跟着Edgequestion学英文写作

Edge 的创始人说过，把世界上最聪明的人聚集在一起，他们之间会发生什么？Edge foundation试图在科学与人文，精英与大众之间连线搭桥，其每年会提出一个问题，邀请各界大牛回答，每一篇回答可以看成一篇自成体系的小essay，阅读edge question，你不仅扩展眼界，还能够看到什么算是好的因为写作。2014年的edge question是这样的

Science advances by discovering new things and developing new ideas. Few truly new ideas are developed without abandoning old ones first. As theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) noted, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” In other words, science advances by a series of funerals. Why wait that long?

WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?

简而言之，就是那些观念已经过时或者阻碍科学的发展与普及了，其中一个有趣的答案如下，小编将带你去看看这篇essay的架构。

“SCIENCE”

IAN BOGOST：Video game designer; Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and professor of interactive computing, Georgia Institute of Technology; author, Alien Phenomenology

“No topic is left unexplored,” (开篇是一则简明且观点鲜明的短句，引起读者的兴趣) reads the jacket blurb（夹克上夸张的广告语） of The Science of Orgasm, a 2006 book by an endocrinologist, a neuroscientist, and a “sexologist.” A list of topics covered includes the genital-brain connection and how the brain produces orgasms. The result, promises the jacket blurb, “illuminates the hows, whats, and wherefores of orgasm.”（通过一个有趣的例子来引入观点，这个例子不止是说有高潮的科学这样一本书，还包括了必要的细节，这本书的内容概述及其与最初那句口号的关系）

Its virtues or faults notwithstanding,（让步，将读者的注意力从例子本身拉到更广的图景上） The Science of Orgasm exemplifies a trend that has become nearly ubiquitous in popular discourse—that a topic can be best and most thoroughly understood from the vantage point of “science.”（给出要批判的观点） How common is this approach? （自问自答，引出分论点，该观点很流行）Google Books produces nearly 150 million search results for the phrase “the science of”—including dozens of books with the quip in their titles. The science of smarter spending; the science of acting; the science of champagne; the science of fear; the science of composting—the list goes on.（通过谷歌搜索和相关书籍来说明该观点的流行）

“The science of X” is one example of the rhetoric of science—the idea that anything called “science” is science—but not the only one. There’s also “scientists have shown” or its commoner shorthand, “studies show”—phrases that appeal to the authority of science whether or not the conclusions they summarize bear any resemblance to the purported studies from which those conclusions were derived.（通过引入另几个常见的词语，唤醒读者的记忆，从而使读者觉得这个问题是自己亲身体会的）

Both of these tendencies could rightly be accused（隐含批判的意图） of scientism, the view that empirical science entails the most complete, authoritative, and valid approach to answering questions about the world. （重复自己要批判的观点，但这次对其做了更精准的描述）Scientism isn’t a new erroneous notion but it’s an increasingly popular one. Recently, Stephen Hawking pronounced philosophy “dead” because it hasn’t kept up with advances in physics. Scientism assumes that the only productive way to understand the universe is through the pursuit of science and that all other activities are lesser at best, pointless at worst.（再次重复要批判的观点，一次是通过引用其他学者的话，另一次是通过从反面去说）

And to be sure, the rhetoric of science has arisen partly thanks to scientism. “Science of X” books, and research findings traceable to an origin in apparently scientific experimentation, increasingly take the place of philosophical, interpretive, and reflective accounts of the meaning and importance of activities of all kinds. Instead of pondering the social uses of sparkling wine and its pleasures, we ponder what the size of its bubbles indicates about its quality, or why that effervescence lasts longer in a modern fluted glass than in a wider champagne coupe.（之前列出的scientism和science被滥用有什么关系了，这一段给了解答，相当于统合了两个分论点）

But the rhetoric of science doesn’t just risk the descent（拟人的隐喻，形象） into scientism.（总结上一段的大意） It also gives science sole credit for something it doesn’t deserve credit for: an attention to the construction and operation of things.（引出作者认为更重要的一点） Most of the “science of X” books look at the material form of their subject, be it neurochemical, computational, or economic. But attention to the material realities of a subject has no necessary relationship to science at all.（这里引起读者注意，说科学是注重客观物质层面的，不代表只有科学的研究才重视物质，即A使用了B不等于用B的只有A） Literary scholars study the history of the book, including its material evolution from clay tablet to papyrus to codex. Artists rely on a deep understanding of the physical mediums of pigment, marble, or optics when they fashion creations. Chefs require a sophisticated grasp of the chemistry and biology of food in order to thrive in their craft. （举出反例）To think that science has a special relationship to observations about the material world isn’t just wrong, it’s insulting.（重复观点及判断，通过insulting引起读者的情感共鸣）

Beyond encouraging people to see science as the only direction for human knowledge and absconding with the subject of materiality, the rhetoric of science also does a disservice to science itself. It makes science look simple, easy, and fun, when it’s mostly complex, difficult, and monotonous.（承接上下文的观点）

A case in point: The popular Facebook page “I f*cking love science” posts quick-take variations on the “science of X” theme—mostly images and short descriptions of unfamiliar creatures, like the pink fairy armadillo, or illustrated birthday wishes to famous scientists like Hawking. （举例子，这里的例子读者不会觉得陌生）But as the science fiction writer John Skylar rightly insisted in a fiery takedown of the practice last year, most people don’t f*cking love science, they f*cking love photography—pretty images of fairy armadillos and renowned physicists. （对例子进行分析，将例子要论证的观点结合起来）The pleasure derived from these pictures obviates the public’s need to understand how science actually gets done（重复论点，第一次是客观的事实，第二次是从个人的角度去看）—slowly and methodically, with little acknowledgment and modest pay in unseen laboratories and research facilities.

The rhetoric of science has consequences. Things that have no particular relation to scientific practice must increasingly frame their work in scientific terms to earn any attention or support.（另一个分论点） The sociology of Internet use suddenly transformed into “Web science.” Long-accepted practices of statistical analysis have become “data science.” Thanks to shifting educational and research funding priorities, anyone who can’t claim membership in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) field will be left out in the cold. （举例子，表明影响范围广）Unfortunately, the rhetoric of science offers the tactical response to such new challenges. Unless humanists reframe their work as “literary science,” they risk being marginalized, unfunded, and forgotten.（之前的例子只是陈述，而这里通过虚拟的假设，说明了具体什么样的consequence）

When you’re selling ideas, you have to sell the ideas that will sell.（一个很普世的观点） But in a secular age in which the abstraction of “science” risks replacing all other abstractions, a watered-down, bland, homogeneous version of science is all that will remain if the rhetoric of science is allowed to prosper.（这句很漂亮，三个形容词用的到位且生动，通过假设的场景，加深了science这个概念对其他概念的侵蚀这一主论点）

We need not choose between God and man, science and philosophy, interpretation and evidence.（该怎么做，三组对比的类比扩展了主题，也使这句读起来不干瘪） But ironically, in its quest to prove itself as the supreme form of secular knowledge, science has inadvertently elevated itself into a theology.（通过比喻说科学这个概念被滥用） Science is not a practice so much as an ideology.（科学变得不止是一种实践，还成为一种意识形态） We don’t need to destroy science in order to bring it down to earth. But we do need to bring it down to earth again,（同一个词，不同的意思，这种文字游戏固然巧，但不值得学习） and the first step in doing so is to abandon the rhetoric that has become its most popular devotional practice.（重复要批评的点，同时指出流行的误用）

总结：这篇论说文，观点鲜明，在通过一个例子引出要批判的点之后，作者首先对要批判的论点客观全面的解释，这避免了稻草人谬误，即将对手的观点说的很差，之后再借此驳倒一个被弱化的观点）作者将分论点进行了展开，在几段的句首引入了各个分论点，通过例子或反例论证观点，分析例子与观点的联系，同时在承接上下文的句子里，用不同的话（假设情景，比喻，类比）重复各个分论点，最后给出可能解决之道及不这么做的后果，暗中回应论点。

可以学习的地方： 用不同的话说同一观点的能力，分论点之间的联系，举例子及对例子必要的分析

热烈转发，随意打赏，支持原创。

长按下文二维码打赏作者。

我们希望有更多的同道中人可以成为加盟作者，或者贡献主题，亦或给我们推荐好的问题，问题有时比答案更重要。

你可以，

1）写写你熟悉领域的进展或对未来的展望，即使你的小文不够成熟，我们也会为你提出修改意见或帮你一起韵色。

2）写出你的跨界思考，你是否有从一个领域的知识联想到的别的概念，从而让你脑洞大开，只要你的想法新颖，都值得被倾听

3） 提出你感兴趣的话题，加入混沌大家庭和一起讨论。

或者如果你本身也有自己的公共号，但是秉承相似的想法，我们也希望你能加盟。 投稿邮箱 guoruidong517@126.com

王一书(Sciker)2016-01-14 13:13:24

Edge，better