【para1】話題引入：生老病死，讓人憂心；不過作者安德魯·斯蒂爾通過新書傳達積極想法——人類也許能夠避免衰老。
【para2】作者論點：人類的衰老可在一定程度上實現可控，邁向「可忽略衰老」
【para3】對抗西方盛行的衰老無可避免觀點，指出當前高齡在已成趨勢。
【para4】科學家們治本溯源，正致力於研究衰老本身，及早幹預。
【para5】科學家運用多種工具（如藥物治療、基因編輯等）來進行專業化研究試驗，探索人類長生不老的可能。
【para6】研究概況：疫情擾斷研究，但未來老齡化速度將大幅放緩
【para7】科學家們權衡風險利弊，以身試藥，或將掀起一場科學革命。
03 原文閱讀 595 wordsThe death of age: Who wants to live for ever?Ageless. By Andrew Steele. Doubleday; 352 pages; $29. Bloomsbury; £20【para1】「OLD AGE is a massacre,」 wrote Philip Roth, long before the pandemic underscored its hazards. Even those who count as young must often watch the ineluctable drift of loved ones into decrepitude. Andrew Steele has a hopeful message for all those facing this prospect (ie, everyone). Old age needn’t be a massacre; in fact, old age needn’t even be old.【para2】Mr Steele’s thesis in 「Ageless」 is that ageing can be cured—and, at least in part, that it very soon will be. The giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands show no age-related decline, in some ways seeming as youthful at 170 as at 30. Mr Steele thinks this phenomenon, known as negligible senescence, is within humanity’s grasp, too.【para3】Whether or not readers are persuaded that ageless humans could ever be more than a theoretical possibility—and it is a stretch（文末解析）—this book will convince them that discounting the theoretical possibility altogether is based on nothing but prejudice. Western art may have something to do with it, bristling as it is with morality tales about the folly of wanting to turn back the clock; but there is actually no good reason to assume an upper limit to longevity, or that ageing must come with decline. And there is quite a lot of evidence to the contrary. Without the rich world’s denizens really noticing, a life that ends after the biblical three score years and ten has already come to seem a life cut short; instead, 90 is now seen as a good innings.【para4】This prejudice held back the field of biogerontology for a very long time, but in the past few decades some scientists have cast it aside. This has enabled them to see that the real folly lies in the attempt to cure the diseases of old age one by one, rather than tackling their underlying cause—ageing itself. Now they are trying to understand that process in all its extraordinary complexity, and to intervene much earlier.【para5】They have many tools at their disposal, and Mr Steele, who has a background in computational biology, evaluates them expertly and with verve. They range from drugs that mimic the life-extending effects of dietary restriction to gene-editing tools such as CRISPR and computer models that simulate whole biological systems. Such models may eventually prove the key that unlocks the inner Methuselah in everyone, by revealing both the limits to these systems and their redundancies: what can be tweaked, and what had best be left alone.【para6】Temporarily—and with a bitter irony—covid-19 has slammed the brakes on this burgeoning area of research. But Mr Steele thinks its first dividends will emerge within a couple of years, perhaps in the form of senolytic drugs that clear the accumulating cellular detritus of a long life. He makes the valid point that if, for every year of scientific endeavour, a year could be added to the average human lifespan, old age would recede into the future at the same rate as today’s population approached it. That would itself be quite a milestone on the road to negligible senescence.【para7】This interim goal is easily within reach, he claims. Many scientists agree—and are among those who have chosen to take experimental anti-ageing drugs. For some of these treatments they have calculated that the risks are small, compared with the potential benefits. The true sign that a scientific revolution is in the offing is that the scientists themselves have bought into it. Whether that revolution is desirable is a different question, which it may fall to a new generation of artists to answer. ■【para3】Whether or not readers are persuaded that ageless humans could ever be more than a theoretical possibility—and it is a stretch—this book will convince them that discounting the theoretical possibility altogether is based on nothing but prejudice.無論讀者是否相信人類不朽可能有朝一日不再是紙上談兵（這一點可是真的難），這本書將使他們相信，完全不考慮理論的可能性完全是基於徹頭徹尾的偏見。 💡 這句子有點晦澀，值得一提的是ever與情態動詞can/could/would等連用，表示一種渺茫的可能性（究竟是否有那一天/有朝一日；ever=by any chance/ at any period or point of time）；重點是stretch這裡表示a difficult task一樁難事，同challenge⭐stretch作名詞 最常見的義項是身體的拉伸; ➡️ 習語at full stretch 竭盡全力►the stretch and pull of the muscles 肌肉的伸縮；►Fire crews have been operating at full stretch. 各消防隊一直在全力以赴。 （引申，=in full swing）⭐stretch還用來表示說話誇大其詞，想像力豐富；➡️習語 by any/no stretch of the imagination 無論怎樣想像也不 ► Some people think it's a stretch to call fishing a sport. 有些人認為把釣魚稱作一項運動有些牽強。►My family wasn’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. 我家再怎麼說也算不上富裕。 ►By no stretch of the imagination could Carl ever be called good-looking. 卡爾無論如何也稱不上好看。⭐stretch因其延展特性，還可以表示一段時間(spell)、路段(leg)➡️the final/finishing/home stretch表示跑道的終點段，常引申表示最後一個階段► long stretches of time 一段段很長的時間►a treacherous stretch of road. 危險路段 ►The horses are in the (final) stretch 賽馬處於終點前的直道。►The campaign has entered its final stretch. 競選已進入最後衝刺階段。--END--
原文為轉載不代表本公眾號觀點
全文注釋/全文翻譯/脈絡梳理
語法解析/寫作積累/答疑互動
見「每天一篇經濟學人」精讀社區
點擊▽▽免費試讀
掃碼添加客服進讀者交流群
免費分享資源
（已添加主編助理的不需重複添加）