Text B The GMO Debate:5 Things to Stop Arguing
Tamar Haspel
Break out the party hats!Unearthed is one year old—and it has been one interesting,gratifying year.To celebrate,I'm revisiting the issue that kicked off this column a year ago:genetically modified organisms(GMOs).You might not think much of my idea of celebration,but I'm guessing you'd agree that the public debate about GMOs isn't playing out in a constructive way.Both sides have dug trenches,and they're lobbing grenades over the wall while nothing much changes.It's the World War I of food issues,and something's gotta give.
I'm going to suggest five somethings.Each is an argument,from one side or the other,that I think should be retired.If we all agreed to stop lobbing these particular grenades,we could move on to more substantive issues and perhaps generate a little goodwill in the bargain.
1.GMOs are dangerous to eat.
It's impossible to be certain that a GM food,or anything else,is safe.But all uncertainty is not created equal,and the chance that the genetically modified crops in our food supply pose a danger to human health is extraordinarily small.There have been thousands of studies on these foods,many of them long-term and independently funded,and virtually every mainstream science organization has come down on the side of safety.
One of the most compelling studies came out just last month,and it had billions of subjects that eat GMOs almost exclusively:livestock.Researchers from the University of California at Davis looked at health data on more than 100 billion animals and found no ill effects—in fact,no effects at all—attributable to a switch from non-GMO feed to GMO.
There is a consensus on the safety of GM crops.Consensus doesn't mean every last person on the planet;there are people who still say GMOs are dangerous,and some of those people have advanced degrees.But siding with those people,in the face of the consensus,just makes it easier for others to dismiss you as an anti-science(more on that later)zealot.Arguing that GMOs pose a significant human health risk is unreasonable.
2.Labeling is unnecessary because GMOs are safe.
This argument misses the point.If GMOs were dangerous,the FDA wouldn't label them,it would ban them.The items on our food labels run the gamut and include substances that pose a risk to some people(peanuts),substances that public health authorities recommend we should all limit(salt)and lots of ingredients with no health implications at all.There are indications of how a product is made(orange juice from concentrate)and where it comes from(country of origin).Some vitamins and nutrients are listed,others aren't.There is no grand unifying theory of what goes on a label.It's all case-by-case.
The argument for labeling is simply that consumers want to know,but that's not a particularly strong argument.Anyone can come up with a“want to know”list that includes both the ridiculous(farmworkers'race)and the reasonable(farmworkers'wage).Is wanting to know about GMOs reasonable?
Sometimes it's not(see Argument 1),but let's take a GMO skeptic who says herbicide-tolerant crops concern her because they might foster herbicide-intensive agriculture,with negative environmental consequences,and that we need to start building more transparency into our agricultural system so consumers can vote with their wallets for the kind of system they want to see.You might disagree with her,but I don't think she's unreasonable.
A constructive debate has to address reasonable concerns.The safety argument doesn't.
3.Only Big Ag benefits from GMOs.
It's unfortunate that Americans'first exposure to genetically engineered crops was to herbicide-tolerant corn and soy.Because the benefits of those most widely planted GMOs do accrue chiefly(not exclusively,but I won't quibble)to commodity farmers and agribusiness,all other genetically modified foods have been tarred with the same brush.The ringspot-resistant papaya is rarely part of the discussion and,no matter how often I flog my favorite,the yeast that produces healthful long-chain omega-3 fats,it just doesn't make a dent in the association that GMOs have with Big Ag.
The list of GMOs with benefits to the rest of us is long.There's the mosquito that helps control dengue fever by mating with disease-carrying mosquitoes and passing on a gene that kills the offspring.A cow resistant to the organism responsible for sleeping sickness(a trypanosome)can no longer pass the disease to humans via a tsetse fly.How about the orange tree resistant to citrus greening?Or crops with more vitamins,or more healthful oils?And don't forget my omega-3 yeast.
Don't let your distrust of herbicide-tolerant crops extend to GMOs in general.
4.We've been genetically modifying crops for thousands of years.
What GMO supporters mean,of course,is that we've been cross-breeding for thousands of years.Which is true but irrelevant,because the people who are concerned about GMOs are concerned precisely because the technology is very different from cross-breeding.In making this argument,supporters completely ignore the basis of opponents'skepticism,and that's condescending and counterproductive.
It also undermines what may be one of the most interesting and compelling arguments in favor of GMOs:That the techniques used to insert individual genes enable changes in the organisms that are much more predictable,and therefore less likely to be harmful,than the wholesale changes that come from cross-breeding.That argument works only if you admit from the get-go that transgenic breeding is materially different from what we've been doing for thousands of years.
5.GMO supporters are Monsanto shills,and opponents are anti-science.
The shill part is pretty obvious.Please just stop.
The anti-science part is more complicated.The people who study how we make decisions about issues of science and policy tell us that our positions on those issues tend to determine our perception of the science,not the other way around.Most GMO opponents aren't anti-science;they're anti-GMO,and therefore see the large body of science that contradicts their ideas as tainted by association with industry,flawed methodologically,done by biased scientists or otherwise dismissible.They are,in fact,pro-science—toward science that confirms their beliefs.(GMO supporters,and humans in general,are just as susceptible to this kind of confirmation bias.)
Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan,whose Cultural Cognition Project investigates how values and group affiliations influence beliefs,says that“conflict entrepreneurs who are trying to turn GM food risks into a polarizing issue”may deserve the anti-science charge,but that the charge itself,deployed more widely,is also polarizing.“In general,the anti-science trope is noxious,”he says,both because“it's not an empirically supported account of the sorts of positions it is usually invoked to explain,and because it tends to pollute the science communication environment.”Most of the public doesn't give a fig about GMOs,but the more we throw around the anti-science charge,the higher the risk that this issue becomes entrenched as an emblem of cultural identity.Think climate change.
Entrenchment is what we're trying to avoid here.Stop making these arguments,at least for a while,and see if it doesn't help.While you're at it,reach out to someone you respect who disagrees with you,and listen.If you're a scientist,academic,activist,journalist or any other type who gets invited to speak on panels,insist that the panel represent both sides fairly;choir-preaching doesn't help.We need to come to some kind of reasonable consensus on this issue.Give peace a chance.
Notes
1.This piece of writing was also written by the columnist Tamer Haspel and published by The Washington Post on 27 October,2014.
2.Break out the party hats!:Let's have a celebration!
3.Big Ag:corporate farming.It is used to describe companies that own or influence farms and agricultural practice on a large scale.
4.Monsanto is a publicly traded American multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation.It is a leading producer of genetically engineered(GE)seed and Roundup,a glyphosate-based herbicide.It was one of four groups to introduce genes into plants(1983),and was among the first to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops(1987).
翻译中词语的处理
(二)增译法和减译法
出于意义、句法和修辞等方面的考虑，在翻译中往往会使用增译和减译的方法，以便完整表达原文意义，包括原文所包含的独特的文化内涵，适应译入语的语法结构要求和语言习惯，或者使语言更加优美、流畅、自然。增译法就是为了达到以上效果而在译文中增加一些原文中并未出现的词汇；减译法就是将原文中出现的一些词汇在译文中略去，使译文简洁流畅。
增译法
有时候翻译名词时，需要增加相应的动词、形容词、数词或量词或其他表示复数的词；翻译动词时，增加相应的名词、副词、表示时态的词等；翻译形容词时，增加相应的名词。增补后的译文语法结构完整，读来更加明白通畅。
They had been through it all at his side—the bruising battles,the humiliations of the defeat…
他们始终站在他的一边,经历残酷的厮杀,忍受失败的耻辱……
Her Olympic victory—along with her girl-next-door looks and approachable charm—made Hamill a star,on and off the ice.
Hamill在奥运会上的胜利,加上她那邻家女孩般的甜美长相和亲和力,使得她在冰场内外都成为令人瞩目的明星。
The lion is the king of animals.
狮子是百兽之王。
A stream was winding its way through the valley into the river.
一湾溪水蜿蜒流过山谷,汇合到江里去了。
Very acute problems exist among them.
他们之间存在着种种/一大堆尖锐的问题。
The work of the housemaid includes sweeping,scrubbing and cleaning.
女佣的工作包括扫地、擦地板和收拾房间。
The crowd melted away.
人群渐渐散开了。
They say his father was a fisherman.Maybe he was as poor as we are.
听人说,从前他爸爸是个捕鱼的。他过去也许跟我们现在一样穷。
The sweeper they bought on November 11 is really cheap and fine.
他们在双十一买的扫地机真是价廉物美。
He came out of the hot mill,haggard and worn.
他走出闷热的工厂,面容憔悴,精疲力竭。
英语中某些由动词和形容词派生的抽象名词，有时在翻译中要根据语境在后面添加适当的名词，而一些具体名词又可能被用作抽象意义，翻译时通过添加名词使之表达抽象概念。
After all preparations were made,the planes were flown across the U.S.to San Francisco.
一切准备工作就绪后,飞机就飞跃美国去旧金山。
He allowed the father to be overruled by the judge,and declared his own son guilty.
法官的职责战胜了父子的亲情,他判决自己的儿子有罪。
英文并列结构中往往省略相同的动词，或者一个动词后面带上多个宾语或表语，在译文中要将这些动词增补出来加以重复。
History makes men wise；poetry witty；the mathematics subtle；natural philosophy deep；moral grave；logic and rhetoric able to contend.
读史使人明智,读诗使人灵秀,数学使人周密,科学使人深刻,伦理学使人庄重,逻辑修辞之学使人善辩。
John majors in computer science and his sister in accounting.
约翰主修计算机,他妹妹则主修会计。
The blow hurt not only his hands but his shoulders too.
这一下不仅震痛了他的手,也震痛了他的肩膀。
We wanted to send them more aid,more weapons and a few more men.
我们想给他们增加些援助,增添些武器,增派些人员。
名词和代词的重译在英译汉中也是很常见的。
We should carefully study and analyze the situation of the enemy.
我们应当仔细地研究敌情,分析敌情。
This has been our position—but not yours.
这一直是我们的立场——而不是你们的立场。
The little apprentice in particular lived in terror of the boss,who had borne down on him so often and so hard that there was little left.
小学徒尤其对老板怕得要死,老板经常整他而且整得很重,简直把他整瘪了。
The doctor will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred ordinary patients.
医生从我身上得到的实践,会比从一千七百个普通病人身上得到的实践还多。
翻译中有时候还需要增加语气助词、概况词等。
As for me,I didn't agree from the very beginning.
我呢,从一开始就不赞成。
The thesis summed up the new achievements made in electronic computers,artificial satellites and rockets.
论文总结了电子计算机、人造卫星和火箭三方面的新成就。
减译法
英语中大量使用代词，同一个代词主语多次重复，或泛指的人称代词作主语，使用物主代词但不强调所属概念，非人称的it或者强调句的形式主语it等，往往在汉译时要进行省略，有些作宾语的代词也要省略。
He was thin and haggard,and he looked miserable.
他消瘦而憔悴,看上去一副可怜相。
He said it was a bad decision and it was certainly mistimed.
他说这是个糟糕的决定,肯定不合时宜。
Even as the doctor was recommending rest,he knew that this in itself was not enough,that one could never get real rest without a peaceful mind.
尽管医生建议休息,但他也知道休息本身是不够的,如果心不静,休息也休息不好。
He shrugged his shoulders,shook his head,cast up his eyes,but said nothing.
他耸耸肩,摇摇头,两眼看天,一言不发。
It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house.
他费了不少劲才找到了回家的路。
It was just growing dark,as she shut the garden gate.
她关上园门时,已是暮色苍茫了。
英文行文逻辑比较严谨，大量使用各种连接词，而汉译恰恰相反，上下文逻辑关系常常不是借助连接词表示，而是比较含蓄，往往由词语的次序来表示，翻译时要根据这一差异，注意略去那些按照汉语习惯没有必要表示出来的连接词。
He looked gloomy and troubled.
他看起来有些忧愁不安。
He declined to amplify on the President's statement,since he had not read the text.
他没有看到总统讲话的文本,不愿加以发挥。
At long last,on June 6,1944,after the European war was basically decided a nd Hitler licked,the allies launched their long-delayed western front.
1944年6月6日,欧洲战局基本已见分晓,希特勒败局已定,盟军才终于开辟了耽搁已久的西线战场。
英语中大量使用的冠词为汉语所无，翻译中往往可将冠词省略。
The moon was slowly rising above the sea.
月亮慢慢从海上升起。
The tiger is a ferocious animal.
老虎是一种猛兽。
The girl standing at the gate of the school is his daughter.
站在学校门口的(那个)姑娘是他女儿。
I was waiting for a bus.
我在等公共汽车。
As far as I can recall,Patti was a Smith.
我记得帕蒂姓史密斯。
英文中表示时间和地点的介词，汉译时如出现在句首，大多可以省略，但如果出现在句尾则保留。
Rumours had already spread along the streets and lanes.
大街小巷早就传遍了各种流言蜚语。
(比较:I stayed in my brother's house.我住在弟弟家里。)
The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949.
1949年中华人民共和国成立。
(比较:中华人民共和国成立于1949年。)
从修辞角度看，英语句子中有些短语重复出现，有些词对于汉语来说可有可无，汉译时可适当省略。
Applicants who have worked at a job would recei ve preference over who have not.
有工作经验者优先录取。
Instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me,everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me.
那时打我并使我挨饿的不只是一个老太婆,而是老老少少各式各样的人。
We got the can open with the help of a knife.
我们用刀把罐头打开了。
There was no snow,the leaves were gone from the trees,the grass was dead.
天未下雪,但叶落草枯。
Translation Exercises
A.Translate the following sentences into Chinese,using the skills you have just learnt.
1.In my opinion,as the governor and supervisor of the food safety,government has unshirkable responsibility for food contamination.
2.Some people blame it on those companies'lack of responsibilities.
3.South Korean President has ordered officials to“do everything possible for the search and rescue of the missing.”
4.Finance ministers and central bankers in the G20 on Saturday supported China's argument that changes to its currency peg last month were a step towards a more market-determined exchange rate.
5.Over 16 million American service members entered World War II,and 291,557 died on the battlefield.They became known as the US's“greatest generation”.
6.But why is US's“greatest generation”so poorly commemorated?There is no simple answer,only a tangle of history and politics,honor and sorrow.
7.European Union countries have been divided amid an unprecedented migrant influx.EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini has warned that the migrant inflow is“here to stay”and called for a unifying European approach to effectively respond to it.
8.Today's Audis and many other brands already may be equipped with features like adaptive cruise control that keeps a car a safe distance and constant speed behind cars ahead.
9.It's a good bet that driverless cars will be involved in far fewer accidents than ones with—otherwise,why have them?
10.If Google's search engine is not a“fair search”then it can influence what we read,where we shop and ultimately what we pay online.If Google is manipulating its rankings,consumers need to be told;and if Google is collecting unauthorized personal consumer information to give itself an unfair advantage,policymakers need to step in and protect consumer privacy and competition.
B.Translate the following sentences from Text A into Chinese.
1.There's urethane in all bread,and you can easily get an entire loaf's worth of the chemical in one glass of wine.
2.These risk characteristics of food additives may result in a higher risk perception than justified based on the available evidence.
3.It's a designation for ingredients that have been well established,either by research or by a long history of consumption,to pose no threat.
4.The lack of an agreed-upon definition can make straightforward advice like“avoid processed foods”troublesome.
5.It also shifts the discussion to ground where food manufacturers have science on their side and gives them an opportunity to look reasonable,safety-minded,even magnanimous.
Development of Paragraphs(Ⅰ)
A paragraph may be developed in many different ways.It may be organized by means of the temporal or spatial order,definition,exemplification,causal analysis,classification,comparison or contrast,analogy,process analysis,etc.These methods also apply to essay writing.
Time/Chronological order is a method of organization in which actions or events are presented as they occur(or occurred)in time.
Quantum theory began to take shape in the early 20th century,when classical ideas failed to explain some observation.In 1900,Max Planck solved this problem by assuming atoms can vibrate only at specific,or quantized,frequencies.Then,in 1905,Einstein cracked the mystery of the photoelectric effect,whereby light falling on metal releases electrons of specific energies.The existing theory of light as waves failed to explain the effect,but Einstein provided a neat solution by suggesting light came in discrete packages of energy called photons—a brain wave that won him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
This paragraph,telling about the development of quantum theory in the early decades of the 20th century,is organized according to the time order.
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a word or phrase.As a method of exposition,a definition may be brief or extended.
Enlightenment is the name applied to an intellectual movement and cultural ambiance which developed in western Europe during the seventeenth century and reached its height in the eighteenth.The common element was a trust in human reason as adequate to solve the crucial problems and to establish the essential norms in life,together with the belief that the application of reason was rapidly dissipating the darkness of superstition,prejudice,and barbarity,was freeing humanity from its earlier reliance on mere authority and unexamined tradition,and had opened the prospect of progress toward a life in this world of universal peace and happiness.For some thinkers the model for“reason”was the inductive procedure of science,which proceeds by reasoning from the facts of experience to general laws;for others(especially Descartes and his followers),the model for“reason”was primarily geometrical—the deduction of particular truths from clear and distinct ideas which are known intuitively,by“the light of reason.”Many thinkers relied on reason in both these senses.
This paragraph gives a somewhat extended definition of“Enlightenment”.It includes more relevant though not essential information than is contained by the usual dictionary definition.
Exemplification(or example)is a method by which a writer clarifies,explains,or justifies a point through narrative or informative details.
Coco Chanel was far ahead of her time.If one looks at the work of contemporary fashion designers as different from one another as Tom Ford,Helmut Lang,Miuccia Prada,Jil Sander and Donatella Versace,one sees that many of their strategies echo what Chanel once did.The ways,75 years ago,she mixed up the vocabulary of male and female clothes and created fashion that offered the wearer a feeling of hidden luxury rather than ostentation are just two examples of how her taste and sense of style overlap with today's fashion.
This paragraph begins with a topic sentence,and goes on to supply examples to support the main idea.
Cause-effect/Causal analysis is a method in which a writer analyzes the reasons for and/or the consequences of an action,event,or decision.
A cause-and-effect paragraph or essay can be organized in various ways.For instance,causes and/or effects can be arranged in either chronological order or reverse chronological order.Alternatively,points can be presented in terms of emphasis,from the least important to the most important,or vice versa.
While Fossey's actions(organizing patrols to drive out those she considered to be intruders in the Parcs des Volcans in Rwanda in order to protect the mountain gorillas there)represented a huge inconvenience for the Bahutu and Batutsi farmers,for the Batwa they proved devastating.The forest was integral to their lifestyle:it provided them with food and medicine and was the centre of their cultural activities.Without it,they became destitute.They had neither skills nor the resources to become farmers and were given no compensation or alternative.Considered secondclass citizens—unclean,stupid,untrustworthy—by their neighbours,they were forced to live in hovels on the fringes of villages,scratching around in wasteland to eke out a living.By the early 1990s,begging was the main source of income for 70 percent of Rwanda Batwa.
This paragraph uses examples to explain why Fossey's actions are devastating.
Exercises
A.Read the following paragraph to see what method is used in its development.
Sound has shaped the bodies of many beasts.Noise tapped away at the bullfrog until his ears became bigger than his eyes.Now he hears so well that at the slightest sound of danger he quickly plops to safety under a sunken leaf.The rabbit has long ears to hear the quiet“whoosh”of the owl's wings,while the grasshopper's ears are on the base of his abdomen,the lowest point of his body,where he can detect the tread of a crow's foot or the stealthy approach of a shrew.
B.Identify the method or methods adopted in the development of the following paragraph.
Over the past 150 years working hours in Britain have been falling.In the mid-nineteenth century men worked in paid employment for at least 55 hours per week.Hours worked then began a steady drop—the rise of trade unionism is one explanation,but then,after the First World War they plateaued.From 1951 onwards they dropped again but this fall was brought to a sudden halt in 1981 with the onset of the deregulatory economic policies of the Thatcher years.Working hours reached a high in 1997 when the UK average number of hours worked hit 45.8 per week,falling to 44.3 hours per week in 2004.
C.Write a paragraph of about 200 words to analyze the reasons why more and more students are taking online classes.