16. The current passion for making children compete against their classmates or against the clock produces a two-layer system, in which competitive A-types seem in some way better than their B type fellows.

　　[参考译文] 现在这种让孩子们和其同学或时间竞争的热情导致了一个双层结构，在这个结构里面善于竞争的A类好像在某个方面要比他们B类的同辈更胜一筹。

　　17. While talking to you, your could-be employer is deciding whether your education, your experience, and other qualifications will pay him to employ you and your "wares" and abilities must be displayed in an orderly and reasonably connected manner.

　　[参考译文] 在跟你谈话的时候，可能成为你的雇主的人就一直在衡量你的教育、经 验和其他资格是不是值得他雇用你，而你的"商品"和能力一定要以一种有条不紊而且合情合理的相互关联的方式被展示出来。

　　18. The Corporation will survive as a publicly funded broadcasting organization, at least for the time being, but its role, its size and its programs are now the subject of a nation wide debate in Britain.

　　[参考译文] 英国广播公司将作为一个公共基金支持的广播组织存在下来，至少目前会这样，但是它的角色、它的规模和它的节目现在在英国成了全国上下的讨论话题。

　　19. The debate was launched by the Government, which invited anyone with an opinion of the BBC--including ordinary listeners and viewer to say what was good or bad about the Corporation, and even whether they thought it was worth keeping.

　　[参考译文] 这场辩论是由政府发动的，政府请任何一个对英国广播公司有意见的人一包括普通的听众和观众一来说说这个公司好在哪里或坏在哪里，甚至要说说他们是否认为这个公司值得被保留下来。

　　20. The change met the technical requirements of the new age by engaging a large profess signal element and prevented the decline in efficiency that so commonly spoiled the fortunes of family firms in the second and third generation after the energetic founders.

　　[参考译文] 这种变化通过引入许多的专业因素从而适应了这个新时代的技术要求， 并且它(这种变化)防止了效率的降低。这种效率的降低在精力充沛的创业者之后的第二代和第三代人(领导公司)的时候，经常会毁掉那些家族公司的财富。

　　21. Such large, impersonal manipulation of capital and industry greatly increased the numbers and importance of shareholders as a class, an element in national life representing irresponsible wealth detached from the land and the duties of the landowners: and almost equally detached from the responsible management of business.

　　[参考译文] 这样巨大而非个人的对资金和产业的操纵极大地增加了股东的数量和他 们作为一个阶级的重要性，这是国家生活中代表不负责任的财富的一个因素，这种财富不但远离了土地和土地拥有者的责任，而且几乎同样与公司的负责任的管理毫无关系。

　　22. Towns like Bournemouth and Eastbourne sprang up to house large "comfortable" classes who had retired on their incomes, and who had no relation to the rest of the community except that of drawing dividends and occasionally attending a shareholders' meeting to dictate their orders to the management.

　　[参考译文] 像伯恩茅斯和伊斯特本这样的城镇的涌现是为了给那些数量很多的"舒 适"阶级提供居住场所。这些人依赖于其丰厚收入而不工作，他们除了 分红和偶尔参加一下股东大会，向管理层口授一下自己的命令之外，跟社会的其他阶层毫无瓜葛。

　　23. The "shareholders" as such had no knowledge of the lives, thoughts or needs of the workmen employed by the company in which he held shares, and his influence on the relations of capital and labor was not good.

　　[参考译文] 这样的"股东"对他拥有股份的公司所雇用的工人们的生活、思想和需求一无所知，而且他们对劳资双方的关系都不会产生积极的影响。

　　24. The paid manager acting for the company was in more direct relation with the men and their demands, but even he had seldom that familiar personal knowledge of the workmen which the employer had often had under the more patriarchal system of the old family business now passing away.

　　[参考译文] 代表公司的花钱雇来的经理与工人及其需求的关系更加直接，但是就连 他对工人们也没有那种熟识的私人之间的了解。而在现在正在消失的古老家族公司的那种更加家长式的制度下的雇主们却常常对他们的工人有 这样的私人关系。

　　25. Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country's excellent elementary schools: a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal, "spatial" thinking about things technological.

　　[参考译文] 在许多形成因素当中，我将挑选出这些：这个国家优秀的小学教育：欢 迎新技术的劳动者们：奖励发明者的做法;而且最重要的是美国人在对 那些技术性事物的非言语的、"空间性的"思考方面的天赋。

　　26. As Eugene Ferguson has pointed out, "A technologist thinks about objects that can not be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions: they are dealt with in his mind by a visual, nonverbal process...The designer and the inventor.., are able to assemble and manipulate in their minds devices that as yet do not exist".

　　[参考译文] 正如尤金•弗格森所指出的那样："一个技术专家思考那些不能被简化成 能被清楚的语言描述的东西。这些东西在他的思维中是通过一种视觉的、 非语言表述的过程宋处理的……设计者和发明者……能够在他们的脑中装配并操作那些还不存在的装置。"

　　27. Robert Fulton once wrote, "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheel, etc, like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as an exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea".

　　[参考译文] 罗伯特•法欧特曾经这样写到："一个技师会坐在杠杆、螺丝钉、楔子、 轮子等等当中，就像一个诗人沉浸在字母表的字母中，把这些字母看成自己思想的展示，在这样的展示中，每种新的次序安排都传达了--种新 的思想。"

　　28. In the last three chapters, he takes off his gloves and gives the creationists a good beating. He describes their programs and, tactics, and, for those unfamiliar with the ways of creationists, the extent of their deception and distortion may come as an unpleasant surprise.

　　[参考译文] 在最后三章中，他脱下手套，将神造论者好好地揍了一顿。他描述了他 们的活动和战术，而且，对于那些对神造论者的做事方式刁;熟悉的人来说，神造论者的欺骗和扭曲事实的程度可能会令这些人有一种不快的诧异。

　　29. On the dust jacket of this fine book, Stephen Jay Gould says: "This book stands for reason itself." And so it does-and all wound be well were reason the only judge in the creationism/evolution debate.

　　[参考译文] 在这本杰出的书的外纸封面上，史蒂芬•杰伊•古尔德写道："这本书本 身就代表理性。"而它确实是这样的--而且如果理性成为神造论/地化论之间的辩论中的惟一评判标准的话，一切就都好办了。

　　30. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary debates, Australia's Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die.

　　[参考译文] 经过了六个月的争论以及最后16个小时激烈的议会辩论，澳大利亚北 部地区成了世界上第一个允许医生终止希望死去的绝症病人生命的立法当局。

　　31. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back.

　　[参考译文] 一些机构终于松了一口气，但是其他一些机构，包括教堂，倡导生命之 权的团体和澳大利亚医学协会，尖锐地抨击这个法案，指责法案的通过过于匆忙。但是大势已定，不可逆转。

　　32. In Australia- where an aging population, life-extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their partother states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia.

　　[参考译文] 在澳大利亚--人口老龄化，延长寿命的技术和变化看的社会态度，这 些因素都在发挥作用一一其他的州也会考虑制定相似的关于安乐死的法律。