萬物簡史 第99期:勢不兩立的科學(7)

Unfortunately, having had his insight, Smith wascuriously uninterested in understanding why rockswere laid down in the way they were. "I have left offpuzzling about the origin of Strata and contentmyself with knowing that it is so," he recorded. "Thewhys and wherefores cannot come within theProvince of a Mineral Surveyor."

不幸的是，盡管史密斯具有敏銳的見解，但說來也怪，他沒有興趣搞清為什么巖石偏偏以那種方式埋在地下。“我沒有再研究巖層的起源，滿足于知道情況就是那樣，”他寫道，“什么原因，什么緣故，那不屬于一名礦藏測量員的研究范圍。”

Smith's revelation regarding strata heightened the moral awkwardness concerningextinctions. To begin with, it confirmed that God had wiped out creatures not occasionallybut repeatedly. This made Him seem not so much careless as peculiarly hostile. It also madeit inconveniently necessary to explain how some species were wiped out while others continuedunimpeded into succeeding eons.

史密斯對巖層內(nèi)情的披露，更增加了絕種論引起的在道德上的難堪程度。首先，它證實了上帝消滅生靈不是偶然的，而是經(jīng)常的。這么看來，上帝與其說是粗心大意，不如說是極不友好。而且，還有必要花點力氣來進行解釋，為什么有的物種徹底滅絕，而有的物種卻順利地存活到隨后的年代。

Clearly there was more to extinctions than could be accounted for by a single Noachian deluge,as the Biblical flood was known. Cuvier resolved the matter to his own satisfaction bysuggesting that Genesis applied only to the most recent inundation. God, it appeared, hadn'twished to distract or alarm Moses with news of earlier, irrelevant extinctions.

顯而易見，絕種不是諾亞時代的一場“大激流”——即大家知道的《圣經(jīng)》里的那場洪水——能解釋清楚的。居維葉作出了自我滿意的解釋，認為《創(chuàng)世記》只是指最近的那場洪水。上帝似乎不希望用先前不相干的絕種來分散摩西的注意力或引起他的驚慌。