托福阅读背景知识（十）

二、托福阅读背景知识：为什么人文科学不应该被放弃

　　“Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?” Rick Scott, the Floridagovernor, once asked. A leader of a prominent Internet company once told me that the firmregards admission to Harvard as a useful heuristic of talent, but a college education itself asuseless.

　　“拥有更多人类学家是本州的关键利益所在吗?”佛罗里达州州长里克•斯科特(Rick Scott)曾经这样问道。某著名互联网公司的负责人曾经告诉我，该公司把哈佛大学的录取通知书当成一个人是否有才的具有启发性的有用依据，但并不认为大学教育本身有什么参考价值。

　　Parents and students themselves are acting on these principles, retreating from thehumanities. Among college graduates in 1971, there were about two business majors for eachEnglish major. Now there are seven times as many. (I was a political science major; if I weredoing it over, I’d be an economics major with a foot in the humanities.)

　　学生和家长们正按照这类准则行事，纷纷摒弃人文学科。1971年，商科本科毕业生和英语系本科毕业生的比例是2：1。现在，两者的比例是7：1。(我学的是政治学专业;如果可以重来一次，我会去学经济学，同时选修人文学科。)

　　I’ve been thinking about this after reading Fareed Zakaria’s smart new book, “In Defense of aLiberal Education.” Like Zakaria, I think that the liberal arts teach critical thinking (not tomention nifty words like “heuristic”).

　　自从读了法里德•扎卡里亚(Fareed Zakaria)颇有见地的新书《捍卫人文教育》(In Defense of a LiberalEducation)之后，我一直在思考这一现象。和扎卡里亚一样，我认为人文教育有助于培养学生的批判性思维(具有“启发性”等漂亮话就更不用说了)。

　　So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our souls andsometimes even our pocketbooks as well.

　　人文学科可以丰富我们的精神生活，有时甚至可以充实我们的钱袋子。为了回应怀疑论者，我在此给出三点理由。

　　First, liberal arts equip students with communications and interpersonal skills that are valuableand genuinely rewarded in the labor force, especially when accompanied by technical abilities.

　　首先，人文教育有助于提高学生的沟通和人际交往能力，在职场上，这种能力可以给人带来巨大的回报，尤其是在跟技术能力共同起作用的时候。

　　“A broad liberal arts education is a key pathway to success in the 21st-century economy,” saysLawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. Katz says that the economic return to puretechnical skills has flattened, and the highest return now goes to those who combine softskills — excellence at communicating and working with people — with technical skills.

　　“在21世纪的经济体系中，宽泛的人文教育是通往成功的重要途径，”哈佛大学的劳动经济学家劳伦斯•卡茨(Lawrence Katz)说。卡茨称，纯技术能力的经济回报已经趋平，既具有软能力——善于与他人交流和协同工作——又具有技术能力的人获得的回报是最高的。

　　“So I think a humanities major who also did a lot of computer science, economics, psychology,or other sciences can be quite valuable and have great career flexibility,” Katz said. “But youneed both, in my view, to maximize your potential. And an economics major or computerscience major or biology or engineering or physics major who takes serious courses in thehumanities and history also will be a much more valuable scientist, financial professional,economist, or entrepreneur.”

　　“因此我认为，一个人文专业的学生，如果对计算机科学、经济学、心理学或者其他学科也颇有研究，就会很有价值，在职场是会有很大的灵活性的。”卡茨说，“但在我看来，你必须‘脚踏两只船’，才能最大限度地挖掘自己的潜能。一个经济学专业的学生，或者是计算机专业、生物学专业、工程学专业、物理学专业的学生，如果正经八百地修过人文和历史课程，也会成为一个更有价值的科学家、金融专业人士、经济学家或者企业家。 ”

　　My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise publicpolicy decisions, even about the sciences. Technology companies must constantly weighethical decisions: Where should Facebook set its privacy defaults, and should it tolerateglimpses of nudity? Should Twitter close accounts that seem sympathetic to terrorists? Howshould Google handle sex and violence, or defamatory articles?

　　我的第二个理由：我们需要通晓人文学科的人来帮忙做出明智的公共政策决策——甚至是和科学有关的决策。科技公司必须不断对伦理决策进行权衡：Facebook的默认隐私设置应该是什么样的，该容忍些许裸体影像的存在吗?Twitter该关停似乎对恐怖分子颇为同情的账号吗?谷歌(Google)该如何处理关于性与暴力的内容以及诽谤性文章?