总统大选与科学研究的利害关系

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Steve Mirsky.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是史蒂夫·米尔斯基。

Election Day is November 3rd. In this week before the election, we’re rolling out a special series of short podcasts in which we’ll look at how the election could affect some major areas of science. To set up what you’ll hear the rest of the week, I spoke to Scientific American’s editor in chief Laura Helmuth.

选举日是11月3日。在选举前的这周，我们推出了一系列特别的短播客节目，我们将看看选举如何影响一些主要的科学领域。为了让大家了解本周接下来将收听的内容，我采访了《科学美国人》的主编劳拉·赫尔穆特。

“There’s a lot to talk about. The election is almost upon us; people are voting already. And some of the biggest issues that will be decided by this election have to do with science and health and the environment and our future energy structure and climate change. And it’s an urgent time to talk about these subjects.”

“有很多可以谈论的。选举就快到了; 人们已经开始投票了。这次选举将决定一些重大问题，这些重大问题与科学、健康、环境以及我们未来的能源结构和气候变化有关。现在是讨论这些问题的紧急时刻。”

And we’re not endorsing your candidate in this case. We are just laying out the terms of what the stakes are for these scientific areas in this election.

这次我们不会支持你中意的候选人。我们只是阐释了这些科学领域在这次选举中的利害关系。

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are a lot of reasons to vote for one candidate or, for some people, the other. But really, if you’re interested in scientific subjects, there will be a lot of different directions the country will go in—one direction or the other—depending on this election. And we just want to lay out what the stakes are.”

“是的，当然。我的意思是，有很多理由投票给一个候选人，或者，对一些人来说，投票给另一个。 但实际上，如果你对科学学科感兴趣，国家会朝很多不同的方向发展，一个方向或另一个方向——这取决于这次选举。我们只是想说明其中的利害关系。”

And what do we say to the inevitable audience member who just doesn’t want to hear about politics when they come to a science venue?

不可避免，有来到科学会场却不想听政治的观众，对此，我们该说些什么呢?

“Yeah, I mean, that is a good question. And I think all of us right now, especially when there’s so much politics in the air, it’s really refreshing to come somewhere and to think about black holes or the age of the universe or how dinosaurs evolved. And we will continue to be talking about those things.

是的，我是说，这是个好问题。我想现在我们所有人，特别是当现在到处都在谈论政治时，来到某个地方，思考黑洞或宇宙的年龄或恐龙是如何进化的，这真的是令人耳目一新。我们将继续讨论这些事情。

If politics settles down, we’ll be doing probably more of those than we have in the past few years. But at this moment, the future of the research enterprise is really on the line.

如果政治活动稳定下来，我们可能会比过去几年做得更多。但此时此刻，研究事业的未来真的岌岌可危。

And, and we just think it’s important for people to know how dramatically one administration or another can influence the way that scientific collaboration happens, the way science is communicated, what the priorities are for what should be studied and how.”

我们只是认为，让人们知道一届或另一届政府能在多大程度上影响科学合作的方式、科学传播的方式、应该研究什么以及如何研究的优先事项是很重要的。”

For Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是史蒂夫·米尔斯基。