Richard Dawkins Letter to His 10-Year-Old Daughter 理查德道金斯致10岁女儿的信

Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun? The answer to these questions is ‘evidence.’ Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling….) that something is true. Astronauts have traveled far enough from the Earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The ‘evening star’ looks like a bright twinkle in the sky but with a telescope you can see that it is a beautiful ball – the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing (or hearing or feeling…) is called an observation. Often evidence isn’t just observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there’s been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the dead person!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots of other observations which may all point towards a particular suspect. If a person’s fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn’t prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it’s joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realize that they all fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder. 现在你10岁了，我想写给你一些对你很重要的事情。你是否曾经想过，我们是如何知道那些我们知道的东西？例如，恒星看上去好像在天空中刺出的小孔。我们是如何知道恒星其实是像太阳一样的大火球，并且它们离我们非常远？我们是如何知道地球是绕着这些恒星中的一颗——也就是太阳——运转的更小的球体？ 　　这些问题的答案是“证据”。有时候证据的意思是亲眼看见（或者听见、感觉到、闻到）某事是真的。宇航员航行到了离地球足够远的地方，用他们的肉眼看到了地球是圆的。有时候我们的眼睛需要帮助。“昏星”看上去就像在天空中的明亮的闪光，但是借助一架天文望远镜，你就能看到它是一个美丽的球体——这个行星我们称之为金星。有时候，通过直接的观看（或者听，感觉……）进行学习，这叫做观察。 　　很多时候，证据并不是一个观察本身，但是观察总是在证据背后支持它。如果发生了一起谋杀，通常没人观察到它（除了凶手和被害者！）。但是侦探能够收集起许多其他的观察，它们可能全都指向一个特定的嫌疑犯。如果一个人的指纹与发现在[凶器]匕首上的指纹相符，这就是他接触过这把匕首的证据。它并没有证明他进行了谋杀，但是当它和其他许多证据联合在一起的时候，它就能起作用。有时候，一个侦探能思考一大堆的观察，然后突然意识到，如果是某某人进行了谋杀，这些观察到的东西就有了条理、可以说得通了。 …………………… 想了解更多英语原文， 请关注微信公众号“Cassay小站”。