If you’ve ever been on a jury, you might have noticed that a funny thing happens the minute you get behind closed doors. Everybody starts talking about themselves. They say what they would have done if they had been the plaintiff or the defendant. Being on a jury reminds me why I can’t tolerate talk radio. We Americans seem to have lost the ability to talk about anything but our own experiences. We can’t seem to generalize without stereotyping or to consider evidence that goes against our own experience.

I heard a doctor on a radio show talking about a study that found that exercise reduces the incidence of Alzheimer’s. And caller after caller couldn’t wait to make essentially the opposite point: “Well, my grandmother never exercised and she lived to 95.” We are in an age summed up by the saying: “I experience, therefore I’m right.” Historically, the hallmarks of an uneducated person were the lack of ability to think critically, to use deductive reasoning to distinguish the personal from the universal. Now that seems an apt description of many Americans.

【参考译文】

如果你曾经当过陪审员，你可能会注意到一件有趣的事情：一旦关上了门，所有人就开始谈论他们自己。他们会讨论，如果自己是原告或被告的话会做什么。担任陪审员的经历让我明白了我为什么无法忍受谈话性的广播节目。我们美国人似乎只剩下了谈论自己经历的能力。我们似乎无法抛开固有的成见进行总结，也无法客观地分析与自身经历相悖的证据。

我曾听过一位医生在之声节目上讲述一项研究，该研究发现锻炼能降低阿兹海默症（老年痴呆症）的发病率。而此时听众的电话一个接着一个，纷纷迫不及待地表达反对意见：“嗯，我祖母从不锻炼，但她活到了95岁。”我们身处的时代可以用一句话来总结：“我经历过，所以我是对的。”历史上，无知之人的典型特征就是缺乏进行批判性思维、演绎推理和分辨个例与常态的能力。如今，用这句话描述许多美国人似乎恰如其分。

【解析】

文本节选自2011年7月29日的《基督教科学箴言报》（The Christian Science Monitor），探讨现代人过度依赖个人经验判断、缺乏批判思考的问题。话题相对抽象，难度中上。