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Unit 8 Section A Animals or children?—A scientist's choice 动物还是孩子?——一位科学家的选择

1 I am the enemy! I am one of those cursed, cruel physician scientists involved in animal research. These rumors sting, for I have never thought of myself as an evil person. I became a children's doctor because of my love for children and my supreme desire to keep them healthy. During medical school and residency, I saw many children die of cancer and bloodshed from injury —circumstances against which medicine has made great progress but still has a long way to go. More importantly, I also saw children healthy thanks to advances in medical science such as infant breathing support, powerful new medicines and surgical techniques and the entire field of organ transplantation. My desire to tip the scales in favor of healthy, happy children drew me to medical research.

1 我就是那个敌人!我就是那些被人诅咒的、残忍的、搞动物实验的医生科学家之一。这些谣言刺痛了我,因为我从来没想到自己是一个邪恶的人。我成为一位儿科医生,因为我爱孩子,也因为我的最大愿望是让他们保持健康。在医学院学习和住院医生实习时,我看到了许多儿童死于癌症和受伤流血——虽然对此医学正取得很大进步,但远非完善。更重要的是,我还看到孩子们能保持健康得益于医学的进步,如婴儿呼吸支持器,功效强大的新药物和外科手术技术及整个器官移植领域的发展。我希望孩子们健康快乐,这促使我从事医学研究。

2 My accusers have twisted the truth into a fable and cast me as the devil. They claim that I have no moral compass, that I torture innocent animals for the sole purpose of career advancement, and that my experiments have no relevance to medicine. Meanwhile, an uncaring public barely watches, convinced that the issue has no significance, and publicity-conscious senators and politicians increasingly give way to the lobbying of animal rights activists. 2 控诉我的人把真相歪曲成一则神话,并把我描写成恶魔。他们声称我没有道德界限,我折磨那些无辜动物的唯一目的就是为了自己的职业升迁,而我的实验根本与医药毫不相关。与此同时,无动于衷的公众几乎不

闻不问,相信这个议题毫无意义,而具有宣传意识的参议员和政治家们却对动物权利活动家的游说不断作出让步。

3 We, in medical research, have also been unbelievably uncaring. We have allowed the most extr eme animal rights protesters to creep in and frame the issue as one of \would consent to the importance of animal research for public health. Perhaps we have been mistaken in not responding to the emoti onal tone of the argument. Perhaps we should have responded to those sad slogans and posters of animals by waving equally sad posters of children dying of cancer or external wounds.

3 我们这些从事医学研究的人也显得令人难以置信的冷漠。我们允许最极端的动物权利活动家渐渐侵入,任凭他们把此类研究诬陷为“动物欺诈”和对动物的仇恨。我们一直坚信,有知识的公众会赞同动物研究对公众健康的重要性。也许我们的错误是没有对这场争论的感性基调作出反应。也许我们早应该挥动着儿童死于癌症或外伤的同样令人伤心的海报,来回应那些关于动物受害的伤感标语及海报。

4 In the animal rights forum, much is made of the volume of pain these animals experience in the name of medical science. Activists deny that we are trying to help and say it is evidence of our ev il and cruel nature. A more reasonable argument, however, can be advanced in our defense. Life i s often cruel to animals and human beings. Teenagers are flung from trucks and suffer severe hea

d injuries. Young children barely abl e to walk find themselves at the bottom o f swimmin

g pools w hile a parent is occupied wit

h something else. From everyday germs to gang violence, no life is fre e of pain. Physicians hoping to relieve the eternal suffering of these tragedies have only three cho ices: 1 create an animal model of the problem to understand the process and test new therapies;

2 experiment on human beings (some experiments will succeed, most will fail; or 3 leave medi cal knowledge static, hoping that accidental discoveries will lead us forward.

4 动物权利论坛大肆宣扬我们如何以医学的名义使这些动物经受巨大的痛苦。动物权利活动家们否认我们正在努力帮助人类,并说这是我们邪恶和残忍本性的证据。然而,一个更合理的论点可用来为我们进行辩护。生活往往对动物和人类都是残酷的。青少年被甩到卡车外,导致头部严重受伤。还不太会走路的孩子们溺水沉到游泳池底部时,他们的家长正忙于其他事务。从常见的的细菌侵害到帮派的暴力,没有谁能不受伤害。医生们希望能永远减轻这些悲剧带给人们身体上的痛苦,他们只有三个选择:1用动物做实验,以了解整个医疗过程和测试新的疗法;2进行人体实验(一些实验会成功,大多数会失败;3让对医疗知识的了解处于停滞状态,希望偶然的发现会带领我们向前。

5 Some animal rights activists would suggest an optional fourth choice, claiming that computer m odels can create animal experiments, thus omitting actual experiments. Computers can imitate th e effects of well-understood principles on complex systems, as in the application of the laws of ph ysics to airplane and automobile design. However, when the principles themselves are in questio n, as is the case with the complex biological systems of human life under study, computer modeli ng alone is of little value.

5 一些动物权利活动家会提出第四个选项,他们声称计算机可以模拟动物实验,这样就可省去真实的实验过程。计算机可以模拟一些为人所熟知的原理在复杂系统中的应用效果,就如物理规律在飞机和汽车设计中的应用那样。然而,当原理本身有问题时,就跟正处于研究阶段的复杂的生物系统的情况一样,仅靠计算机模拟成效甚微。