From The Gene Page 234:

It is the impulse of science to try to understand nature, and the impulse of technology to try to manipulate it. Recombinant DNA had pushed genetics from the realm of sciece into the realm of technology. Genes were not abstractions anymore. They could be liberated from the genomes of organisms where they had been trapped for millennia, shuttled between species, amplified, purified, extended, shortened, altered, remixed, mutated, mixed, matched, cut, pasted, edited; they were infinitely malleable to human intervention. Genes were no longer just the subjects of study, but the instruments of study. There is an illuminated moment in the development of a child when she grasps the recursiveness of language: just as thoughts can be used to generate words, she realizes, words can be used to generate thoughts. Recombinant DNA had made the language of genetics recursive. Biologists had spent decades trying to interrogate the nature of the gene -- but now it was the gene that could be used to interrogate biology. We had graduated, in short, from thinking about genes, to thinking in genes.

“They could be liberated from the genomes of organisms where they had been trapped for millennia, shuttled between species, amplified, purified, extended, shortened, altered, remixed, mutated, mixed, matched, cut, pasted, edited”

這一個長句子，后半部分的動詞排比并不難處理，相反，前面兩個動詞liberated和shuttled相對難處理，尤其是liberated，修飾的內容較長。遇到這種情況，我喜歡把長句子拆短，把修飾的部分單獨處理。這樣一來，原來很緊密的修飾結構就會打散，句子的節奏也會變得更輕快。如果要添加小短句，有兩種最方便的辦法，第一種增加動詞，因為小短句的核心就是動詞。動詞就好像雨滴或者是雪花中心的小灰塵，雖然很小，但是能給蒸汽提供附著的點。第二種就是增加邏輯關系詞，把隱含的邏輯關系顯化出來。

They could be liberated from the genomes of organisms where they had been trapped for millennia這一部分，liberated其實是結果，trapped是產生結果之前的狀態。所以修飾和被修飾部分之間的關系，可以看做時間先后關系或者前后對比關系。考慮到這一點，我先寫之前，再寫之后，然后點明兩者對比關系。就得出了“只是千萬年來禁錮在基因組中的一部分，相反，基因已經能從基因組中提取出來”，稍作修改后，順應前文，與前文構成遞進。

這樣一句話就被拆分成兩句話，更容易理解。

第二個翻譯的難點，就是本文題目啦。think about和think in。這種用法，是英文獨有的文字游戲，是讓人會心一笑，覺得英文很可愛又很調皮的用法。類似的說法我在之前某篇Vital Speech of the Day上也看到過，原文忘記了，大概是We need to use our brains to think about things, instead of think of them. 我當時的翻譯是“有些事，我們要用腦子思考，不能只惦記著。”雖然意思出來了，卻丟掉了英文里的小把戲。這一段也是一樣，雖然能把原意表達出來，卻沒能在翻譯中再現文字游戲，英文中同用一個think，而中文里卻很難找到有同一個字的詞語，分別對應需要思考的問題和解決問題的思路。如果有人能想到，一定要告訴我。

譯文如下：

科學的出發點是了解自然，而科技的出發點是掌控自然。重組DNA的實現，使遺傳學從一門科學變成了一項科技。基因已經不再是抽象概念，不再只是千萬年來禁錮在基因組中的一部分，相反，基因已經能從基因組中提取出來，在物種間轉移，并進行復制、提純、擴充、縮減、修改、重排、變異、混合、配對、剪切、貼合、編輯。在人類手上，它們呈現出無限可能。至此，基因已經不只是研究的課題，而變成了研究的工具。就好像小孩在長大的過程中會恍然大悟，原來語言的作用力是雙向的，人的思想可以用語言表達出來，而語言反過來也能對思想產生影響。重組DNA技術的出現，讓遺傳學的語言（基因）也變成了雙向的。生物學家耗時幾十年，想要探尋基因的本質--而現在可以利用基因反過來探尋生物學本質。簡言之，我們已經進步了，基因從“問題”變成了“思路”。

From the Gene Page 244:

It was an inverted fable: an academic Goliath versus a pharmaceutical David, one lumbering, powerful, handicapped by size, the other nimble, quick, adept at dancing around rules.

這一段主要考慮了中文讀者的接受度。inverted fable直接用故事梗概，“小個子羊倌打敗巨人格利亞”，簡單明了，直接給了主角和結局。后面的小詞都處理成了四字結構。這是一個個人習慣，如果原文復雜難懂，我習慣翻譯成簡單易懂的，如果原文簡單淺顯，我又習慣翻譯成討巧順口的。當然，前提是跟原文的語言風格不沖突。

譯文如下

這簡直就是巨人不敵羊倌的翻版嘛：學術界的巨人單挑制藥界小個子，一個孔武有力，五大三粗，可是反應遲鈍，另一個機敏靈活，凌波微步，而且擅長鉆空子使巧勁。