精选全国职称英语英汉对照上百例(第三十七篇)
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37. How to Avoid Foolish Opinions 37、如何避免愚蠢的见解、 1. To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind is prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error. 1、要避免人们常常产生的各种愚蠢的观点，并不需要过人的天赋。立几条简单的规则就可以使得你避免荒唐的错误，虽然不能避免一切错误。 2. If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don't is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet. Aristotle, however, was less cautious. Ancient and medieval authors knew all about unicorns and salamanders; not one of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them because he had never seen one of them. 2、如果事情可以通过观察来解决的，那你就亲自观察好了。亚里斯多德认为女人的牙齿比男人少，其实很简单，只需请亚里斯多德夫人张一张口来让他数一数，他本是可以不犯这一错误的。他没有那么做，因为他认为他知道。自以为懂而实际并不懂是一种致命的错误，我们都易犯这种错误。我自己相信，刺猬吃黑甲虫，因为人们告诉我，它们是这样的。但如果我要写一本论述刺猬习性的书的话，那么在我未亲眼看到一个刺猬享受这种倒胃口的食品之前，我是不会动笔的。然而，亚里斯多德却不够谨慎。古代和中世纪的作家谈起独角兽和火蛇来如数家珍，但他们中没有一个人认为，因为自身从未见过这些东西的任一种而有必要避免对它们作武断的阐述。 3. Many matters, however, are less easily brought to the test of experience. If, like most of mankind, you have passionate convictions on many such matters, there are ways in which you can make yourself aware of your own bias. If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If someone maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants. 3、但是，许多事情是不那么容易用经验宋检验的。如果像大多数人那样，在此类事情上执迷不误，那么有许多方法可以使你自己认识到自己的偏见。如果某—种与你相左的见解使你生气，那么这就是一种迹象，说明你潜意识地感到，你没法给自己的想法以充分的理由。倘若有人坚称，2加2等于5，冰岛是在赤道上，你只会感到同情而不是愤怒，除非你对算术或地理知之甚少，以致他的观点动摇了你的立场。最激烈的争沦是对那些双方都没有充分证据的事物的争论。迫害仪发生于神学领域，而不见于算术领域，因为在算术中有知识，而在神学中仅有观点。因此当你发现你自己对不同的意见气恼时，你一定要警惕；通过检验你或将发现，你的信念并无足够的依据。 |
