2017新托福听力解析:暴力事件减少

　　科学美国人60秒听力练习：暴力事件减少

　　科学美国人60秒英文文本

　　“Believe it or not, violence has been in decline for long stretches of time. And today are probably living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence.” Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker at the ScienceWriters 2011 conference in Flagstaff on October 17th. His new book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

　　“The decline of violence has not been steady. It has not brought violence down to zero. And it is not guaranteed to continue. But…it is a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from the waging of wars and genocides to the spanking of children and the treatment of animals.”

　　One example is homicide rates. “It turns out that homicide records go back in Europe in many places for centuries…a medieval Englishman was at least 35 times more likely to be murdered than his modern counterpart. This is true not just in England, but in every European country for which statistics have been gathered.”

　　科学美国人60秒中文翻译：

　　“无论您是否相信，暴力事件已经在相当长的一段时间内保持下降趋势，如今我们可能生活在人类有史以来最安全的时期。”史蒂芬•平克于2011年10月17日在美国小镇Flagstaff举行的“科学作家2011”大会上讲到。

　　“暴力事件的减少还不稳定，不管怎样暴力事件还是时有发生，而且并不能保证这种下降趋势可以持续下去。但显而易见这是一次持久的历史演变，从发动战争到种族灭绝，从虐待儿童到治疗动物都体现着发展。

　　以凶杀案为例，“记录证明，凶杀案在欧洲的许多国家都时常发生，中世纪英国的凶杀案件发生的次数竟是现在的35倍之多。这不仅仅是在英国，数据统计显示在欧洲的大部分地区事实都是这样。