：看阅读记单词2010年08月25日 15:30 来源：海天教育 Few creations of big technology capture the imagination like giant dams. Perhaps it is humankind’s long suffering at the mercy of flood and drought that makes the ideal of forcing the waters to do our bidding so fascination. But to be fascinated is also, sometimes, to be blind. Several giant dam projects threaten to do more harm than good.
The lesson from dams is that big is not always beautiful. It doesn′t help that building a big, powerful dam has become a symbol of achievement for nations and people striving to assert themselves. Egypt′s leadership in the Arab world was cemented by the Aswan High Dam. Turkey′s bid for First World status includes the giant Ataturk Dam.
But big dams tend not to work as intended. The Aswan Dam, for example stopped the Nile flooding but deprived Egypt of the fertile silt that floods left - all in return for a giant reservoir of disease which is now so full of silt that it barely generates electricity.
And yet, the myth of controlling the waters persists. This week, in the heart of civilized Europe, Slovaks and Hungarians stopped just short of sending in the troops in their contention over a dam on the Danube. The huge complex will probably have all the usual problems of big dams. But Slovakia is bidding for independence from the Czechs, and now needs a dam to prove itself.
Meanwhile, in India, the World Bank has given the go ahead to the even more wrong headed Narmada Dam. And the bank has done this even though its advisors say the dam will cause hardship for the powerless and environmental destruction. The benefits are for the powerful, but they are far from guaranteed
Proper, scientific study of the impacts of dams and of the cost and benefits of controlling water can help to resolve these conflicts. Hydroelectric power and flood control and irrigation are possible without building monster dams. But when you are dealing with myths, it is hard to be either proper, or scientific. It is time that the world learned the lessons of Aswan. You don’t need a dam to be saved.
译文
在重大技术所创造的东西中，很少有能像大型水坝这样能体现人的想象力的。或许是因为人类长期遭受洪涝和干旱的袭击，使得人类制服洪水的愿望更加令人兴奋不已。但是令人着迷，有时也会使人盲目。有些巨型大坝的项目就有着弊大于利的危险。
建造大坝的教训是：大的并不一定总是美的。但是这无法阻止想要修建高大雄伟的大坝来显示那些力争得到自我肯定的国家和人民当作伟大成就的象征。埃及在阿拉伯世界的领导地位由建造阿斯旺大坝而巩固。土耳其为了力争成为世界一流的国家，也包括修建了巨大的阿塔特克大坝。
但是大坝并没有如预期的那样发挥作用。例如阿斯旺大坝，它阻止了尼罗河洪水的泛滥，但也使得埃及失去了洪水离去后所留下的肥沃土壤——换回来的是一个疾病滋生的大水库。现在整个水库填满了淤泥，几乎不能发电。
然而控制水的不切实际的想法仍在继续。本周，在文明的欧洲中心，斯洛伐克人和匈牙利人为了多瑙河上的一处水坝引发争端，几乎差点动用了军队。这个大型的工程可能会出现所有大坝上的常见问题。但斯洛伐克正在力图从捷克脱离而独立，现在它需要建一个大坝来证明自己的实力。
与此同时，在印度，世界银行已经贷款来建造问题繁多的纳尔黙达大坝。尽管世界银行的顾问指出，该大坝将给百姓带来苦难，并且也会破坏周边的环境，但银行已经这样实行了。这些利益归有权势者所有，但是这种利益也是没有保障的。
对于水坝的影响以及水坝治水的成本和收益进行正确而科学的研究，能够有效地解决这些冲突。即使不兴建大型水坝，水利发电、治理洪水以及灌溉也是可能的，不一定非得建大坝。但是当你面对那些不切实际的神话时，你就很难做到合理和科学了。现在该是世界吸取阿斯旺大坝教训的时候了。我们未必非要通过大坝来拯救自己。
词汇
assert vt. 主张, 坚称, 断言
例句：You must assert yourself or they will continue to bully you. 你必须维护自己的权利，否则他们还会欺负你。
词组：assert oneself 坚持自己的权利; 表现自己的权威
同义词：affirm declare insist on pronounce state
Advisor n. 顾问, 劝告者, 指导教师
例句：His amiability condemns him to being a constant advisor to other people's troubles. 他那和蔼可亲的性格使他成为经常为他人排忧解难的开导者。
bidding n. 命令, 邀请, 出价
例句：He was bidding for popular support. 他在设法争取大众的支持。
词组：at one's bidding/ at sb.'s bidding 依嘱,遵命do one's bidding/ do sb.'s bidding 照……的命令做, 照……的话办
barely ad. 几乎不
例句：He has barely enough money to live on. 他的钱仅够勉强维持生计。
词组：barely enough勉强够be barely of age刚成年a barely furnished room陈设简陋的房间
同义词：hardly just scarcely
capture n. 抓取, 战利品, 捕获之物vt. 抓取, 获得, 迷住
例句：They would offer a bounty of $100,000 for the capture of the murderer. 他们愿出十万元赏金捉拿凶手。
同义词：apprehend arrest imprison seize
反义词：release
civilized a. 文明的, 有礼的
例句：His new theory has caused a sensation throughout the civilized world. 他的新理论轰动了整个文明世界。
反义词：barbarous; uncivilized; wild
dam n. 水坝, 障碍vt. 控制, 筑坝vi. 控制, 筑坝
例句：The mouth of the river is dammed and a freshwater lake created behind the dam. 河口筑起了拦河坝，坝后便形成了淡水湖。
词组：devil's dam 鬼婆娘(骂妇女的话)
deprived a. 穷困的, 丧失了受良好教育权利的, 贫穷的
例句：These misfortunes almost deprived him of his reason. 这些不幸的事情几乎使他失去理智。
词组：deprived children失学的孩子们
drought n. 干旱, 缺乏
例句：Soon afterward drought set in. 不久之后又发生了干早。
反义词：wet
environmental a. 周围的, 环境的
派生：environment n. 周围环境. environmentalist n. 环境保护者
例句：Living creatures must be adaptable to environmental change. 生物必须能适应环境的变化。
词组：an environmental factor环境的因素
fascination n. 令人着迷的事物, 入迷, 魅力
例句：Old churches have a certain strange fascination for me. 旧教堂对我具有某种奇特的魅力。
guarantee n. 担保, 抵押品, 保证书vt. 保证, 担保
例句：Blue skies are not always a guarantee of fine weather. 蔚兰的天空并不永远保证晴朗的天气。
词组：stand guarantee for ... 替……担任保证人
同义词：assure back certify endorse pledge promise secure sponsor stand for swear underwrite warrant
反义词：guarantor
hydroelectric a. 水力电气的
词组：a hydroelectric power station水力发电站
Imagination n. 想像, 听觉, 想像力
例句：Dragons are creatures of Chinese fancy. 龙是中国人幻想出来的动物。
词组：beyond(all) imagination (完全)出乎意料地draw on (one's) imagination 杜撰, 编造
irrigation n. 灌溉, 冲洗
例句：Public irrigation is the heart of cotton farming. 公共水利设施是棉花生产的命脉。
词组：an irrigation channel (canal) 灌溉渠bring the farmland under irrigation使农田水利化
myth n. 神话, 虚构的事, 虚构的人
例句：He was a myth that had been created out of desperation and poverty and despair. 他是从绝境、贫困和失望中创造出来的一个神话般的人物。
meanwhile n. 其时, 其间ad. 同时, 于此时
例句：Meanwhile, two other actors had carried two large food baskets to a shady spot under some trees. 与此同时,另外两位演员把两个盛着食物的大篮子拿到树下荫凉的地方。
symbol n. 符号, 象征, 代号, 信条
例句：The private car was still a cherished status symbol. 私人小汽车仍然是一种地位高贵的标志。
词组：a chemical symbol化学符号
status n. 状态, 情形, 地位, 要人身份
例子：We celebrate our regained status as a sovereign and independent nation. 我们为重新取得了主权和独立国家的地位而欢欣鼓舞。
词组：the status of affairs事态, 形势status nascendi (nascens) 初生态class status阶级成分a status seeker想往上爬的人
同义词：class condition division grade position rank standing state station
silt n. 淤泥vt. 使淤塞vi. 淤塞
例句：The cadres were digging up river silt with the commune members. 干部同社员们一起在挖河泥。
词组：silt content/ the total volume of silt淤泥含量
scientific a. 科学的, 系统的, 符合科学规律的
例句：Scientific statistical figures are from Beijing scientific resources check 2000. 科学技术统计数字为2000年北京市科技资源清查数字。
词组：scientific experiment科学实验scientific point of view科学观点
反义词：unscientific
troop n. 军队, 装甲部队, 骑兵队, 部队vi. 群集, 结队, 成群而行
例句：There were troops of friends to see him off. 有很多友人为他送行。
词组：get one's troop 升任骑兵连长household troops 王室禁卫军
同义词：band body bunch company crew crowd gang group mob party unit
Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments. Sir Isaac Newton supposedly discovered gravity through the fall of an apple. Apples had been falling in many places for centuries and thousands of people had seen them fall. But Newton for years had been curious about the cause of the orbital motion of the moon and planets. What kept them in place? Why didn’t they fall out of the sky? The fact that the apple fell down toward the earth and not up into the tree answered the question he had been asking himself about those larger fruits of the heavens, the moon and the planets。
How many men would have considered the possibility of an apple falling up into the tree? Newton did because he was not trying to predict anything. He was just wondering. His mind was ready for the unpredictable. Unpredictability is part of the essential nature of research. If you don’t have unpredictable things, you don’t have research. Scientists tend to forget this when writing their cut and dried reports for the technical journals, but history is filled with examples of it。
In talking to some scientists, particularly younger ones, you might gather the impression that they find the “scientific method” a substitute for imaginative thought. I’ve attended research conferences where a scientist has been asked what he thinks about the advisability of continuing a certain experiment. The scientist has frowned, looked at the graphs, and said, “The data are still inconclusive。” We know that, the men from the budget office have said, “but what do you think? Is it worthwhile going on? What do you think we might expect?” The scientist has been shocked at having even been asked to speculate。
What this amounts to, of course, is that the scientist has become the victim of his own writings. He has put forward unquestioned claims so consistently that he not only believes them himself, but also has convinced industrial and business management that they are true. If experiments are planned and carried out according to plan as faithfully as the reports in the science journals indicate, then it is perfectly logical for management to expect research to produce results measurable in dollars and cents. It is entirely reasonable for auditors to believe that scientists who know exactly where they are going and how they will get there should not be distracted by the necessity of keeping one eye on the cash register while the other eye is on the microscope. Nor, if regularity and conformity to a standard pattern are as desirable to the scientist as the writing of his papers would appear to reflect, is management to be blamed for discriminating against the “odd balls” among researchers in favor of more conventional thinkers who “work well with the team。”
译文
在实践中，科学与其说是依靠事先准备的试验还不如说是依靠观察实验者的有准备的头脑。据称艾萨克·牛顿爵士通过苹果落地，发现了万有引力。多少个世纪以来，苹果一直在许多地方落下，成千上万的人看见它落地。但多年来牛顿一直对月球和行星绕轨道运行的起因感到好奇。是什么使它们各就其位？它们为什么不从天上掉下来？苹果朝地下掉落而不是往树上飞这一事实，回答了牛顿长期以来对月球和行星那些较大的天上果实所存的疑问。
有多少人会考虑过苹果向上飞到树上的可能性？牛顿考虑过，因为他不想对任何事情进行预测。他只是在不断思考。他的思想对不可预测的事情有所准备。不可预测性是研究的本质不可缺少的一部分。如果没有不可预测的事物，就没有研究。科学家们在撰写千篇一律、枯燥乏味的论文供专业期刊发表时往往忘记这一点，而历史上这样的例子比比皆是。
在和一些科学家，特别是较为年轻的科学家们交谈时，也许会得出这样一种印象，即他们认为“科学方法”，可以取代想象思维。我参加过不少研讨会，会上某一位科学家总被问到，他对继续进行某项实验的合理性有何想法。那位科学家皱皱眉头，看看图表，然后说“数据仍不够充分”。“这点我们知道，”预算办公室人员说，“但你的意见如何？还值得往下做吗？”“你认为我们的结果可能会如何？”那位科学家大为震惊，他没有料到别人会让他预测。
当然这些就等于说，那位科学家已经成为自己论文的牺牲品，他所提出的种种断语不容置疑，以致他不仅自以为是，而且使工商管理人员深信无疑。如果试验完全按照科学期刊报告中陈述的那样，照计划不折不扣地去设计完成，那么，管理人员就认为，研究的结果可以美元，美分计，这完全符合逻辑。审计人员也完全有理由相信，确切知道自己的目标并知道如何使其实现的科学家们根本没必要三心二意，一直眼睛盯着现金记录卡，另一只眼睛则盯着显微镜。如果像科学家写论文所反映的那样，渴求规律性和与某种标准模式的一致性，那么管理人员歧视研究人员中的“标新立异者”而赞赏“善于合作者，”即思想上也较为循规蹈矩的人，也是无可指责的。
词汇
blame v. 谴责，责备；归咎 n. 责任，过失
例句：I don’t blame you for the failure of the exam. 我不因为考试的失败而责怪你。
词组：blame sth on 把某事归咎于……；blame sb. for sth. 因某事责备某人；in blame of 责备
budget n. 预算
例句：Most of our defense budget goes for conventional forces and manpower. 我们大部分的国防预算是用在常规力量和人员上面。
conference n. 会议，协商会，讨论会
例句：After the interview they held a press conference together. 会谈后，他们共同举行了记者招待会。
词组：in conference 正在开会讨论；have a conference with 和……协商
Conformity n. 符合，依照(法规，习俗等)
派生：conform v. 遵守，依照，符合，顺应(与to 连用)
例句：We should act in conformity with rules and laws. 我们应该依照规定和法律办事。
词组：in conformity with sth. 与某事物相一致
conventional a. 按惯例办事的，守旧的；传统的
派生：convention n. 惯例，习俗；大会，会议
例句：After a few conventional remarks, he made a brilliant speech. 讲了几句套话后，他做了一个非常精彩的演讲。
Convince v. 使某人确信，使某人明白
派生：convinced a. 被说服的 convincing a. 令人信服的
例句：What he said convinced me of the truth. 他所说的话使我相信了这个事实。
词组：convince sb. of sth. 使某人相信某事
提示：convince 只能做及物动词，后面跟sb. 做其宾语。
curious a. 好奇的，好打听的
派生：curiosity n. 好奇心
例句：She is curious about what has happened. 她很想知道发生了什么。
词组：be curious about 对……好奇；be curious to do 很想(做)；渴望(做)
Distract v. 转移注意力；迷惑，扰乱
例句：The noise in the classroom distracted me from reading. 教室里的嘈杂声使我不能集中注意力看书。
反义词：attract
essential a. 必要的；本质的
例句：We must dispose of too many essential features of the investigated phenomenon. 我们不得不排除所研究现象的许多基本特征。
辨析：essential, fundamental, vital
essential 指属于本事物最本质的东西或者能与其他事物相区别的特征；fundamental 指某一体系事物或建筑的基础；vital 指重要的，对事物的存在、持续的活力或效率必不可少的。
faithfully ad. 忠诚地，诚实地
派生：faithful a. 忠诚的，可靠的 faith n. 信任，信用；信仰
例句：The old nurse has served the family faithfully for forty years. 这个老保姆为这个家庭忠诚地服务了四十年。
frown v. 皱眉；表示不高兴
例句：The government frowns at any waste of taxpayers’ money. 政府对任何浪费纳税者财税的行为表示不满。
词组：frown on/upon 不赞成，不以为然
gravity n. 重力，引力
例句：Gravity, although the weakest known force, is the only universal force. 引力虽然是已知力中最弱的力，它却是唯一普遍存在的力。
inconclusive a. 非决定性的；不确定的
例句：The jury found the evidence against the prisoner inconclusive and acquitted him. 陪审团发现控告罪犯的罪证不确凿，所以放了他。
反义词：conclusive
indicate v. 提示，引起对……注意；表示；暗示
派生：indication n. 指示；象征，迹象 indicator n. 指示器 indicative a. 指示的，象征的(常与of 连用)
例句：A signpost on the road indicates the right way for the drivers. 马路上的路标为司机标出适合的路。
orbital a. 轨道的
例句：If it fails, a new cargo spaceship must be launched to transport cargo to the orbital station. 如果失败必须发射新的载货飞船为轨道站运送货物。
predict v. 语言，预示
派生：predictable a. 可语言的 predictor n. 预言家 prediction n. 语言；预报
例句：Could Marx predict that the October Revolution would take place in backward Russia? 马克思能预料到在一个落后的俄国会实现十月革命吗？
speculate v. 推断，推测(on, upon, about)；投机
派生：speculation n. 推测，推断
例句：The doctor speculated that a virus caused the disease. 医生推断是某种病毒引起了这种疾病。
substitute v. 代替，替代 n. 代替品
派生：substitution n. 代替，代替物
例句：When a member is injured, a substitute plays in his place. 球员受伤时，替补球员就代替他的位置。
词组：substitute for 代替，取代
同义词：replace
victim n. 受害者，牺牲者
例句：We should not be a victim of materialism. 我们不应该成为物质主义的牺牲品。
词组：fall a victim to 成为……的牺牲品
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