每天一小段英语（25）

命运号角

This scenario would explain why there are no Type III Civilizations…but it would also mean that we could be one of the few exceptions now that we’ve made it this far. It would mean we have hope. On the surface, this sounds a bit like people 500 years ago suggesting that the Earth is the center of the universe—it implies that we’re special. However, something scientists call “observation selection effect” suggests that anyone who is pondering their own rarity is inherently part of an intelligent life “success story”—and whether they’re actually rare or quite common, the thoughts they ponder and conclusions they draw will be identical. This forces us to admit that being special is at least a possibility.
这个猜想解释了为什么没有III型文明，但也表明人类存活这么久是个例外。表面看起来这和500年前人们认为地球是宇宙的中心没什么两样，都暗示着人类很特殊。科学家提出“观测者效应”——认为自己稀有是智慧生命“成功案例”的一部分，沉思总结出来的想法都会是判断自身特殊与否。这是产生这种猜想的原因。

And if we are special, when exactly did we become special—i.e. which step did we surpass that almost everyone else gets stuck on?
如果我们特殊，特殊在哪里？我们过了哪一个别人都被淘汰的关卡。

One possibility: The Great Filter could be at the very beginning—it might be incredibly unusual for life to begin at all. This is a candidate because it took about a billion years of Earth’s existence to finally happen, and because we have tried extensively to replicate that event in labs and have never been able to do it. If this is indeed The Great Filter, it would mean that not only is there no intelligent life out there, there may be no other life at all.
一种可能：刚开始就是大筛查，不可思议的开始。这个可能几乎不可能，因为10亿年才形成这样的地球，有很多人在实验室试过复制出地球，都以失败告终。如果这就是大筛选，那么宇宙中就不会有智慧生命，更别说生命了。

命运号角

每日一词
identical
adj. 同一的；完全相同的
n. 完全相同的事物

命运号角

stuck on
迷恋于；粘上

天各一方8

学下英语

feiniao2008

shakencity

And if we are special, when exactly did we become special—i.e. which step did we surpass that almost everyone else gets stuck on?