【听音频，也可猛戳左下角“阅读原文”】
Alice:Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Alice…
大家好，欢迎收听英语六分钟。我是艾丽斯……
Finn:… and I'm Finn. Hello.
我是菲恩。大家好。
Alice:Hello, Finn. You're off on holiday tomorrow, aren't you?
你好，菲恩。你明天就要去度假了是吗？
Finn:I am and you know, and I'm dreading it. I hate flying!
是的，我很害怕。我讨厌坐飞机。
Alice:Do you? I didn't know you had a phobia – and that means a strong and unreasonable fear of something.
是吗？我不知道你有恐惧症，恐惧症是指对某事物有强烈的无理由的恐惧感。
Finn:Well, I don't think this is a phobia because it isn't unreasonable. Flying thousands of feet up in the sky in a tin can, you know, that's not safe!
我不认为这是恐惧症，因为这种恐惧并非没有理由。飞机就像飞在数千英尺高空中的易拉罐，你要知道，这并不安全！
Alice:Flying is safer than you think, Finn. It's much riskier to drive or cycle to work. And, actually, risk taking is the subject of today's show! Risk means the chances of something bad happening. For example, did you know that your chance of being knocked off your bicycle and killed during a one-mile journey is the same as your chances of winning the lottery?
航空旅行比你想象的要安全得多，菲恩。相比之下，开车或者骑自行车去公司的风险更高。事实上我们今天节目的主题就是冒险。风险是指不好的事情发生的概率。比如：你知道你骑自行车走一英里的路途中被从自行车上撞下来并丧命的几率和你赢彩票的几率是一样大的吗？
Finn:You know Alice, I didn't know that.
你是知道的艾丽斯，我不知道这些。
Alice:And this leads me on to our quiz question for today: What are the odds … what are the chances of either of these two things happening? Is it a) 1 in 4 million? b) 1 in 14 million? Or c) 1 in 400 million?
这让我想到了我们今天的问题：这两件事情发生其中任何一件的几率是多少？是a)四百万分之一？ b)一千四百万分之一？还是c)四亿分之一？
Finn:I have no idea. I'll go with the big number: 1 in 400 million, c).
我不知道。我要选大的：c)四亿分之一。
Alice：OK. So we'll find out later if you're right or wrong later on. Now let's listen to Andreas Wilkey, a psychologist at Clarkson University in New York, talking about why we're bad at assessing risk.
好的。我们稍后来看你的答案正确与否。现在让我们听纽约克拉克森大学的心理学家安德里亚斯·威尔基为我们解释为什么我们不擅长评估风险。
People typically fear anything which is small probability but it's extremely catastrophic if it were to happen… Think about dying in a plane crash, think about a nuclear meltdown from the nearby power plant. Recently we have another increase in these birds' virus outbreaks in South Korea. People read about that. And they may pay a lot of attention to that in the news but they may forget to get their flu shot.
人们通常会害怕小概率事件，一旦这些事情发生了那将会是毁灭性的……比如飞机坠毁、附近发电站发生核心熔毁。最近韩国又爆发了鸟类病毒引起的流感。人们在报纸上看到这些消息。他们或许会密切关注相关新闻但是却忘了去打流感疫苗。
Finn:That was Andreas Wilkey from Clarkson University. And we heard that a small probability of something happening means it's unlikely to happen. But we worry about big or catastrophic events such as catching bird flu or dying in a plane crash because we have a gut reaction to them– in other words, we react emotionally. A catastrophic event is something that causes a huge amount of damage and suffering.
以上是克拉克森大学的心理学家安德里亚斯·威尔基为我们的介绍。小概率事件是指某件事情不太可能会发生。但是我们害怕严重的或者毁灭性的事情，比如得禽流感或在飞机事故中丧生，是我们的本能反应，换句话说，是我们的情感反应。毁灭性的事件是会造成巨大损失和痛苦的事件。
Alice:And it's often because of media coverage – for example, watching the news and reading the newspapers – that it can be difficult for us to understand how likely certain things are to happen. Catastrophic events feel like very real threats, while we tend to forget about the small but chronic risks that become more likely over time.
而且往往因为媒体的报道，比如新闻广播和报纸，我们很难知道某些事情发生的可能性有多大。毁灭性的事件感觉起来的确很有威胁性，但是我们通常会忘记一些微小但是长期存在的风险，这些风险发生的可能性随着时间的积累在变大。
Finn:We do. Chronic means something that lasts for a long time. So for example, what if there was a cigarette that killed you as soon as you smoked it? Nobody would do that, would they?
是的。长期是指在很长一段时间内都存在的。比如，香烟如果只吸上一口就会身亡你还会抽吗？没有人会这样做，对吧？
Alice:No, they wouldn't.
是的。
Finn:But plenty of people are happy to smoke for years, and put off worrying about the health risks for the future.
但是很多人都喜欢常年吸烟，把对健康问题的担心留给以后。
Alice:Yes, that's a good point, Finn! People feel they are in control of risks that stretch over time. You know, they think, 'I could stop tomorrow' or 'I could smoke less'. But what about people who enjoy taking big risks – those thrill seekers out there?
是的，你说得很有道理，菲恩！人们认为他们能够控制长期存在的风险。他们会想：我可以明天再戒烟，或者我可以少抽一些。喜欢冒大风险的人——大冒险家——又是什么样呢？
Finn:People who enjoy extreme sports actually seek out danger – it gives them extreme pleasure! So let's listen to Karina Hollekim from Norway. She's a base jumper – that's a person with a parachute who leaps from tall buildings or cliffs – and she's talking about what she feels about risk.
喜欢极限运动的人实际上是在寻求危险，这能给他们带来乐趣！卡丽娜·霍勒蒂姆是来自挪威的定点跳伞运动员。定点跳伞运动员通常借助降落伞从和很高的建筑物或者悬崖上跳下。让我们听一听她对风险的感受。
You need to measure the pleasure. Is it going to be worth it for you? So if the risk is really high, it means that the pleasure needs to be equally high. Or hopefully even higher… You can't measure it on a scale or anything. For me, it's a stomach feeling. It's the value within me, and I'm the only one who can tell what value it has to me.
你需要对乐趣进行一番衡量。它是否值得你去寻求？如果风险性很高，就需要其乐趣性达到相应程度，甚至更高，这是理想的情况。它无法用一个标准来衡量。就我而言，这完全是靠直觉。我的内心有一个衡量其价值的标尺，只有我自己知道它对我的价值。
Alice:Yes. It must be a magical feeling to step off a cliff, mustn't it, Finn?
跳下悬崖的感觉一定很神奇，是吗菲恩？
Finn:'It's a stomach feeling', you know – my stomach would definitely be saying, 'oh no, no, no!' So why not change the subject and give me the answer to today's quiz question?
这靠的是直觉，你知道吗。我的直觉一定会告诉我：哦，不要跳，不要跳，不要跳！现在我们换个话题说说我们今天的测试题如何？
Alice:I asked: What are your chances of being knocked off your bicycle and killed during a one-mile journey and this is the same as your chances of winning the national lottery? So is it… a) 1 in 4 million? b) 1 in 14 million? Or c) 1 in 400 million?
我的问题是：你骑自行车走一英里的路途中被从车上撞下来并丧命的几率有多大？这和你赢彩票的几率是一样大的。那么这个概率是a)四百万分之一？ b)一千四百万分之一？还是c)四亿分之一呢？
Finn:I said c) 1 in 400 million.
我选择的是c)四亿分之一。
Alice:Yes. And you were wrong, Finn.
是的。你错了，菲恩。
Finn:Alright. Really? OK.
真的吗？好吧。
Alice:Yes. The odds are actually 1 in 14 million. You are as likely to win the national lottery from a single ticket as you are to be knocked off your bicycle and killed during a one-mile journey. This statistic comes from the Professor David Spiegelhalter, who is Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in the UK. So I think he really knows his stuff.
这个概率实际上是一千四百万分之一。你赢国家彩票的几率和你骑自行车走一英里的路途中被从车上撞下来并丧命的几率是一样大的。这个数据来自英国剑桥大学统计实验室的温顿公众风险理解教授大卫·史比格哈特尔。我想他对他的专业很在行。
Finn:That's a very long title, yes, I'm sure he does.
这个头衔真长。是的，他肯定像你说的那样。
Alice:Yeah.
对。
Finn:So let's hear today's words again, Alice?
我们再来听一下今天的单词，艾丽斯？
Alice:Here they are:
它们是：
phobia
恐惧症
risk
风险
probability
概率
gut reaction
直觉反应
catastrophic
毁灭性的
media coverage
媒体报道
chronic
长期的
thrill seekers
大冒险家
base jumper
定点跳伞
And that brings us to the end of today's 6 Minute English. We hope you were thrilled by today's programme. Please join us again soon.
今天的英语六分钟到这里就结束了。我们希望今天的节目让你感到兴奋。请收听我们的下期节目。
Both:Bye.
再见。
联系客服
