带来科学界巨变的带头大哥-Charles Darwin⑧

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带来科学界巨变的带头大哥-Charles Darwin⑧

Chapter 8 Charles Darwin’s revolution

第八章达尔文带来的变革

Charles Darwin felt sure there would be a revolution in science. He was right—and he was the one who started it.

查尔斯·达尔文确信科学界将会发生一场大变革，他说对了，他就是这位带头大哥。

The Origin of Species threw England into an uproar. Almost everyone had something to say about it. Some people attacked Charles and his ideas. Others thought his theory had to be right, even if it turned their old beliefs upside down.

《物种起源》在英国引起了轩然大波。几乎每个人都有话要说。有些人攻击查尔斯和他的想法。其他人认为他的理论一定是正确的，即使它颠覆了他们的旧信仰。

"My book has stirred up the mud," Charles wrote.

查尔斯写道:“我的书搅起了泥沼。”

In June 1860 scientists gathered for a meeting in Oxford. Charles was having stomach problems and didn’t attend. Perhaps it was just as well. The meeting turned into a huge argument about The Origin of Species. But as time passed, most scientists began to accept this ideas in Charles’s book.

1860年6月，科学家们在牛津召开了一次会议。查尔斯有胃病，没有出席。也许这样也好。会议变成了一场关于《物种起源》的大争论。但随着时间的推移，大多数科学家开始接受查尔斯书中的这一观点。

However, Charles hadn’t written much about humans in The Origin of Species. In 1869 Alfred Russel Wallace told Charles he didn’t think natural selection applied to human beings.

然而，查尔斯在《物种起源》中并没有写太多关于人类的东西。1869年，阿尔弗雷德·罗素·华莱士告诉查尔斯，他认为自然选择不适用于人类。

Charles disagreed. Once again, Wallace was the one who spurred Charles to act. Charles decided to write what he called his "Man-book." This book, The Descent of Man, was published in 1871. Although the book took Charles several years to write, it was really the result of his lifetime of work. And in some ways writing the book was the most difficult task of all.

查尔斯不同意。华莱士又一次促使查尔斯采取行动。查尔斯决定写一本他称之为“人类之书”。《人类的起源》这本书出版于1871年，虽然花了查尔斯几年时间写这本书，但它实际上是他一生工作的结果，在某种程度上，写这本书是最困难的任务。

Many people still felt the only way to explain the existence of human beings was through the Bible. In the Bible, Adam and Eve are created as the first humans, looking as people do today. Charles disagreed. He said human beings were part of the animal kingdom. Humans had evolved just like other species.

许多人仍然认为，解释人类存在的唯一方式是通过圣经。在《圣经》中，亚当和夏娃被创造为第一个人类，长相和今天的人一样。查尔斯不同意。他说人类是动物王国的一部分。人类和其他物种一样进化。

Many people were outraged. Charles was sometimes drawn in cartoons as a hairy monkey swinging from a tree labeled “the tree of life.” This became the symbol of evolution in people’s minds.

许多人被激怒了。查尔斯有时被画成一只在被称为“生命之树”的树上摇摆的毛茸茸的猴子。这在人们的心目中成为了进化的象征。

被嘲讽为猴子的达尔文（Darwin as monkey on La Petite Lune；图片来源：Wikimedia）

In later years, Charles suffered ill health, but he kept working. He studied orchids and insect-eating plants. He also wrote his autobiography, mostly for his grandchildren. By this time, Charles was quite famous. People wrote him letters all the time. More than fourteen thousand letters to or from Charles Darwin still exist.

在后来的几年里，查尔斯身体不好，但他仍坚持工作。他研究兰花和食虫植物，还写了自传，主要是写给他的孙辈。此时，查尔斯已经相当出名了，人们一直给他写信，至今仍有14000多封写给或来自查尔斯·达尔文的信件被保存下来。

食虫植物：猪笼草（common nepenthes；图片来源：cactusjungle.com）

Charles spent his last years surrounded by his family. He published his last book in 1881. It was about earthworms. Perhaps this surprised some people. After all, Charles had written about the origins of all living creatures. Then he'd turned to something as small as worms. But that was just like Charles Darwin. He was a true scientist, who observed the world carefully, asked questions constantly, and arrived at answers from what he saw. Filled with endless curiosity, he never stopped researching and experimenting. He knew it was possible to learn from even the smallest things in nature.

查尔斯在家人的陪伴下度过了晚年。他在1881年出版了最后一本关于蚯蚓的书，也许这让一些人感到惊讶，毕竟，查尔斯写过所有生物的起源。然后他转向（研究）像虫子一样小的东西。但这就像查尔斯·达尔文，他是一位真正的科学家，他仔细观察世界，不断地提出问题，并从他所看到的来得出答案。他充满了无尽的好奇心，从未停止过研究和试验。他知道，在自然界中，即使是最微小的东西，也有可能从中领悟到什么。

蚯蚓（图片来源：kissclipart.com）

After this book, Charles slowed down. His health grew worse. He died on April 19, 1882, at age seventy-three, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. This is where the most important people in England are laid to rest.

出版完这本书后，查尔斯放慢了脚步，他的健康每况愈下。达尔文逝世于1882年4月19日，享年73岁，葬于英国最重要的人物长眠的地方——威斯敏斯特大教堂。

安息于威斯敏斯特大教堂（图片来源：Zimbio）

Today Charles Darwin's ideas are considered a cornerstone of modern science. Darwin is just as important now as he was when he lived. And scientists have been able to fill in information for much of what he could only guess at. It's amazing that Charles Darwin got so much right. After all, he didn't have the tools scientists have today. He figured out that passing traits from one generation to another was key to understanding evolution. But he didn't know that creatures are made up of tiny building blocks called cells. Or that DNA molecules carry instructions that control everything from the shape of our eyes and the size of our feet to the color of our hair.

今天，查尔斯·达尔文的思想被认为是现代科学的基石。达尔文现在的地位和他在世时一样重要。科学家们已经能够为很多他只能猜测的东西补充信息。查尔斯·达尔文居然说对了这么多，真是不可思议！毕竟，他当时没有当今科学家所拥有的工具。他发现将特征代代相传是理解进化的关键。但他不知道的是，生物是由一种叫做细胞的微小积木组成的，或者说DNA分子携带控制着从眼睛的形状、脚的大小，到头发的颜色等的一切指令。

Scientists now accept the process of evolution a fact. Charles’s hunch is now a “Big-T Theory.” The evidence for evolution by natural selection is overwhelming. Even so, Darwin’s ideas are still controversial. Some people will not accept them.

科学家们现在承认进化过程是一个事实。查尔斯的预感是"大T理论"！自然选择进化的证据是压倒性的。即便如此，达尔文的观点仍然存在争议，有些人依然不会接受。

Charles himself never tired of learning, asking questions, and looking at the world with an open mind. He was never afraid to ask, how? or why? Perhaps most importantly, he had a deep love of nature.

查尔斯本人从不厌倦学习、问问题、以开放的心态看待世界。他从不害怕问：怎么回事？为什么？也许最重要的是，来自于他对大自然着深厚的爱。

At the end of The Origin of Species, his love of the natural world shines through. Charles asks his readers to think how wonderful it is just to walk along a stream, listening to birds and watching insects.

在《物种起源》的结尾，他对自然世界的爱依然闪耀。查尔斯让他的读者去思考：仅仅是沿着小溪散步，就能聆听鸟儿的鸣叫和观察昆虫，那是多么美妙！

All these endlessly beautiful forms of life, Charles Darwin wrote, evolved from the simplest beginnings. Could anything be more wonderful?

查尔斯·达尔文最后写道：所有这些无尽美丽的生命形式，都是从最简单的开始进化而来的。还有什么比这更美妙的吗？