萬物簡史 第118期:勢不兩立的科學(xué)(26)

Of the two, Cope's scientific legacy was much themore substantial. In a breathtakingly industriouscareer, he wrote some 1,400 learned papers anddescribed almost 1,300 new species of fossil (of alltypes, not just dinosaurs)—more than double Marsh'soutput in both cases.

兩人當(dāng)中，柯普的科學(xué)成果要多得多。在他極其勤奮的一生中，他寫出了大約1400篇學(xué)術(shù)論文，描述了近1300種新的化石(各種各樣的化石，不僅僅是恐龍的化石)——在這兩方面都超過馬什的成果兩倍以上。

Cope might have done even more, but unfortunately he went into a rather precipitate descentin his later years. Having inherited a fortune in 1875, he invested unwisely in silver and losteverything. He ended up living in a single room in a Philadelphia boarding house, surrounded bybooks, papers, and bones. Marsh by contrast finished his days in a splendid mansion in NewHaven. Cope died in 1897, Marsh two years later.

柯普本來可作出更大的貢獻(xiàn)，但不幸的是，他在后來的幾年中急速走下坡路。他在1875年繼承了一筆財(cái)產(chǎn)，不大明智地把錢投資于金融業(yè)，結(jié)果全部泡湯。他最后住在費(fèi)城一家寄居宿舍的單人房間里，身邊堆滿了書、文獻(xiàn)和骨頭。而馬什的晚年是在紐黑文一棟富麗堂皇的房子里度過的?？缕账烙?897年，兩年后馬什也與世長辭。

In his final years, Cope developed one other interesting obsession. It became his earnest wishto be declared the type specimen forHomo sapiens—that is, that his bones would be the officialset for the human race. Normally, the type specimen of a species is the first set of bonesfound, but since no first set of Homo sapiens bones exists, there was a vacancy, which Copedesired to fill. It was an odd and vain wish, but no one could think of any grounds to opposeit.

在最后的幾年里，柯普產(chǎn)生了另一個(gè)有意思的念頭。他殷切希望自己被宣布為“人類”的模式標(biāo)本——即，把他的骨頭作為人類的正式樣板。在一般情況下，一個(gè)物種的模式標(biāo)本就是被發(fā)現(xiàn)的第一副骨頭，但由于“人類”的第一副骨頭并不存在，就產(chǎn)生了一個(gè)空缺。柯普希望填補(bǔ)這個(gè)空缺。這是一個(gè)古怪而又沒有價(jià)值的愿望，但誰也想不出理由來加以反對。

To that end, Cope willed his bones to the Wistar Institute, a learned society in Philadelphiaendowed by the descendants of the seemingly inescapable Caspar Wistar. Unfortunately, afterhis bones were prepared and assembled, it was found that they showed signs of incipientsyphilis, hardly a feature one would wish to preserve in the type specimen for one's own race.So Cope's petition and his bones were quietly shelved. There is still no type specimen formodern humans.

為此，柯普立下遺囑，把自己的骨頭捐獻(xiàn)給費(fèi)城的威斯塔研究所。那是個(gè)學(xué)術(shù)團(tuán)體，是由好像無處不在的卡斯珀·威斯塔的后裔捐資成立的。不幸的是，經(jīng)過處理和裝配以后，人們發(fā)現(xiàn)他的骨頭顯示出患了早期梅毒的癥狀，誰也不愿意把這種特征保留在代表人類本身的模式標(biāo)本上。于是，柯普的請求和他的骨頭就不了了之。直到現(xiàn)在，現(xiàn)代人類仍然沒有模式標(biāo)本。