 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

5 monk   

n.和尚，僧侣，修道士

参考例句：

• The man was a monk from Emei Mountain.那人是峨眉山下来的和尚。
• Buddhist monk sat with folded palms.和尚合掌打坐。