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MichaelShermer_2006-_谈奇异的信念_
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| Hey, I am Michael Shermer, the director of the Skeptics Society, the publisher of Skeptic magazine. |
嗨！我是 Michael Shermer 怀疑论者协会理事长 怀疑论者杂志的发行人。 |
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Skeptics:n.疑论者,怀疑主义者(skeptic的复数形式); publisher:n.出版者,出版商;发行人;
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| We investigate claims of the paranormal , pseudo-science , and fringe groups and cults and claims of all kinds between -- science and pseudo-science and non-science and junk science, |
我们调查声称超自然伪科学的现象, 边缘科学、邪教和种种主张 - 科学和伪科学和非科学和垃圾科学, |
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investigate:v.调查;研究;审查; claims:v.宣称; n.声明; (claim的第三人称单数和复数) paranormal:adj.超常的;超过正常范围的; pseudo-science:伪科学; fringe:n.边缘;穗;刘海;adj.边缘的;附加的;vt.加穗于; cults:n.邪教;教派;崇拜的对象;狂热崇拜(cult的复数);
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| voodoo science, pathological science, bad science, non-science and plain old nonsense . |
巫毒科学、病态科学、坏科学、非科学, 以及无稽之谈。 |
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voodoo:n.伏都教(一种西非原始宗教);伏都教徒;vt.施伏都巫术迷惑;adj.伏都教的; pathological:adj.病理学的;病态的;由疾病引起的(等于pathologic); nonsense:n.胡说;废话;adj.荒谬的;int.胡说;
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| And unless you've been on Mars recently , you know there's a lot of that out there. |
除非你最近去过火星, 你知道世上有许多这些东西, |
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Mars:n.火星 recently:adv.最近;新近;
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| Some people call us debunkers, which is kind of a negative term. |
所以,人人称我们为拆穿者 虽然这称呼有点负面。 |
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negative:adj.[数]负的;消极的;否定的;阴性的;n.否定;负数;[摄]底片;v.否定;拒绝;
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| But let's face it -- there's a lot of bunk, and we are like the bunko squads of the police departments out there, flushing out. |
但是,承认吧！确实有太多胡说八道了。 我们就像是警察局的诈骗小组进行扫除工作, |
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bunko:n.诈骗的输赢;诈欺,欺诈;vt.行骗; squads:n.小队;班(squad的复数);小组;v.编成小队;编成班(squad的第三人称单数); flushing:n.洗涤;抽水冲洗;出渣;洒水;v.发红;脸红;冲洗干净;(flush的现在分词)
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| Well, we're sort of like the Ralph Naders of bad ideas -- |
我们就像是侦办坏主意的拉尔夫纳德检察官。 |
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Ralph:v.呕吐;
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| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| - trying to replace bad ideas with good ideas. |
尝试将坏主意换成好的。 |
| I'll show you an example of a bad idea. |
让我给你们看看坏主意长什么样子 |
| I brought this with me. |
我带来了这个 |
| This was given to us by NBC Dateline to test. |
NBC晨间节目把这个给我们做测试 |
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Dateline:n.国际日期变更线;报纸写明的发稿日期及地址;新闻电头;
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| It's the -- it's produced by the Quadro Corporation of West Virginia . |
由西弗吉尼亚州的Quadro公司制造 |
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Quadro:n.方形住宅区; Corporation:n.法人;(大)公司;法人团体;市政委员会; Virginia:adj.弗吉尼亚州的;
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| It's called the Quadro 2000 Dowser Rod . |
称为Quadro2000探测棒。 |
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Dowser:n.探矿者;水脉或矿脉的占卜者; Rod:n.杆;竿;棒;(责打人用的)棍棒;手枪;
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| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| This was being sold to high school administrators for 900 dollars a piece. |
卖给高中职员 一个900块美金 |
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administrators:n.[管理]管理员;完全程序(administrator的复数形式);
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| It's a piece of plastic with a Radio Shack antenna attached to it. |
由一片塑料连接RadioShack牌天线所组成。 |
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Shack:n.棚屋;小室;vi.居住; antenna:n.[电讯]天线;[动]触角,[昆]触须; attached:adj.依恋;v.重视;把…固定;(attach的过去分词和过去式)
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| You could dowse for all sorts of things, but this particular one was built to dowse for marijuana in students' lockers . |
你可以用它探测任何东西 但是这一款,是特别为 探测学生置物柜里的大麻所设计的。 |
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marijuana:n.大麻;大麻毒品; lockers:n.储物柜;存储箱;有锁存物柜;带锁小柜(locker的复数形式);
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| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| So the way it works is, you go down the hallway and you see if it tilts toward a particular locker, and then you open the locker. |
使用方法是你走进走廊一路侦测,看天线是否 会指向某个置物柜,然后,你就可以打开来检查。 |
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tilts:vi.倾斜;翘起;以言词或文字抨击;vt.使倾斜;使翘起;n.倾斜;
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| So it looks something like this. |
所以,看起来就像这样。 |
| I'll show you. |
我秀给你们看。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| No, it -- well, it has kind of a right-leaning bias . |
不,噢！它似乎会偏右边。 |
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right-leaning:右倾的; bias:adv.使有偏见;n.偏见;偏心;偏爱;v.使有偏见;使偏向;adj.斜的;[电]偏动的;
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| So, I'll show -- well, this is science, so we'll do a controlled experiment. |
所以,嗯！这是科学,所以我们来做个核对实验。 |
| It'll go this way for sure. |
从这边走应该就会朝向这边了。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| Sir, you want to empty your pockets. Please, sir? |
先生,可以请您掏出您的口袋吗？先生。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| So the question was, can it actually find marijuana in students' lockers? |
所以,问题是,这真的能找出学生置物柜里藏的大麻吗？ |
| And the answer is, If you open enough of them -- yes. |
答案是,如果你开得够多,就找得出来。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| (Applause) |
(掌声) |
| But in science, we have to keep track of the misses, not just the hits. |
但是,在科学上我们必须记录那些不准的,不能只记准的。 |
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keep track of:记录;与…保持联系;
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| And that's probably the key lesson to my short talk here, is that this is how psychics work, astrologers , and tarot card readers and so on. |
这也许就是我这简短演讲的重点,那就是 这就是通灵者占星家、塔罗牌师等等的运作原理。 |
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psychics:n.[心理]心理学;心灵研究; astrologers:n.占星家(astrologer的复数形式); tarot:n.塔罗纸牌(共78张牌,其中大阿尔克纳牌22张,小阿尔克纳牌56张);
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| People remember the hits; they forget the misses. |
人们会记住准的,忘记不准的。 |
| In science we have to keep the whole database, and look to see if the number of hits is somehow stands out from the total number that you would expect by chance . |
在科学上,我们必须保存完整的数据。 检视准确的数据是否会明显地 从全部可预测的机率数字当中突显出来。 |
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somehow:adv.以某种方法;莫名其妙地; by chance:偶然;意外地;
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| In this case, we tested it. |
在这个例子中,我们测试了这仪器。 |
| We had two opaque boxes, one with government-approved THC marijuana, and one with nothing. |
我们准备两个不透光的箱子, 一个藏有政府认证含有四氢大麻酚的大麻,另一个是空的, |
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opaque:adj.不透明的;不传热的;迟钝的;n.不透明物;vt.使不透明;使不反光;
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| And it got it 50 percent of the time -- |
准确度是一半一半, |
| - which is exactly what you'd expect with a coin flip model. |
跟你可预测的丢铜板的机率法则完全一样。 |
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flip:n.浏览;空翻;轻抛;捻掷;v.迅速翻动;按(开关);按(按钮);开(或关)(机器等);
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| So that's just a fun little example here of the sorts of things we do. |
所以,这只是个有趣的小例子告诉你我们,工作的性质。 |
| Skeptic is the quarterly publication . |
怀疑论者杂志是个季刊, |
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quarterly:adj.季度的,按季度的; v.按季度,[农]一季一次地; n.季刊; publication:n.出版物;发表;公布;发行;
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| Each one has a particular theme, like this one is on the future of intelligence . |
每季都有个主题,例如这一个是关于未来智慧的, |
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intelligence:n.智力;智慧;才智;(尤指关于敌国的)情报;
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| Are people getting smarter or dumber ? |
人是愈来愈聪明？还是愈来愈笨？ |
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dumber:哑的(dumb的比较级);愚蠢的;不能说话的;
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| I have an opinion of this myself because the business I'm in. |
因为工作的关系,我自己对这有个人的见解。 |
| But, in fact, people, it turns out, are getting smarter. |
但事实上,结果显示,人是愈来愈聪明的。 |
| Three IQ points per 10 years, going up. |
每十年提升3个IQ数值。 |
| Sort of an interesting thing. |
这点蛮有趣的。 |
| With science, don't think of skepticism as a thing or even science as a thing. |
讲科学不能把怀疑论或甚至是科学当作一样东西。 |
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skepticism:n.怀疑论;怀疑的态度;
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| Are science and religion compatible ? |
像是在问科学和宗教可并立吗？ |
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compatible:adj.兼容的;能共处的;可并立的;
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| It's like, are science and plumbing compatible? |
像是在问科学与水电并立吗？ |
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plumbing:n.管路系统;水暖工的工作;v.探索;钻研;探究;(plumb的现在分词)
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| These -- they're just two different things. |
这些它们其实就是两种不同的东西。 |
| Science is not a thing. It's a verb. |
科学不是东西,而是动词, |
| It's a way of thinking about things. |
是思考事物的方式。 |
| It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena . |
是为所有现象寻找自然的解释的方法。 |
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phenomena:n.现象(phenomenon的复数);
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| I mean, what's more likely -- that extraterrestrial intelligences or multi-dimensional beings travel across the vast distances of interstellar space to leave a crop circle in Farmer Bob's field in Puckerbrush, Kansas to promote skeptic.com, our webpage ? |
我的意思是, 外星生物和多重次元的生灵横跨 星际空间浩瀚的距离,留下麦田圈, 在堪萨斯州帕克布莱西的鲍伯农场上,宣传我们的网站skeptic.com的可能性较大, |
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extraterrestrial:adj.地球外的;n.天外来客; intelligences:[军]情报; multi-dimensional:adj.多维; interstellar:adj.[航][天]星际的; crop circle:n.麦田圈(庄稼地里突然变平的一块圆形地,传说是外星生物所为); Kansas:n.堪萨斯州(美国州名); promote:v.促进;推动;促销;提升;晋升; webpage:n.网页;
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| Or is it more likely that a reader of Skeptic did this with Photoshop? |
还是某怀疑论者杂志的读者利用Photoshop制作出来的可能性大呢？ |
| And in all cases we have to ask -- |
在所有这些案例里头,我们都必须问, |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| - what's the more likely explanation? |
最有可能的解释是什么？ |
| And before we say something is out of this world , we should first make sure that it's not in this world. |
在我们说有些东西来自外世界之前, 我们首先应该查明它并不存在于这个世界。 |
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out of this world:出色的,了不起的;极好的;
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| What's more likely -- that Arnold had a little extraterrestrial help in his run for the governorship ? |
哪个可能性较高, 阿诺德·施瓦辛格有外星人帮忙竞选州长呢？ |
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governorship:n.州长或总督等的职位;州长或总督等的任期;
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| Or that the World Weekly News makes stuff up? |
或是世界新闻周刊捏造的呢？ |
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stuff:n.东西:物品:基本特征:v.填满:装满:标本:
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| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| And part of that -- the same theme is expressed nicely here in this Sidney Harris cartoon. |
其中同样的主题,却在辛尼海罗斯的卡通中, 被诠释得很不错。 |
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expressed:v.表示;表达;显而易见;不言自明;(express的过去分词和过去式) nicely:adv.细致地;有吸引力;令人满意;令人愉快;adj.强健的;
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| For those of you in the back, it says here "Then a miracle occurs . |
给坐在后排的观众,这上面说, 然后奇迹发生, |
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miracle:n.奇迹,奇迹般的人或物;惊人的事例; occurs:v.重现(occur的第三人称单数);
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| I think you need to be more explicit here in step two." |
我觉得你应该把第二步骤说得更详细一点。 |
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explicit:adj.明确的;清楚的;直率的;详述的;
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| This single slide completely dismantles the intelligent design arguments. |
这一张投影片完全拆散了智能设计论证。 |
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dismantles:vt.拆除;取消;解散;除掉…的覆盖物;vi.可拆卸; intelligent:adj.有才智的;悟性强的;聪明的;有智力的
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| There's nothing more to it than that. |
再清楚也不过了。 |
| (Applause) |
(掌声) |
| You can say a miracle occurs. |
你可以说奇迹发生。 |
| It's just that it doesn't explain anything. |
只是这不能解释任何事情。 |
| It doesn't offer anything. There's nothing to test. |
不能提供什么。没有东西可以测试。 |
| It's the end of the conversation for intelligent design creationists . |
这是智慧设计创意工作者的谈话终点。 |
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creationists:n.神造说鼓吹者;神灵论者;特创论者(即相信万物皆由上帝一次造成者);
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| Whereas -- and it's true, scientists sometimes throw terms out as linguistic place fillers -- dark energy or dark matter or something like that. |
反之,确实科学家有时会丢出一些名词当作 语言学的填空词--暗能量或暗物质或其它类似的等等。 |
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Whereas:conj.然而;鉴于;反之; linguistic:adj.语言的;语言学的; fillers:n.[涂料]填充料,[涂料]填料(filler复数形式); dark matter:n.暗物质(根据一些理论,指太空中不反射光的物质);
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| Until we figure out what it is, we'll just call it this. |
直到我们明白这是什么之前,我们就暂时称它为这个, |
| It's the beginning of the causal chain for science. |
对科学而言这是因果连结链的开始。 |
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causal:adj.因果关系的;有原因的;n.表示原因的连词;
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| For intelligent design creationists, it's the end of the chain. |
对智慧设计创意工作者而言,则是因果连结链的末端。 |
| So again, we can ask this -- what's more likely -- are UFOs alien spaceships or perceptual cognitive mistakes, or even fakes ? |
我们可以再次询问,哪个可能性较高, 幽浮比较可能是外星人的宇宙飞船或是感官认知的错误或甚至是假的。 |
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perceptual:adj.知觉的;感知的;有知觉的; cognitive:adj.认知的,认识的; fakes:n.赝品;假冒商品(fake的复数);v.佯装;假装(fake的三单形式);
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| This is a UFO shot from my house in Altadena, California, looking down over Pasadena . |
这是我从加州犹它旦市家中拍到的幽浮照片, 向下俯瞰帕萨迪纳市。 |
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Pasadena:n.帕萨迪纳市(美国加州));
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| And if it looks a lot like a Buick hubcap , it's because it is. |
如果这看起来像别克汽车的轮盖,那是因为它根本就是。 |
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Buick:n.别克(汽车品牌); hubcap:n.毂盖;轮毂罩;
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| You don't even need Photoshop, you don't need high-tech equipment, you don't need computers. |
你甚至不需要Photoshop,不需要高科技器材, 你不需要计算机, |
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high-tech:adj.高科技的,高技术的;仿真技术的;n.高科技;
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| This was shot with a throw-away Kodak Instamatic camera. |
这是用柯达Instamatic抛弃型相机拍的。 |
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throw-away:adj.信口开河的;用后可扔的;n.废品; Kodak:n.小型照相机; Instamatic:un.一种快速照像机的商标名;
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| You just have somebody off on the side with a hubcap ready to go. |
你只需要有人在旁边准备掷出轮盖就可以了。 |
| Camera's ready -- that's it. |
相机准备好--就这么简单。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| So, although it's possible that most of these things are fake or illusions or so on and that some of them are real, it's more likely that all of them are fake, like the crop circles. |
虽然,大部份这些东西都有可能是假的, 或是幻象等等,但有些是真的。 更有可能全部都是假的,就像麦田圈一样。 |
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illusions:n.幻想;错觉;幻觉;幻影(illusion的复数)
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| On a more serious note, in all of science we're looking for a balance between data and theory. |
说正经的,在所有科学里,我们都在寻找一种平衡, 介于数据与理论之间。 |
| In the case of Galileo, he had two problems when he turned his telescope to Saturn . |
以伽利略来说,他有两个困难, 当他用望远镜观察土星时, |
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telescope:n.望远镜;v.(使)叠套缩短;精简; Saturn:n.[天]土星;农业之神(罗马神话中的一个形象);
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| First of all , there was no theory of planetary rings. |
首先,那时没有行星环的理论, |
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First of all:adv.首先; planetary:adj.行星的;
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| And second of all, his data was grainy and fuzzy , and he couldn't quite make out what it was he was looking at. |
第二,他的数据是粗糙模糊的, 而且,他并不太了解自己正在看的是什么, |
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grainy:adj.粒状的;木纹状的;多粒的;有纹理的; fuzzy:adj.模糊的;失真的;有绒毛的;
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| So he wrote that he had seen -- "I have observed that the furthest planet has three bodies." |
所以他就写下他看到了。 我观察到最远的星球有三个形体 。 |
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observed:adj.观察的;观测的;v.观察;遵守;注意到(observe的过去分词形式); furthest:v.最远地; adj.最远的;
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| And this is what he ended up concluding that he saw. |
而这是他最后对自己的观察所做的结论。 |
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concluding:adj.结束的;最后的;
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| So without a theory of planetary rings and with only grainy data, you can't have a good theory. |
没有行星环的理论且凭靠粗糙的资料, 你不可能建构很好的理论。 |
| And it wasn't solved until 1655. |
一直到1655年才得到解答, |
| This is Christiaan Huygens's book in which he cataloged all the mistakes that people made in trying to figure out what was going on with Saturn. |
惠更斯的书中记载了所有人在尝试了解, 土星时所犯的错误。 |
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cataloged:v.将…编入目录;登记(catalog的过去分词);adj.编入目录的;
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| It wasn't till -- Huygens had two things. |
但是一直到惠更斯有了两样东西, |
| He had a good theory of planetary rings and how the solar system operated. |
好的行星环理论和了解太阳系如何运转。 |
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solar system:[天]太阳系;
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| And then, he had better telescopic , more fine-grain data in which he could figure out that as the Earth is going around faster -- according to Kepler's Laws -- than Saturn, then we catch up with it. |
而且,当时他有更好的望远镜及更细微的数据, 从中他了解到当地球转得比土星更快速, 根据克卜勒三大定律,然后我们会追上它。 |
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telescopic:adj.望远镜的;[眼科]远视的;套管式伸缩的;眼力好的;有先见之明的; according to:根据,据说; catch up with:赶上,追上;逮捕;处罚;
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| And we see the angles of the rings at different angles, there. |
我们从不同的角度,看见行星环不同的角度。 |
| And that, in fact, turns out to be true. |
而事实上,结果真是如此。 |
| The problems with having a theory is that your theory may be loaded with cognitive biases . |
有理论的问题是, 你的理论可能会充满认知偏见。 |
|
biases:n.偏差,偏见(bias的复数形式);v.偏见(bias的三单形式);
|
| So one of the problems of explaining why people believe weird things is that we have things on a simple level. |
所以,要解释人为何会相信奇异现象的困难之一, 就是我们会简化事物。 |
|
weird:adj.奇怪的;奇异的;离奇的;n.命运;宿命;命运女神;
|
| And then I'll go to more serious ones. |
然后,我之后会再说比较多的例子。 |
| Like, we have a tendency to see faces. |
例如,我们会倾向看见脸孔, |
|
tendency:n.倾向,趋势;癖好;
|
| This is the face on Mars which was -- in 1976, where there was a whole movement to get NASA to photograph that area because people thought this was monumental architecture made by Martians . |
这些是在火星上的脸, 1976年有很多运动要求美国太空总署 为这些地区拍摄照片,因为人们认为 这些是火星人盖的纪念建筑。 |
|
monumental:adj.不朽的;纪念碑的;非常的; architecture:n.建筑学;建筑风格;建筑式样;架构; Martians:n.火星人(Martian的复数形式);
|
| Well, it turns out -- here's the close-up of it from 2001. |
后来发现这是2001年所拍摄的近照。 |
|
close-up:n.[电影]特写镜头,特写;小传;
|
| If you squint , you can still see the face. |
如果你斜视仍可以看见脸, |
|
squint:vi.眯眼看; vt.使斜眼; n.斜视; adj.斜视的;
|
| And when you're squinting , what you're doing is you're turning that from fine-grain to coarse-grain. |
当你斜视时,你就是在 将影像从微粒变成粗粒的。 |
|
squinting:v.瞇着眼睛看;斜视;(人)患斜视;(squint的现在分词)
|
| And so, you're reducing the quality of your data. |
也就是说你在降低数据的质量。 |
| And if I didn't tell you what to look for, you'd still see the face, because we're programmed by evolution to see faces. |
如果我不告诉你,该看什么,你还是会看见脸孔, 因为进化将我们设计成,会看见脸孔的生物。 |
|
evolution:n.演变;进化;发展;渐进;
|
| Faces are important for us socially. |
在社交上,脸孔对我们很重要, |
| And, of course, happy faces. |
当然还有笑脸, |
| Faces of all kinds are easy to see. |
各种脸孔都很容易被看见。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| You can see the happy face on Mars, there. |
你可以看见火星上的笑脸在上面。 |
| If astronomers were frogs perhaps they'd see Kermit the Frog. |
如果天文学家是青蛙的话,那么他们可能就会看见芝麻街的青蛙柯密特。 |
|
astronomers:天文学家;
|
| Do you see him there? |
看见了吗？ |
| Little froggy legs. |
小小的青蛙脚。 |
|
froggy:n.法国人(轻蔑语);adj.蛙的;不好的;讨厌的;
|
| Or if geologists were elephants? |
或是如果考古学家是大象呢？ |
|
geologists:n.[地质]地质学家(geologist的复数形式);
|
| Religious iconography . |
宗教肖像。 |
|
Religious:adj.宗教的;虔诚的;严谨的;修道的;n.修道士;尼姑; iconography:n.肖像研究;肖像学;图解;
|
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| Discovered by a Tennessee baker in 1996. |
1996年由田纳西的一位面包师傅所发现, |
|
Tennessee:n.田纳西州(美国州名); baker:n.面包(糕饼)师傅;面包店老板;
|
| He charged five bucks a head to come see the nun bun till he got a cease-and-desist from Mother Teresa's lawyer. |
他收一个人头五块钱来让人看这块修女面包, 直到他收到特瑞莎修女的律师寄来的禁止通知函为止。 |
|
bucks:n.元;雄鹿;(buck的复数)
|
| Here's Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Watsonville, just down the street. |
这是在下一条街的瓜达露佩圣母和华森维尔圣母。 |
| Or is it up the street from here? |
或是从这里过去的上一条街？ |
| Tree bark is particularly good because it's nice and grainy, branchy , black-and-white splotchy and you can get the pattern-seeking -- humans are pattern-seeking animals. |
树皮的效果特别好,因为粗糙且枝繁, 黑白有污点,然后你就可以寻找图样, 人类是图样找寻的动物。 |
|
bark:n.树皮; v.(狗)吠叫; particularly:adv.特别地,独特地;详细地,具体地;明确地,细致地; branchy:adj.多枝的; black-and-white:adj.印刷的;黑白混合的;用笔写的; splotchy:adj.有斑点的;沾上污点的;
|
| Here's the Virgin Mary on the side of a glass window in Sao Paulo. |
这是在圣保罗一个玻璃窗边上的圣母玛利亚。 |
|
on the side of:拥护…;站在…一边;赞助;
|
| Now, here's the Virgin Mary made her appearance on a cheese sandwich -- which I got to actually hold in a Las Vegas casino, of course, this being America. |
而这是圣母玛利亚显灵在起司三明治上, 实际上我在拉斯韦加斯赌场亲手拿过。 当然因为这里是美国。 |
|
appearance:n.外貌;外观;外表; sandwich:n.三明治;夹心面包片;
|
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| This casino paid 28,500 dollars on eBay for the cheese sandwich. |
这间赌场在eBay上花了28500美金买下这起司三明治。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| But who does it really look like, the Virgin Mary? |
但是这到底看起来像谁呢？圣母玛利亚吗？ |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| It has that sort of puckered lips, 1940s-era look. |
有那种40年代噘嘴的样子, |
|
puckered:v.皱起;使起褶子;撅起;(pucker的过去式和过去分词)
|
| Virgin Mary in Clearwater, Florida. |
圣母玛利亚在佛罗里达州的清水市。 |
| I actually went to see this one. |
我实际去看过这个。 |
| There was a lot of people there -- the faithful come to be in their -- wheelchairs and crutches , and so on. |
那里聚集了许多人--虔诚的信徒来到这里, 有坐轮椅的、有撑拐的等等, |
|
faithful:n.信徒;adj.忠于;忠实的;正确的;忠贞的; wheelchairs:[医]轮椅; crutches:n.拐杖,支撑物;叉状架(crutch复数);
|
| And we went down, investigated . |
我们到那里去做了调查。 |
|
investigated:v.侦查;调查;研究;(investigate的过去分词和过去式)
|
| Just to give you a size -- that's Dawkins, me and The Amazing Randi, next to this two, two and a half story size image. |
顺便让你知道,我们的人力,那是道金斯、我和令人惊奇的瑞迪。 在两个两个半层楼高的影像旁边, |
| All these candles, so many thousands of candles people had lit in tribute to this. |
所有的蜡烛人们,点燃成千上万的蜡烛来赞颂这景象。 |
|
tribute:n.礼物;[税收]贡物;颂词;(尤指对死者的)致敬,悼念,吊唁礼物;
|
| So we walked around the backside , just to see what was going on here, where it turns out wherever there's a sprinkler head and a palm tree, you get the effect. |
所以我们就绕到背后去看看,这到底是怎么回事。 结果发现只要有洒水喷头和棕榈树的地方, 你就会看到这样的效果。 |
|
backside:n.背部;后方;臀部; sprinkler:n.洒水车;洒水器; palm:n.手掌;手心;棕榈树;v.把…藏在手中(尤指玩戏法);
|
| Here's the Virgin Mary on the backside, which they started to wipe off. |
这就是在后面,他们已经开始在擦拭的圣母玛利亚。 |
|
wipe:v.擦;抹;拭;消除;n.擦;拭;揩;(湿)抹布;
|
| I guess you can only have one miracle per building. |
我想一栋建筑物顶多只能有一个奇迹吧！ |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| So is it really a miracle of Mary, or is it a miracle of Marge? |
这到底是圣母玛利亚的奇迹？还是玛吉的奇迹？ |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| And then I'm going to finish up with another example of this with audio -- auditory illusions. |
接下来我想要以另一个类似的例子来作为结束, 用听--听觉幻象。 |
|
finish up with:以…结束; audio:adj.声音的;录音的; auditory:n.听众;礼堂;adj.听觉的;耳朵的;
|
| There is this film, " White Noise ," |
有部电影叫鬼讯号, |
|
White Noise:n.白噪声(整个频道范围内的噪声);
|
| with Michael Keaton about the dead talking back to us. |
由麦可基顿主演,关于亡者回应我们的话。 |
| By the way , this whole business of talking to the dead, it's not that big a deal. |
顺便说一下,跟亡者说话并没有什么了不起, |
|
By the way:顺便说一下;
|
| Anybody can do it, turns out. |
结论是任何人都做得到。 |
| It's getting the dead to talk back that's the really hard part. |
叫亡者响应我们的话,才是真正难的地方。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| In this case, supposedly , these messages are hidden in electronic phenomena. |
这个例子,在电子现象当中藏有一些讯息, |
|
supposedly:adv.据说;据信;据传; electronic:adj.电子的;电子器件的;电子设备的;
|
| There's a ReverseSpeech.com web page on which I downloaded this stuff. |
我从ReverseSpeech.com的网站上下载了这个, |
| Here is the forward -- this is the most famous one of all of these. |
这是向前转的,也是最有名的一段。 |
| Here's the forward version of the very famous song. |
这是这首非常有名的歌曲的正常版本。 |
| Boy, coudln't you just listen to that all day? |
天啊！这音乐可以让人听一整天。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| All right, here it is backwards, and see if you can hear the hidden messages that are supposedly in there. |
好的,接下来是倒转的版本。 看看你是否听得出里面应该藏有的讯息。 |
| What did you get? |
你听到了什么？ |
| (Audience: Satan .) |
(听众:撒旦) |
|
Satan:n.撒旦;魔鬼;
|
| Michael Shermer: Satan? OK, well, at least we got Satan. |
麦可?薛莫:撒旦,好,至少我们听出了撒旦。 |
| Now, I'll prime your auditory part of your brain to tell you what you're supposed to hear, and then hear it again. |
现在我将先替你头脑的听力部分做准备, 告诉你,应该听见的内容然后再听一遍。 |
|
prime:adj.主要的; v.极好地; n.初期; v.使准备好;
|
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| (Applause) |
(掌声) |
| You can't miss it when I tell you what's there. |
我告诉你那里有什么之后,你就不可能会错过。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| All right, I'm going to just end with a positive , nice, little story about -- the Skeptics is a nonprofit educational organization . |
好,最后我将以一个正面温馨的小故事做为结束。 关于怀疑论者协会是非营利的教育组织。 |
|
positive:adj.积极的;[数]正的,[医][化学]阳性的;确定的;n.正数;[摄]正片; nonprofit:adj.非赢利的;不以赢利为目的的; educational:adj.教育的;有关教育的;有教育意义的 organization:n.组织;机构;体制;团体;
|
| We're always looking for little, good things that people do. |
我们总是在寻找人们所做的小小的好事。 |
| And in England, there's a pop singer. |
在英国有个流行歌手, |
| Very -- one of the top popular singers in England today, Katie Melua. |
是当下英国最顶尖的流行歌手凯特玛露。 |
| And she wrote a beautiful song. |
她写了一首很美的歌。 |
| It was in the top five in 2005, called, "Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing." |
2005年排名前五名歌名,叫做 北京有九百万辆脚踏车 。 |
| It's a love story -- she's sort of the Norah Jones of the U.K. -- about how she much loves her guy, and compared to nine million bicycles, and so forth. |
描写一个爱情故事--她就像是英国的诺拉琼丝。 关于她有多爱她的男人, 与九百万辆脚踏车做比较等等。 |
|
compared:adj.比较的,对照的; v.相比; (compare的过去式和过去分词)
|
| And she has this one passage here. |
其中有一段歌词 |
| ? We are 12 billion light-years from the edge ? |
?我们距离宇宙边缘120亿 光年? |
|
light-years:n.光年;
|
| ? That's a guess ? |
?这是个猜想? |
| ? No one can ever say it's true ? |
?从没有人能说这是真的? |
| ? But I know that I will always be with you ? |
?但我确切知道我会永远伴着你? |
| Well, that's nice. |
这很动人。 |
| At least she got it close. |
至少她猜得很接近。 |
| In America it would be, "We're 6,000 light years from the edge." |
在美国,就会变成, 我们距离宇宙边缘6000光年 。 |
| (Laughter) |
(笑声) |
| But my friend, Simon Singh, the particle physicist , now turned science educator, and he wrote the book "The Big Bang ," and so on. |
但是,我的朋友赛门辛是粒子物理学家,现在成了科学教育家。 写了 大爆炸 这本书以及其它等等。 |
|
particle:n.颗粒;[物]质点;极小量;小品词; physicist:n.物理学家;物理学研究者; Bang:n.猛敲; v.猛敲; v.正好;
|
| He uses every chance he gets to promote good science. |
他总是抓住每个可以倡导好科学的机会, |
| And so, he wrote an op-ed piece in The Guardian about Katie's song, in which he said, well, we know exactly how old, how far from the edge. |
于是,他就在卫报上写了一篇专栏关于凯特的歌。 当中,他指出我们确切知道宇宙边缘有多老及离我们多远, |
|
op-ed:n.评论版; Guardian:n.[法]监护人,保护人;守护者;adj.守护的;
|
| You know, it's 12 -- it's 13.7 billion light years, and it's not a guess. |
就是12--137亿光年,不是用猜的。 |
| We know within precise error bars there how close it is. |
我们知道在精准的误差杠之内,宇宙边缘离我们多近。 |
|
precise:adj.准确的;确切的;精确的;明确的;
|
| And so, we can say, although not absolutely true, that it's pretty close to being true. |
所以,我们可以说,虽然不是绝对正确但已非常接近。 |
|
absolutely:adv.绝对地;完全地;
|
| And, to his credit, Katie called him up after this op-ed piece came out. |
为了赞扬他,凯特在专栏上报之后打电话给他, |
| And said, "I'm so embarrassed . |
然后说: 我真是惭愧。 |
|
embarrassed:adj.尴尬的;窘迫的;v.使...局促不安;(embarrass的过去分词和过去式)
|
| I was a member of the astronomy club, and I should have known better." |
我曾经是天文学社团的团员,我应该最清楚不过了。 |
|
astronomy:n.天文学;
|
| And she re-cut the song. |
所以她就重录了这一段。 |
| So I'll end with the new version. |
而我也将以这新版本结束这演讲。 |
| ? We are 13.7 billion light years ? |
?我们距离可观察的宇宙边缘? |
| ? from the edge of the observable universe ? |
?137亿光年 ? |
|
observable:adj.显著的;觉察得到的;看得见的;n.[物]可观察量;感觉到的事物;
|
| ? That's a good estimate with well-defined error bars ? |
?这是在精密误差杠内产出的可靠估计? |
|
estimate:v.估计;估算;估价;n.估价;(对大小、数量、成本等的)估计;估计的成本; well-defined:adj.定义明确的;界限清楚的;
|
| ? And with the available information ? |
?从左证的资料中? |
| ? I predict that I will always be with you ? |
?我可预测我将会永远伴着你? |
|
predict:v.预报;预言;预告;
|
| (Applause) |
(掌声) |
| How cool is that? |
很酷吧！ |
| (Applause) |
(掌声) |