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*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.
