4 生物技術的世紀 (doc)
4. The Biotech1 Century Ring farewell to the century of physics, the one in which we split the atom and turned silicon into computing power. It's time to ring in the century of biotechnology. Just as the discovery of the electron in 1897 was a seminal event for the 20th century, the seeds for the 21st century were spawned in 1953, when James Watson blurted out to Francis Crick how four nucleic acids2 could pair to form the self-copying code of a DNA molecule. Now we're just a few years away from one of the most important breakthroughs of all time: deciphering3 the human genome4, the 100,000 genes encoded by 3 billion chemical pairs in our DNA. 跟物理學的世紀說再見的時候到了。在那個世紀里，人類的成就之一是裂解了原子， 并把硅轉變成有計算的能力?，F(xiàn)在該是敲響生物技術世紀之門的時候了。正如1897年電 子的發(fā)現(xiàn)是20世紀里的驚人的事件一樣，1953年詹姆斯·沃森突發(fā)奇想，對弗朗西斯·克 里克說出了四種核酸如何能配對形成DNA(脫氧核糖核酸)分子能自復制的密碼——這一事件 為21世紀播撒下了種子?，F(xiàn)在，只要再過幾年，我們距離揭開人類基因組(由10萬個基因 構成，這些基因在人類DNA中由30億個化學對編碼)，這是人類有史以來最重要的突破之 一。 〔綠色部分為編輯的話，無聲音，但有注釋，建議保留〕 Before 20th century, medicine consisted mainly of amputation saws5, morphine6 and crude remedies that were about as effective as bloodletting. The flu epidemic of 1918 killed as many people (more than 20 million) in just a few months as perished in four years of World War I. Since then, antibiotics7 and vaccines8 have allowed us to vanquish entire classes of diseases. As a result, life expectancy in the U.S. jumped from about 47 years at the beginning of the century to 76 now. But 20th century medicine did little to increase the natural life-span of healthy humans. The next medical revolution will change that, because genetic engineering has the potential to conquer cancer, grow new blood vessels in the heart, block the growth of blood vessels in tumors9, create new organs from stem cells10 and perhaps even reset the primeval genetic coding that causes cells to age. 　　Our children may be able (I hope, I fear) to choose their kids' traits11: to select their gender and eye color; perhaps to tinker with12 their IQs, personalities and athletic abilities. They could clone themselves, or one of their kids, or a celebrity they admire, or maybe even us after we've died. 　　In the 5 million years since we hominids13 separated from apes, our DNA has evolved less than 2％ . But in the next century we'll be able to alter our DNA radically, encoding our visions and vanities while concocting14 new life-forms. When Dr.Frankenstein made his monster, he wrestled with the moral issue of whether he should allow it to reproduce:“ Had I the right, for my own benefit, to inflict the curse upon everlasting generations?” Will such questions require us to develop new moral philosophies? 　　Probably not. Instead, we'll reach again for a time-tested moral notion, one sometimes called the Golden Rule and which Immanuel Kant, the millennium's most meticulous15 moralist, gussied up into a categorical imperative: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; treat each person as an individual rather than as a means to some end. 生物技術的世紀 在20世紀之前，醫(yī)學的主要治療辦法是截肢、嗎啡，以及跟放血的療效差不多少的粗 放治療法。1918年的一場流感在幾個月內就奪走了2000多萬人的生命。這個數(shù)字相當于 第一次世界大戰(zhàn)四年內的死亡人數(shù)。此后，抗生素與疫苗的出現(xiàn)，使我們征服了各種疾 病。于是，美國人的預期壽命從20世紀初的47歲一躍達到現(xiàn)在的76歲。 　　然而，20世紀的醫(yī)學對健康人的自然生命周期的增長幾乎無能為力。 下一次醫(yī)學革命將會改變這種狀況，因為遺傳工程有潛力征服癌癥，在心臟里培植新 血管，阻斷腫瘤中血運系統(tǒng)的生長，由干細胞培養(yǎng)新器官，甚至還可能重塑引起細胞衰 老的原始遺傳密碼。 　　我們的孩子也許能(我既希望，又害怕)選擇他們子女的性狀：選擇他們的性別、眼 睛的顏色；也許還能修改他們的智商、性格、體育才能。他們還可能克隆他們自己，或 者克隆他們孩子中的某一個，或者克隆一位他們敬慕的名人，甚至可能在我們死后把我 們克隆出來。 　　在人科動物從猿類分化出來后的500萬年中，我們的DNA進化了還不到2％。但是到了 21世紀，我們就可能大幅度地改變我們的DNA，按照我們的設計和愿望制造出新的生命形 式。當弗蘭肯斯坦博士制造出一個怪物之后，他就為是否應該讓這個怪物繁殖后代這一 倫理問題所困擾：“為我個人的利益，我是否有權力讓世世代代都遭殃?”這類問題需要我 們建立新的倫理觀嗎? 　　可能用不著吧。相反，我們還是得遵循早已為時間所考驗過的道德規(guī)范，有時候人 們把這一規(guī)范叫做金科玉律。這條金科玉律被伊馬努埃爾·康德這位千年一見的最細心的 道德家描述成絕對信條：你想別人怎樣待你，你就怎樣待別人；要把每個人看作是獨立 的人，而不是為了達到某種目的的工具。 1.biotech[9βαΙΕθ?τεκνΙκσ]n.生物技術 2.fournucleicacids四種核酸。專業(yè)上顯然是錯誤的概念。目前，人類發(fā)現(xiàn)與生命物質 有關的只有兩種核酸，一種為核糖核酸RNA，一種為脫氧核糖核酸DNA，此處應是“四種核 苷酸”(fournucleotides)比較合適。另據科學家最新公布的結果，人類基因組由31.647 億個堿基對組成，共有3萬至3.5萬個基因，遠小于原先10萬個基因的估計。 3.decipher[δι5σαιφΕ]vt.揭開，揭示 4.genome[5δ
4 生物技術的世紀 (doc)