陳蕙雅思教材 - 雅思閱讀精選 (Botany)

Botany

Botany, the study ofplants, occupies a peculiar position in the history of

human knowledge. For  many thousands  of    years it  was  the one  

field  of awareness  about  which humans  had anything more than the

vaguest of insights. Itis     impossible to know today just whatour Stone Age

ancestors knew aboutplants, but from what we can observe of        preindustrial

societies that stillexist a detailed  learning  of plants and their  

properties  must be extremely  ancient. This islogical. Plants are the

basis of the food pyramidfor all living things even for other plants. They

have always beenenormously important to the welfare of people not only for

food, but also forclothing, weapons, tools, dyes, medicines,shelter, and

a great many otherpurposes. Tribes living today in the  jungles of         the

Amazon recognize  literally hundreds of plants and know manyproperties of

each. To them, botany, assuch, has                    no name andis probably not even

recognized as a specialbranch of "knowledge"at all.

Unfortunately, the moreindustrialized we become the farther away we move

from direct contact withplants, and the   less distinct ourknowledge of

botany grows. Yeteveryone comes unconsciously  on  an amazing  amount  of

botanical     knowledge,  and few  people  will fail  to recognize a rose,

an apple, or an orchid.When our Neolithic ancestors,  living inthe Middle

East about 10, 000 yearsago,  discovered that  certain grasses could  be

harvested and their  seeds planted for richer yields  the next season the

first  great step in a new association of plants and humans was    taken.

Grains were discoveredand  from them flowed the marvel ofagriculture:

cultivated crops. Fromthen on,    humans would increasingly taketheir living

from the controlledproduction of a few plants, rather than getting a

little here and a littlethere from many varieties that grew wild - and the

accumulated knowledge oftens of          thousands of years ofexperience and

intimacy with plants inthe wild would begin to fade away.

植物學

植物學，即對植物的研究，在人類知識的歷史中佔據了特殊的地位。  這是人類幾千年 來超越模糊的認知而真正有所瞭解的領域之一。  

我們今天不可能知道新石器時代的祖先們 對植物到底瞭解多少，但我們在至今仍存在的前工業化社會觀察到：人類對植物及其特性的 詳細瞭解應該是非常古老的。

這是理所當然的。 植物是其他生物甚至其他植物食物金字塔 的基礎。  它們對人們的生活至關重要，不僅在食物上，而且在衣物、武器、工具、染料、

藥物、住所和許許多多其他的用途上。  至今仍生活在亞馬遜河叢林中的部落確實能夠辨識 幾百種植物並知道每一種的許多特性。  

對他們來說，植物學沒有專門的名稱，甚至可能根 本未被認為是一種專門知識。  不幸的是，工業化的程度越高，我們距直接與植物接觸就越

遠，我們的植物學知識的增加也就越微不足道。  然而每個人在不知不覺中擁有大量的植物 學知識，很少有人認不出玫瑰、蘋果或蘭花。  

大約一萬年前居住在中東的新時代的祖先們 發現某些草能被收穫，它們的種子下一季耕種會收穫更多時，人類就邁出了人和植物之間的 新關係第一大步。

穀子被發現後，農業的奇跡從此誕生：這就是可栽培的穀物。 從那時起， 人類越來越依賴少數可控制的作物生存，而不再是從眾多的野生種類中這裡獲取一點，那裡

獲取一點。  這樣在千萬年中對於野生植物的經驗和密切聯繫中積累起來的知識就開始消失 了。