萬物簡史 第103期:勢不兩立的科學(11)

Aware that his finding would entirely upend whatwas understood about the past, and urged by hisfriend the Reverend William Buckland—he of thegowns and experimental appetite—to proceedwith caution, Mantell devoted three painstakingyears to seeking evidence to support hisconclusions. He sent the tooth to Cuvier in Paris foran opinion, but the great Frenchman dismissed it asbeing from a hippopotamus. (Cuvier later apologizedhandsomely for this uncharacteristic error.)

曼特爾意識到，自己的發(fā)現(xiàn)會徹底推翻人們對過去的認識。威廉·巴克蘭——那位身穿長袍、愛好試驗的學者--也勸他小心行事。因此，曼特爾花了3年時間，努力尋找支持自己的結論的證據(jù)。他把牙齒送交巴黎的居維葉，征求他的看法，但那位偉大的法國人輕描淡寫地認為，那只不過是河馬的牙齒。(居維葉姿態(tài)很高，后來為這個不常犯的錯誤道了歉。)

One day while doing research at the Hunterian Museum in London, Mantell fell intoconversation with a fellow researcher who told him the tooth looked very like those of animalshe had been studying, South American iguanas. A hasty comparison confirmed theresemblance. And so Mantell's creature became Iguanodon, after a basking tropical lizard towhich it was not in any manner related.

有一天，曼特爾在倫敦的亨特博物館作研究，跟一位同事攀談起來。那位同事對他說，它看上去很像是他一直在研究的那種動物——南美鬣蜥的牙齒。他們馬上進行了比較，確認了它們的相似之處。于是，曼特爾手里的動物以熱帶一種愛曬太陽的蜥蜴命名，被叫做禽龍。其實，二者之間沒有任何關系。