2014年考研英语一阅读 Text 3 原文翻译及答案解析

The US$3-million Fundamental Physics Prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this year's award in March. And it is far from the only one of its type. As a News Feature article in Nature discusses, a string of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes in recent years. Many, like the Fundamental Physics Prize, are funded from the telephone-number-sized bank accounts of Internet entrepreneurs.These benefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields, they say, and they want to use their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science.

300万美元的基础物理学奖确实是一个有趣的实验，正如亚历山大·波利亚科夫在今年三月领奖时所言。而且，它远非此类奖项中的唯一一个。正如《自然》杂志的一篇新闻专题文章所讨论的，近年来，一系列面向研究人员的丰厚奖项加入了诺贝尔奖的行列。许多奖项，如基础物理学奖，都由互联网企业家们电话号码般庞大的银行账户资助。这些捐助者表示，他们已经在各自选择的领域取得了成功，并希望利用他们的财富来关注那些在科学领域取得成功的人。

What's not to like? Quite a lot, according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature. You cannot buy class, as the old saying goes, and these upstart entrepreneurs cannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels. The new awards are an exercise in self-promotion for those behind them, say scientists. They could distort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research. They could cement the status quo of peer-reviewed research. They do not fund peer-reviewed research. They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius.

有什么不喜欢的呢？根据新闻专题中引用的一些科学家的说法，有很多。正如老话所说，你买不到地位，这些新贵企业家们也买不到诺贝尔奖那样的声望。科学家们说，新奖项是其背后人士的一种自我推广。它们可能扭曲以成就为基础的同行评审主导的研究体系。它们可能巩固同行评审研究的现状。它们不资助同行评审研究。它们延续了孤独天才的神话。

The goals of the prize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism. Some want to shock, others to draw people into science, or to better reward those who have made their careers in research.

奖项设立者的目标似乎和批评一样分散。一些人想要引起轰动，其他人想吸引人们进入科学领域，或更好地奖励那些以研究为事业的人。

As Nature has pointed out before, there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizes - both new and old - are distributed. The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, launched this year, takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include. But the Nobel Foundation's limit of three recipients per prize, each of whom must still be living, has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research - as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Nobels were, of course, themselves set up by a very rich individual who had decided what he wanted to do with his own money. Time, rather than intention, has given them legitimacy.

正如《自然》之前指出的，对于科学奖项——无论是新是旧——的分配方式，存在一些合理的担忧。今年推出的突破性生命科学奖对生命科学包含的内容采取了不具代表性的观点。但诺贝尔基金会每个奖项限三人获奖、且每人必须仍在世的限制，早已无法适应现代研究的协作性质——这将在不可避免的争论中得以体现，即在承认希格斯玻色子的发现时忽略了谁。当然，诺贝尔奖本身是由一个非常富有的个人设立的，他决定如何处理自己的金钱。是时间而非意图赋予了它们合法性。

As much as some scientists may complain about the new awards, two things seem clear. First, most researchers would accept such a prize if they were offered one. Second, it is surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather than go elsewhere. It is fair to criticize and question the mechanism- that is the culture of research, after all - but it is the prize-givers' money to do with as they please. It is wise to take such gifts with gratitude and grace.

尽管一些科学家可能对新奖项有所抱怨，但有两点似乎很清楚。首先，如果提供这样的奖项，大多数研究人员会接受。其次，金钱和关注流向科学而非其他地方，这无疑是件好事。批评和质疑机制是公平的——毕竟这是研究的文化——但这是奖项设立者的钱，他们可以随意处置。明智的做法是怀着感激和优雅接受这样的礼物。

-7-

-7-