萬物簡史 第108期:勢不兩立的科學(xué)(16)

Owen swiftly distinguished himself with his powersof organization and deduction. At the same time heshowed himself to be a peerless anatomist withinstincts for reconstruction almost on a par withthe great Cuvier in Paris. He become such an experton the anatomy of animals that he was granted firstrefusal on any animal that died at the LondonZoological Gardens, and these he would invariablyhave delivered to his house for examination.

歐文很快以他的組織能力和演繹能力受人注意。同時，他證明自己是個無與倫比的解剖學(xué)家，具有很強的復(fù)原本能，幾乎可以與巴黎偉大的居維葉相比。他成為解剖動物方面的一名專家，對倫敦動物園里死去的任何動物擁有優(yōu)先取舍權(quán)，而那類東西又無一例外地送到他的家里供他來檢查。

Once his wife returned home to find a freshly deceased rhinoceros filling the front hallway. Hequickly became a leading expert on all kinds of animals living and extinct—from platypuses,echidnas, and other newly discovered marsupials to the hapless dodo and the extinct giantbirds called moas that had roamed New Zealand until eaten out of existence by the Maoris. Hewas the first to describe the archaeopteryx after its discovery in Bavaria in 1861 and the firstto write a formal epitaph for the dodo. Altogether he produced some six hundred anatomicalpapers, a prodigious output.

有一回，他的妻子回到家里，只見一頭剛死的犀牛堵住了前門走廊。他很快成為一名各種動物方面的杰出專家，無論是現(xiàn)存的還是絕種的動物——從鴨嘴獸、針鼴和別的新發(fā)現(xiàn)的有袋動物，到倒霉的渡渡鳥以及已經(jīng)絕了種的大鳥——恐鳥。后者本來自由自在地生活在新西蘭，最后被毛里人吃個干凈。1861年，他在巴伐利亞發(fā)現(xiàn)了始祖鳥，是描述始祖鳥的第一人，也是為渡渡鳥寫正式墓志銘的第一人。他總共發(fā)表了大約600篇關(guān)于解剖學(xué)的論文，這個數(shù)字真夠龐大了。

But it was for his work with dinosaurs that Owen is remembered. He coined the term dinosauriain 1841. It means "terrible lizard" and was a curiously inapt name. Dinosaurs, as we now know,weren't all terrible—some were no bigger than rabbits and probably extremely retiring—andthe one thing they most emphatically were not was lizards, which are actually of a much older(by thirty million years) lineage. Owen was well aware that the creatures were reptilian andhad at his disposal a perfectly good Greek word, herpeton, but for some reason chose not touse it. Another, more excusable error (given the paucity of specimens at the time) was thatdinosaurs constitute not one but two orders of reptiles: the bird-hipped ornithischians and thelizard-hipped saurischians.

不過，是由于他在恐龍方面的成就，歐文才為人們記得。他在1841年創(chuàng)造了“恐龍”這個名稱。它的意思是“可怕的蜥蜴”，這是個極不合適的名字。現(xiàn)在我們知道，恐龍毫不可怕——有的還沒有兔子大，很可能是離群索居的。有一點是肯定的：它們不是蜥蜴。實際上，恐龍是一個古老得多的家族(距今大約3億年前)。歐文很清楚，它們是爬行動物，希臘文里已經(jīng)有了個很合適的名詞——爬行動物，但由于某種原因他不愿意采用。他還犯了個更加可以原諒的錯誤(考慮到當(dāng)時標(biāo)本很少)，那就是，他沒有注意到，恐龍不是由一種而是由兩種爬行動物組成：臀部像鳥的鳥臀目恐龍和臀部像蜥蜴的蜥臀目恐龍。