萬(wàn)物簡(jiǎn)史 第4期:引言(4)

"Not only have you been lucky enough to beattached since time immemorial to a favoredevolutionary line,

你不光自古以來(lái)一直非常走運(yùn)，屬于一個(gè)受到優(yōu)待的進(jìn)化過(guò)程，

but you have also been extremely, make thatmiraculously fortunate in your personal ancestry.

而且在自己的祖宗方面，你還極其--可以說(shuō)是奇跡般地--好運(yùn)氣。

Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountainsand rivers and oceans,

想一想啊，在38億年的時(shí)間里，在這段比地球上的山脈、河流和海洋還要久遠(yuǎn)的時(shí)間里，

every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate,

你父母雙方的哪個(gè)祖先都很有魅力，都能找到配偶，

healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live longenough to do so.

都健康得能生兒育女，都運(yùn)氣好得能活到生兒育女的年齡。

Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded,stuck fast,

這些跟你有關(guān)的祖先，一個(gè)都沒(méi)有被壓死，被吃掉，被淹死，被餓死，被卡住，

untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge ofgenetic material to the right partner at the right moment

早年就受了傷，或者無(wú)法在其生命過(guò)程中在恰當(dāng)?shù)臅r(shí)刻把一小泡遺傳物質(zhì)釋放給恰當(dāng)?shù)陌閭H，

in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that couldresult-eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly-in you.

以使這惟一可能的遺傳組合過(guò)程持續(xù)下去，最終在極其短暫的時(shí)間里令人吃驚地--產(chǎn)生了你。

This is a book about how it happened, in particular how we went from there being nothing atall to there being something,

本書要說(shuō)一說(shuō)這事兒是怎樣發(fā)生的--尤其是我們?cè)鯓訌母静淮嬖谧兂赡撤N存在，

and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also some of what happened inbetween and since.

然后那種存在的一小點(diǎn)兒又怎樣變成了我們。我還要說(shuō)一說(shuō)在此期間和在此以前的事。

That's a great deal to cover, of course, which is why the book is called A Short History of NearlyEverything, even though it isn't really.

這當(dāng)然要涉及好多事情，所以這本書就叫做《萬(wàn)物簡(jiǎn)史》，雖然實(shí)際上并非如此，也不可能如此。

It couldn't be. But with luck by the time we finish it will feel as if it is.",

但是，要是運(yùn)氣好的話，等你讀完本書的時(shí)候，你也許會(huì)在一定程度上有那種感覺(jué)。"