AdvicetoaYoungScientist非英语专业研究生英语读写教程.docx

1、AdvicetoaYoungScientist非英语专业研究生英语读写教程Advice to a Young ScientistWhat Fm going to do is to just give a few notes, and this is from a book Im preparing calledLetters to a Young Scientist. Fd thought itd be appropriate to present it, on the basis that I havehad extensive experience in teaching, counsel

2、ing scientists across a broad array of fields. And youmight like to hear some of the principles that Fve developed in doing that teaching and counseling.今天我想分享几个要点，这些要点来自我正在写作的一本书给一个年轻的科学家的信。我想由我来谈还算合适，因为我在许多领域有教育和辅导科学家的丰富经验。或许你想听听我在教育和辅导科学家的过程中总结出的一些原则。So let me begin by urging you, particularly yo

3、u on the youngsters* side, on this path youvechosen, to go as far as you can. The world needs you, badly. Humanity is now fully into thetechno-scientific age. There is going to be no turning back.那么首先让我督促你们在自己所选择的道路上，走的尽可能的远一些，特别是对于年轻的你们来说。世界非常需要你们。人类文明己完全进入技术科学时代，这一趋势不可扭转。Although varying among dis

4、ciplines say, astrophysics, molecular genetics, the immunology,the microbiology, the public health, to the new area of the human body as a symbiont, to publichealth, environmental science. Knowledge in medical science and science overall is doublingevery 15 to 20 years. Technology is increasing at a

5、 comparable rate. Between them, the twoalready pervade, as most of you here seated realize, every dimension of human life.虽然不同学科会有所不同比如天体物理学、分子遗传学、免疫学、微生物学、公共卫生学，以及将人体看作共生有机体的新的领域的学科、公共健康学、环境科学，但是关于医疗科学和所有科学的知识，每15到20年都会增加一倍。科技发展的速度也是如此。正如在座各位所知，科学和科技在迅速发展的同时，已充满人类生活的各个角落。So swift is the velocity of

6、 the techno-scientific revolution, so startling in its countless twistsand turns, that no one can predict its outcome even a decade from the present moment.科学技术的进步速度是如此之快，其变化是如此令人应接不暇，以至没有人能够预测哪怕只是十年后的情况。There will come a time, of course, when the exponential growth of discovery and knowledge,which

7、actually began in the 1600s, has to peak and level off, but thafs not going to matter to you.The revolution is going to continue for at least several more decades. Itll render the humancondition radically different from what it is today. Traditional fields of study are going to continueto grow and i

8、n so doing, inevitably they will meet and create new disciplines.当然总会有一天，这些从公元17世纪开始迅猛增长的发现和知识会到达顶峰并开始减缓，但是这和你关系并不大。因为这个革命至少会持续几十年，人们那时所处的环境也将会被改变到同现在大不一样。传统的研究领域会持续增长，这将不可避免的相互交叉而产生新的学科。In time, all of science will come to be a continuum of description, an explanation of networks,of principles and

9、laws. Thats why you need not just be training in one specialty, but also acquirebreadth in other fields, related to and even distant from your own initial choice.增长一段时间后，所有科学都将成为对原则和定律描述的连续体，成为一个对其所形成网络的解释。所以你不应该只学习一门专业，而应该获取其它领域广博的知识。这些领域可能和你最初的选择很接近，但也可能相距甚远。Keep your eyes lifted and your head tur

10、ning. The search for knowledge is in our genes. It wasput there by our distant ancestors who spread across the world, and its never going to be quenched.To understand and use it sanely, as a part of the civilization yet to evolve requires a vastly largerpopulation of scientifically trained people li

11、ke you. In education, medicine, law, diplomacy,government, business and the media that exist today.睁大你的眼睛，探索你的周围。对知识的追寻就存在于我们的基因里。那是我们散布在世界各个角落的祖先遗留在我们的基因里的，这份热情永远不会停止。由于人类的一部分文明还需要进化，为了理解并理智地使用知识，需要大量的像你们一样受到科技教育的人，包括如今存在的教育、医学、法律、外交、政府、商业和媒体。Our political leaders need at least a modest degree of s

12、cientific literacy, which most badlylack today no applause, please. It will be better for all if they prepare before entering officerather than learning on the job. Therefore you will do well to act on the side, no matter how farinto the laboratory you may go, to serve as teachers during the span of

13、 your career.我们的政治领袖至少需要一定程度的科学知识，但现在极其缺乏这样的领袖。如果他们能在就职之前就做好这些准备，而不是边做边学，那么对于所有人来说都是有好处的。如此一来，在你的职业生涯当中，无论你钻研的深或浅，你都可以成为不错的老师。Ill now proceed quickly, and before else, to a subject that is both a vital asset and a potentialbarrier to a scientific career. If you are a bit short in mathematical skills

14、, dont worry. Many of themost successful scientists at work today are mathematically semi-literate.现在我要切入到另一个话题，这个话题对于科研生涯既是至关重要的资产，又是科学事业的潜在障碍。如果你的数学能力不太强，不用太过担心。很多非常成功的科学家，他们的数学能力都比较一般。A metaphor will serve here: Where elite mathematicians and statisticians and theorists oftenserve as architects i

15、n the expanding realm of science, the remaining large majority of basic appliedscientists, including a large portion of those who could be said to be of the first rank, are the oneswho map the terrain, they scout the frontiers, they cut the pathways, they raise the buildings alongthe way.有一个比喻:精英数学家

16、、统计学家和理论家，常常是正在开拓的科技领域中的架构师，但其他大部分的基础应用科学家，他们中有很多可称为一流水平，但他们的工作则是测量疆土、开发前线、砍树修路，并一路盖起栋栋高楼。Some may have considered me foolhardy, but its been my habit to brush aside the fear ofmathematics when talking to candidate scientists. During 41 years of teaching biology at Harvard,I watched sadly as bright

17、students turned away from the possibility of a scientific career or evenfrom taking non-required courses in science because they were afraid of failure. Thesemath-phobes deprive science and medicine of immeasurable amounts of badly needed talent.有些人或许会觉得我不太明智，但我在与未来科学家交谈时，常常告诫他们不要害怕数学。在我41年哈佛生物教学的职业

18、生涯中，我很痛心地看到，很多非常有天赋的学生因为害怕失败，而放弃了成为科学家的机会，他们甚至在选择选修课时也避开相关的内容。这种对数学的恐惧让科学和医学领域丧失了无数迫切需要的人才。Heres how to relax your anxieties, if you have them: Understand that mathematics is alanguage ruled like other verbal languages, or like verbal language generally, by its own grammarand system of logic. Any pe

19、rson with average quantitative intelligence who learns to read andwrite mathematics at an elementary level will, as in verbal language, have little difficulty pickingup most of the fundamentals if they choose to master the math speak of most disciplines ofscience.如果你也有这样的恐惧，你完全可以放松下来。数学是一门与其它语言一样或者和

20、其他语言类似的语言，具有自己的语法和逻辑系统。任何具有一般数学能力的人，只要他有小学水平的数学读写能力，如果他们想要去掌握大部分科学学科中和数学相关的内容，那么学习很多基础内容就如同学习语言一样，不会太困难。The longer you wait to become at least semi-literate the harder the language of mathematicswill be to master, just as again in any verbal language, but it can be done at any age. I speak as anauth

21、ority on that subject, because Fm an extreme case. I didnt take algebra until my freshman yearat the University of Alabama. They didnt teach it before then.如果你想对数学有一些了解，就像掌握任何一门口语一样，你拖的越久，那么掌握数学的难度就会越大。只不过对于数学而言，无论你年龄多大，都可以掌握它。我有权这样说，因为我就是这方面的一个极端例子。我直到大学一年级才在Alabama大学学习代数，而在此之前他们没有这门课。I finally got

22、 around to calculus as a 32-year-old tenured professor at Harvard, where I satuncomfortably in classes with undergraduate students, little more than half my age. A couple ofthem were students in a course I was giving on evolutionary biology. I swallowed my pride, and Ilearned calculus.在我32岁，已是哈佛大学终身

23、教授时，我才和比我年龄一半多点的本科生坐在一起学习微积分，这让我感到很不舒服。有几个学生还是我教的一门学科进化生物学的学生。我收敛了我的骄傲，开始学习微积分。I found out that in science and all its applications, what is crucial is not that technical ability,but it is imagination in all of its applications. The ability to form concepts with images of entitiesand processes pictu

24、red by intuition. I found out that advances in science rarely come upstreamfrom an ability to stand at a blackboard and conjure images from unfolding mathematicalpropositions and equations. They are instead the products of downstream imagination leading tohard work, during which mathematical reasoni

25、ng may or may not prove to be relevant. Ideasemerge when a part of the real or imagined world is studied for its own sake.我发现在科学及其所有应用中，至关重要的不是技术能力，而是所有应用技术的想象力。用直觉描绘的实体和过程的图像形成概念的能力。我发现，科学的进步很少来自上游即站在黑板前通过展开的数学命题和方程式联想出。相反，它们是下游想象力导致辛勤工作的产物，在此期间数学推理可能会或可能不会是相关的。当对真实世界或想象世界的一部分进行研究时，就会产生想法。Of foremo

26、st importance is a thorough, well-organized knowledge of all that is known of therelevant entities and processes that might be involved in that domain you propose to enter. Whensomething new is discovered, its logical then that one of the follow-up steps is to find themathematical and statistical me

27、thods to move its analysis forward. If that step proves too difficultfor the person or team that made the discovery, a mathematician can then be added by them as acollaborator.最重要的是，要对你计划进入的领域有一个充分的、完善的了解，这包括和这个领域相关的所有已知的事物和过程。当一个新的东西被发现时，自然而然要做的一件事，就是用数学和统计方法来做进一步分析。如果这对于发现它的那个人或团队来说过于困难，那么他可以和一名数学

28、家来合作。Consider the following principle, which I will modestly call Wilson*s Principle Number One:It is far easier for scientists including medical researchers, to require needed collaboration inmathematics and statistics than it is for mathematicians and statisticians to find scientists able tomake u

29、se of their equations. It is important in choosing the direction to take in science to find thesubject at your level of competence that interests you deeply, and focus on that.请注意下面这个原则，我很谦虚地称之为Wilson的第一原则：科学家，包括医学研究人员，更容易得到数学和统计方面的合作；相反如果数学家和统计学家想找到科学家来使他们的数学公式能派上用场的话，则要更困难一些。很重要的一点就是，选择在你能力之内而且你非常

30、感兴趣的学科，然后专注于此。Keep in mind, then, Wilsons Second Principle: For every scientist, whether researcher,technician, teacher, manager or businessman, working at any level of mathematical competence,there exists a discipline in science or medicine for which that level is enough to achieveexcellence.接下来是Wi

31、lson第二原则：对任何一个科学家，不管是研究人员、技术人员、教师、管理者或商人，无论他们用什么样的数学水平来工作，都存在一门科学或医学的学科，他们的数学水平足以让他们在此领域有所成就。Now Im going to offer quickly several more principles that will be useful in organizing youreducation and career, or if youre teaching, how you might enhance your own teaching andcounseling of young scientis

32、ts. In selecting a subject in which to conduct original research, or todevelop world-class expertise, take a part of the chosen discipline that is sparsely inhabited. Judgeopportunity by how few other students and researchers are on hand.现在我将再提供几个原则来帮助你们计划教育和职业生涯，或者如果你们选择教学，这些原则能提高你们教导年青科学家的能力。在你们选择从事原创性研究，或成为一流专家的时候，请选择已确定的领域中很少人研究的一部分。涉猎这一部分的学生和研究人员越少，你的机会就越大。Th