万物简史 第280期:砰!(15)

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

　　And now here we were telling paleontologists that we had solved a problem that had eluded³ them for over a century. 现在我们却在这里对古生物学家说，我们已经解决那个困扰了他们一个多世纪的难题。

　　It's not terribly surprising that they didn't embrace it immediately." 他们没有马上接受我们的看法，这是不足为奇的。”

　　As Luis Alvarez joked: "We were caught practicing geology without a license⁴." 路易斯·阿尔瓦雷斯开玩笑说：“我们没有执照就在搞地质学，结果当场被人捉住了。”

　　But there was also something much deeper and more fundamentally abhorrent⁵ in the impact theory. 但是，人们憎恨撞击理论有着更深层次的原因。

　　The belief that terrestrial processes were gradual had been elemental in natural history since the time of Lyell. 自莱尔时代以来，大家一直认为，地球上的过程是渐进的，这是自然史的一个基本要素。

　　By the 1980s, catastrophism had been out of fashion for so long that it had become literally⁶ unthinkable. 到20世纪80年代，灾变说早已过时，实际上成了一种不可思议的理论。

　　For most geologists⁷ the idea of a devastating⁸ impact was, as Eugene Shoemaker noted⁹, "against their scientific religion." 对大多数地质学家来说，关于破坏性极大的撞击的见解，正如尤金·苏梅克指出的，“违反了他们的科学教义”。

　　Nor did it help that Luis Alvarez was openly contemptuous of paleontologists and their contributions to scientific knowledge. 路易斯·阿尔瓦雷斯公开蔑视古生物学家和他们对科学知识的贡献，这也无济于事。

　　"They're really not very good scientists. “他们根本就不是个好科学家，

　　Opponents of the Alvarez theory produced any number of alternative explanations for the iridium deposits, 阿尔瓦雷斯理论的反对者对铱的沉积提出了许多不同的解释，

　　for instance, that they were generated by prolonged volcanic¹⁰ eruptions¹¹ in India called the Deccan Traps 比如，他们认为这是由印度源源不断的火山喷出物产生的，即所谓的“德干暗色岩”(是瑞典文，指一种熔岩)，

　　and above all insisted that there was no proof that the dinosaurs¹² disappeared abruptly¹³ from the fossil record at the iridium boundary. 他们尤其坚持认为，根据铱界的化石记录，没有证据表明恐龙是突然消失的。

　　One of the most vigorous opponents was Charles Officer of Dartmouth College. 达特茅斯学院的查尔斯·奥菲瑟是态度最坚决的反对者之一。

分享到：