返回首页

MattRidley_2010G-_让思想彼此交配_
When I was a student here in Oxford in the 1970s, the future of the world was bleak . 1970年代,当我在牛津大学上学时, 全世界的未来是暗淡无光的。
bleak:adj.阴冷的;荒凉的,无遮蔽的;黯淡的,无希望的;冷酷的;单调的;
The population explosion was unstoppable . “人口爆炸”危机是无法阻止的。
population explosion:n.人口激增;人口爆炸; unstoppable:adj.无法阻碍的;无法停止的(副词unstoppably);
Global famine was inevitable . 全球饥荒也无法避免。
Global:adj.全球的;总体的;球形的; famine:n.饥荒; inevitable:adj.必然的,不可避免的;
A cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was going to shorten our lives. 由化学物质引发的癌症蔓延下, 我们的寿命缩短了。
cancer:n.癌症;恶性肿瘤; epidemic:n.流行病;蔓延;adj.传染病;流行性的; chemicals:n.化学制品;化学品;(chemical的复数) shorten:vt.缩短;减少;变短;vi.缩短;变短;
The acid rain was falling on the forests. 酸雨侵蚀森林。
acid rain:n.酸雨;酸性降水;
The desert was advancing by a mile or two a year. 每年沙漠以1到2英里的速度扩张。
The oil was running out. 我们也快用完了石油。
And a nuclear winter would finish us off. 核冬天将终结我们人类。
nuclear winter:n.核冬天(科学家认为核战争之后会出现的一段昏暗、寒冷、荒芜的时期);
None of those things happened. 不过上面所说的其实都没有发生。
(Laughter) （笑声）
And astonishingly , if you look at what actually happened in my lifetime, the average per-capita income of the average person on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation , has tripled . 令人惊奇的是,看看我有生之年到底发生了什么事, 目前地球上,每个人的 人均收入 以实质计算,经过通货膨胀的调整, 已经增加了3倍。
astonishingly:adv.令人惊讶地; adjusted:adj.调整过的,调节了的;v.调整;校正(adjust的过去分词); inflation:n.膨胀;通货膨胀;夸张;自命不凡; tripled:adj.三倍的;三方的;n.三倍数;三个一组;vi.增至三倍;vt.使成三倍;
Lifespan is up by 30 percent in my lifetime. 我的寿命延长了30%。
Lifespan:n.寿命;预期生命期限;预期使用期限;
Child mortality is down by two-thirds . 幼儿死亡率下降了三分之二。
mortality:n.死亡数,死亡率;必死性,必死的命运; two-thirds:n.三分之二;三分之二的;三分之二地;
Per-capita food production is up by a third. 人均食物生产 增加了三分之一。
And all this at a time when the population has doubled. 所有这一切都发生在人口增加到两倍的时候。
How did we achieve that -- whether you think it's a good thing or not -- 我们是如何做到的呢？你可曾想过这是好事或者是坏事？
How did we achieve that? 我们到底怎样做到的呢？
How did we become the only species that becomes more prosperous as it becomes more populous ? 人类是如何变成 仅有的一个物种因人口众多 反而变得更加 繁荣昌盛？
species:n.[生物]物种;种类; prosperous:adj.繁荣的;兴旺的; populous:adj.人口稠密的;人口多的;
The size of the blob in this graph represents the size of the population. 这图表中有颜色线的粗细变化说明了人口的增长变化。
blob:n.一滴;一抹;v.弄脏;把…做错;得零分; represents:v.代表;维护…的利益;相当于;(represent的第三人称单数)
And the level of the graph represents GDP per capita . 图标水平坐标 代表了人均国内生产总值。
per capita:adj.每人的;人均的;
I think to answer that question you need to understand how human beings bring together their brains and enable their ideas to combine and recombine , to meet and, indeed, to mate . 要回答上面的问题, 各位得明白 人类是如何集思广益, 使他们的思想相融合,再融合, 彼此碰撞,甚至是相交配。
enable:v.使能够;使有机会;使成为可能;使可行; recombine:vt.重组;再结合;vi.重组;再结合; mate:n.助手,大副; v.使配对;
In other words, you need to understand how ideas have sex. 换句话说,各位必须明白 思想是怎样交配的。
I want you to imagine how we got from making objects like this to making objects like this. 大家来想象一下 我们是怎样从制作这个物体手斧 到制作了右边这个鼠标的东西。
These are both real objects. 它们都是实物。
One is an Acheulean hand axe from half a million years ago of the kind made by Homo erectus . 一个是五十万年前直立人 制作的阿舍利手斧。
axe:n.斧;v.削减;用斧砍; Homo erectus:n.直立人(能用腿行走的早期人类);
The other is obviously a computer mouse. 另一个明显是一个鼠标。
They're both exactly the same size and shape to an uncanny degree. 两者完全一样的大小,真是不可思议的构造。
uncanny:adj.神秘的;离奇的;可怕的;
I've tried to work out which is bigger, and it's almost impossible. 我试着弄明白哪一个是比较大的, 这基本上没什么区别。
And that's because they're both designed to fit the human hand. 因为它们两者设计都是适用于人手。
They're both technologies . In the end, their similarity is not that interesting. 两者都体现了科技。最后,他们的相似性不是很有趣。
technologies:n.技术;科技(technology的复数); similarity:n.类似;相似点;
It just tells you they were both designed to fit the human hand. 这说明他们两者都适用于人手。
The differences are what interest me. 让我感兴趣的是差异性。
Because the one on the left was made to a pretty unvarying design for about a million years -- from one-and-a-half million years ago to half a million years ago. 因为大约1百万年-- 从150万年前到 50万年前,左边的手斧基本没有做任何改变的设计。
Homo erectus made the same tool for 30,000 generations. 直立人为3万后代 制造了这样的工具。
Of course there were a few changes, but tools changed slower than skeletons in those days. 当然会稍有改变, 但在那时工具变化速度比骨骼进化要慢。
skeletons:n.骷髅;[解剖]骨骼(skeleton的复数);流言(歌曲名);
There was no progress, no innovation . 所谓没有进步,没有创新。
innovation:n.创新,革新;新方法;
It's an extraordinary phenomenon , but it's true. 这是个特别的现象,但这是事实。
extraordinary:adj.非凡的;特别的;离奇的;临时的;特派的; phenomenon:n.现象;杰出的人;非凡的人(或事物);
Whereas the object on the right is obsolete after five years. 相反右边的鼠标五年后就会过时。
Whereas:conj.然而;鉴于;反之; obsolete:adj.废弃的;老式的;n.废词;陈腐的人;vt.淘汰;废弃;
And there's another difference too, which is the object on the left is made from one substance . 还有另一个区别是, 左边手斧是从一种物质制作出来的。
substance:n.物质;实质;主旨;物品;
The object on the right is made from a confection of different substances , from silicon and metal and plastic and so on. 右边的鼠标是从 不同物质, 从硅,金属到塑料等等制成的精美用品。
confection:n.糖果,蜜饯;调制;糖膏(剂);精制工艺品; substances:n.[物]物质;基本内容;物品药物(substance的复数); silicon:n.[化学]硅;硅元素;
And more than that, it's a confection of different ideas, the idea of plastic, the idea of a laser, the idea of transistors . 更重要的是,它是不同思想, 塑料的,激光的, 电晶体的碰撞想法后的创新。
transistors:n.[电子]晶体管;晶体三极管(transistor的复数);
They've all been combined together in this technology . 所有思想相互结合的科技。
technology:n.技术;工艺;术语;
And it's this combination , this cumulative technology, that intrigues me. 这种结合 和科技累积令我着迷。
combination:n.结合;组合;联合;[化学]化合; cumulative:adj.累积的; intrigues:n.阴谋;诡计;复杂的事;私通;vt.用诡计取得;激起...的兴趣;vi.私通;密谋;
Because I think it's the secret to understanding what's happening in the world. 我认为这其中的奥妙 可以了解这世界上要发生的事情。
My body's an accumulation of ideas too, the idea of skin cells, the idea of brain cells, the idea of liver cells. 我身体也是不同思想的聚焦, 皮肤细胞的,脑细胞的,肝细胞的想法聚焦。
accumulation:n.积聚,累积;堆积物; liver:n.肝;(动物供食用的)肝;
They've come together. 它们协同作用。
How does evolution do cumulative, combinatorial things? 进化是怎样累积和组合的呢？
evolution:n.演变;进化;发展;渐进; combinatorial:adj.组合的;
Well, it uses sexual reproduction . 通过有性生殖来进化的。
sexual:adj.性的;性别的;有性的; reproduction:n.繁殖,生殖;复制;复制品;
In an asexual species, if you get two different mutations in different creatures , a green one and a red one, then one has to be better than the other. 在无形物种,如果用不同物种的不同突变, 一个绿的和一个红的, 那么一个要比另一个更能适应。
asexual:adj.[生物]无性的;无性生殖的; mutations:n.[遗]突变;变化;转变(mutation的复数形式); creatures:n.生物;动物;(具有某种特征的)人(creature的复数)
One goes extinct for the other to survive. 1个会灭绝,另一个则生存下来。
extinct:adj.灭绝的,绝种的;熄灭的;vt.使熄灭;
But if you have a sexual species, then it's possible for an individual to inherit both mutations from different lineages . 但有性物种相交配, 那么一个个体可以 从不同干系物种 两种突变。
individual:n.个人;有个性的人;adj.单独的;个别的; inherit:v.继承;接替(责任等);继任; lineages:n.世系;宗系;家系;血统;(lineage的复数)
So what sex does is it enables the individual to draw upon the genetic innovations of the whole species. 所以性交配使得个体 拥有 整个物种的遗传基因。
enables:v.使得; (enable的第三人称单数) genetic:adj.基因的;遗传学的; innovations:n.创新(innovation的复数);改革;
It's not confined to its own lineage. 不仅仅限于自己的支系。
confined:adj.狭窄的; v.限制(confine的过去式和过去分词);
What's the process that's having the same effect in cultural evolution as sex is having in biological evolution? 正如同性交配在生物进化上的作用一样, 那么文化演变上起相同作用, 这种作用的过程是什么？
process:v.处理;加工;列队行进;n.过程,进行;方法,adj.经过特殊加工(或处理)的; cultural:adj.与文化有关的;文化的;与艺术、文学、音乐等有关的; biological:adj.生物学的;生物的;与生命过程有关的;加酶的;n.[药]生物制品;
And I think the answer is exchange, the habit of exchanging one thing for another. 我想答案是交换, 从一个物体交换另一个物体的习惯。
It's a unique human feature. 这是人类独一无二的特点。
unique:adj.独特的,稀罕的;[数]唯一的;n.独一无二的人或物;
No other animal does it. 其他的动物不这样。
You can teach them in the laboratory to do a little bit of exchange. 我们可以教实验室的动物做一点点交换实验。
laboratory:n.实验室,研究室;
And indeed there's reciprocity in other animals. 的确其他动物也有互惠关系。
reciprocity:n.相互作用(复数reciprocities);相互性;互惠主义;
But the exchange of one object for another never happens. 但从一个物体到另一个物体的交换从没有发生过。
As Adam Smith said, "No made ever saw a dog make a fair exchange of a bone with another dog." 正如亚当-斯密说过:“从没见过一条狗 与另一条狗公平交换骨头。”
(Laughter) （笑声）
You can have culture without exchange. 没有交换的文化也存在。
You can have, as it were , asexual culture. 换言之,无性文化。
as it were:可以说是,似乎就是;好像;
Chimpanzees , killer whales, these kinds of creatures, they have culture. 黑猩猩,逆戟鲸,像这些生物,它们都有自己的文化。
Chimpanzees:n.[脊椎]黑猩猩(chimpanzee的复数);
They teach each other traditions which are handed down from parent to offspring . 它们互相传授 从父母到其子女幼儿流传下来的传统。
offspring:n.后代,子孙;产物;
In this case, chimpanzees teaching each other how to crack nuts with rocks. 在这种情况下,黑猩猩互相教 怎样用岩石砸碎坚果。
crack:v.使破裂;打开;变声;n.裂缝;声变;噼啪声;adj.最好的;高明的;
But the difference is that these cultures never expand , never grow, never accumulate , never become combinatorial. 但有所区别的是 这些文化从来没有扩张,没有增强, 没有积累,也从来没有相结合过。
expand:v.扩张;使膨胀;详述;发展;张开,展开; accumulate:vi.累积;积聚;vt.积攒;
And the reason is because there is no sex, as it were, there is no exchange of ideas. 原因是因为 没有相交配文化,所谓, 没有交换的思想文化。
Chimpanzee troops have different cultures in different troops. 在不同的黑猩猩族群有不同的文化。
There's no exchange of ideas between them. 在它们之间没有交换思想。
And why does exchange raise living standards ? 那么为什么交换会提高生活水准？
standards:n.标准,水平,规格(standard的复数)
Well, the answer came from David Ricardo in 1817. 正如1817年戴维-里卡多的答案。
And here is a Stone Age version of his story, although he told it in terms of trade between countries. 尽管这是他的石器时代的版本故事, 但他用它来说明国家之间的贸易。
Stone Age:n.石器时代;
Adam takes four hours to make a spear and three hours to make an axe. 亚当做一只矛用四小时,一个斧头用三个小时。
Oz takes one hour to make a spear and two hours to make an axe. 奥兹做一只矛用一小时,一个斧头用两个小时。
So Oz is better at both spears and axes than Adam. 所以奥兹比起亚当制造矛和斧头都要好。
axes:n.轴线;轴心;坐标轴;斧头(axe的复数);
He doesn't need Adam. 他不需要亚当的帮忙。
He can make his own spears and axes. 奥兹可以自己制造更多的矛和斧头。
Well no, because if you think about it, if Oz makes two spears and Adam make two axes, and then they trade, then they will each have saved an hour of work. 但不应该这样,假如你想想看, 如果奥兹制作2个矛,而亚当制作2个斧头, 然后他们交换做贸易, 他们每一个都节约了1小时工时。
And the more they do this, the more true it's going to be. 他们做得越熟练,这交换就越来越有意思。
Because the more they do this, the better Adam is going to get at making axes, and the better Oz is going to get at making spears. 因为做得越熟练,熟练工亚当更擅长做斧头, 熟练工奥兹更擅长做矛。
So the gains from trade are only going to grow. 这种贸易互惠变得更实质。
And this is one of the beauties of exchange, is it actually creates the momentum for more specialization , which creates the momentum for more exchange and so on. 这是交换益处之一, 它实际上创造了 更加专业的契机, 也创造了更多交换等等类似的契机。
momentum:n.势头;[物]动量;动力;冲力; specialization:n.专门化;特殊化;特化作用;
Adam and Oz both saved an hour of time. 亚当和奥兹两者都节约了1小时工时。
That is prosperity , the saving of time in satisfying your needs. 节约时间 来满足人们的需要,这就是成功。
prosperity:n.繁荣,成功;
Ask yourself how long you would have to work to provide for yourself an hour of reading light this evening to read a book by. 问问大家你们要工作多久, 在晚上 才能点亮阅读灯1小时来读书。
provide for:供养,供给;规定;为…作准备;
If you had to start from scratch , let's say you go out into the countryside. 如果你要从头开始,你到郊外去进行。
start from scratch:从头开始;白手起家;从起跑线开始;
You find a sheep. You kill it. You get the fat of of it. 你找到一只羊。你杀了它,得到羊脂肪。
You render it down. You make a candle, etc. etc. 然后把羊脂肪熬成油,你制成了蜡烛,等等。
render:v.提供;给予;提交;翻译;n.粉刷;[建](墙壁的)初涂;抹灰;精制油;
How long is it going to take you? Quite a long time. 你要花费多久才能制成光？相当长的时间。
How long do you actually have to work to earn an hour of reading light if you're on the average wage in Britain today? 如果按时下英国的平均工资计算,能有1小时的阅读灯光, 你到底要 工作多久呢？
on the average:平均而言;一般说来; wage:v.发动;n.(通常指按周领的)工资;
And the answer is about half a second. 答案是大约半秒钟。
Back in 1950, you would have had to work for eight seconds on the average wage to acquire that much light. 追溯到1950年, 按平均工资算,你得工作8秒钟 得到1小时的光。
acquire:v.获得;取得;学到;捕获;
And that's seven and a half seconds of prosperity that you've gained. 你得多付出7秒半的工作时间。
Since 1950, as it were. 换言之,1950年以来,
Because that's seven and a half seconds in which you can do something else. 7秒半钟的时间,你可以做别的一些事。
Or you can acquire another good or service. 或者你可以换取别的产品或服务。
And back in 1880, it would have been 15 minutes to earn that amount of light from the average wage. 再追溯到1880年, 平均工资算,人们要工作15分钟 才能挣得1小时的光。
Back in 1800, you'd have had to work six hours to earn a candle that could burn for an hour. 追溯到1800年, 你必须工作6小时, 你才会有1个蜡烛,它能燃烧1小时。
In other words, the average person on the average wage could not afford a candle in 1800. 换言之,在1800年,人均平均工资 负担不起1个蜡烛。
afford:v.给予,提供;买得起;
Go back to this image of the axe and the mouse, and ask yourself: "Who made them and for who?" 回到这幅手斧和鼠标的图片, 大家曾问过自己:“谁制作了他们,为了谁制作的？”
The stone axe was made by someone for himself. 某人为自己制作了石斧。
It was self-sufficiency . 这是自备用的。
self-sufficiency:n.自给自足;自负;
We call that poverty these days. 我们称那些日子还很贫穷。
poverty:n.贫困;困难;缺少;低劣;
But the object on the right was made for me by other people. 但是右边的鼠标 是其他人为了我而生产的。
How many other people? 有多少人呢？
Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? 十个？一百个？一千个？
You know, I think it's probably millions. 我知道大概有数百万个。
Because you've to include the man who grew the coffee, which was brewed for the man who was on the oil rig , who was drilling for oil, which was going to be made into the plastic, etc. 因为你得包括生产咖啡的人们, 他们给那些在石油钻台工作的人们提供咖啡, 石油钻台人们提取石油,使之生产出塑料等等。
brewed:v.酿制(啤酒);沏(茶);煮(咖啡);冲泡;沏;(brew的过去分词和过去式) oil rig:n.石油钻塔;钻油平台;
They were all working for me, to make a mouse for me. 这些人都为我工作, 才生产出这鼠标。
And that's the way society works. 这是社会运转的方式。
That's what we've achieved as a species. 也是我们人类进步的方式。
In the old days, if you were rich, you literally had people working for you. 在过去的日子,假如你是个富人, 你的确拥有很多人来伺候你。
literally:adv.按字面:字面上:确实地:
That's how you got to be rich; you employed them. 你变得如何富有;你就能雇佣很多人。
employed:v.雇用:应用:运用:使用(employ的过去分词和过去式)
Louis XIV had a lot of people working for him. 路易十四世拥有很多侍从。
They made his silly outfits , like this. 他们制作路易十四愚蠢的服饰,就如这个。
outfits:n.全套装备; v.装备;
(Laughter) （笑声）
And they did his silly hairstyles , or whatever. 他们也做路易十四愚蠢的发型,或者类似的事。
hairstyles:n.发型;发式;(hairstyle的复数)
He had 498 people to prepare his dinner every night. 每晚,路易十四有498侍从 为他做宫廷御膳。
But a modern tourist going around the palace of Versailles and looking at Louis XIV's pictures, he has 498 people doing his dinner tonight too. 但现代旅客在凡尔赛宫参观, 看着路易十四的画, 他晚上也可以享受498人为他做的晚餐。
Versailles:n.凡尔赛(法国城市);
They're in bistros and cafes and restaurants and shops all over Paris. 这些人遍布巴黎的酒馆,咖啡馆,餐馆 和商店。
bistros:小酒馆,酒吧,小餐馆(bistro的名词复数); cafes:n.咖啡馆(cafe的复数);
And they're all ready to serve you at an hour's notice with an excellent meal that's probably got higher quality than Louis XIV even had. 这些人随时服务于你,只要你提前1小时预约一顿丰盛的美餐, 恐怕你享受的美餐要远远好于 路易斯十四的御膳。
And that's what we've done, because we're all working for each other. 因为我们相互协同工作,我们才能做好。
We're able to draw upon specialization and exchange to raise each other's living standards. 我们能够变得专业,并交换技能, 来提高每个人生活水准。
Now, you do get other animals working for each other too. 现在,其他动物也彼此协同工作。
Ants are a classic example; workers work for queens and queens work for workers. 蚂蚁就是个经典例子;工蚁为蚁后工作,反之亦然。
classic:n.名著;优秀的典范;adj.最优秀的;第一流的;有代表性的;典型的;
But there's a big difference, which is that it only happens within the colony . 但是一个大区别是, 这种协同合作仅发生在一个蚁群里。
colony:n.殖民地;移民队;
There's no working for each other across the colonies. 在这蚁群之外就没有彼此的协同合作。
And the reason for that is because there's a reproductive division of labor. 缘由是生殖的劳动分工。
reproductive:adj.生殖的;再生的;复制的; division:n.师;分配;分开;分歧;
That is to say , they specialize with respect to reproduction. 也可以说,它们分工取决于繁殖力。
That is to say:就是;即;换言之; specialize:vi.专门从事;专攻;专门研究(或从事) with respect:怀有敬意;
The queen does it all. 蚁后全权负责繁殖。
In our species, we don't like doing that. 在我们人类物种,我们不可以像那样做。
It's the one thing we insist on doing for ourselves, is reproduction. 我们坚持一定要自己做的一件事就是繁殖。
(Laughter) （笑声）
Even in England, we don't leave reproduction to the Queen. 甚至在英国,我们不会让女王带我们去生殖繁衍后代。
(Applause) （掌声）
So when did this habit start? 这个习惯何时形成的？
And how long has it been going on? And what does it mean? 要多久能形成？这有什么意义？
Well, I think, probably, the oldest version of this is probably the sexual division of labor. 我认为,这最古老的人类版本 可能是性别分工。
But I've got no evidence for that. 但我还没有例证加以说明。
evidence:n.证据,证明;迹象;明显;v.证明;
It just looks like the first thing we did was work male for female and female for male. 这就好比我们起初的那样, 男人为女人而工作,女人为男人而劳作。
female:adj.女性的;雌性的;柔弱的,柔和的;n.女人;[动]雌性动物;
In all hunter-gatherer societies today, there's a foraging division of labor between, on the whole , hunting males and gathering females. 在当代所有狩猎采集社会, 整体上看,在狩猎男性和采集女性之间 是以觅食分工。
hunter-gatherer:n.采集狩猎的人; foraging:n.觅食(forage的ing形式);觅食力; on the whole:基本上,大体上;就全体而论;
It isn't always quite that simple. 这种觅食分工也是很复杂的。
But there's a distinction between specialized roles between males and females. 在男女之间的专业分工角色 是有区别的。
distinction:n.区别;区分;差别;卓越; specialized:adj.专业的; v.专门研究(或从事); (specialize的过去式和过去分词)
And the beauty of this system is that it benefits both sides. 这分工体系的妙处 是它有利于男女两者。
The woman knows that, in the Hadzas' case here -- digging roots to share with men in exchange for meat -- she knows that all she has to do to get access to protein is to dig some extra roots and trade them for meat. 在哈扎人(Hadzas坦桑尼亚原住民)的这个案例, 女人知道 挖根茎,并与男人交换肉类, 她知道要想得到脂肪 就要去挖更多的根茎,并与男人交换后得到肉。
in exchange for:作为…的交换; protein:n.蛋白质;
And she doesn't have to go on an exhausting hunt and try and kill a warthog . 女人不需要参与一次耗力的狩猎, 去尝试猎杀一头疣猪。
exhausting:adj.使人精疲力竭的;v.耗尽;使筋疲力尽;(exhaust的现在分词) warthog:n.疣猪(一种非洲野猪);
And the man knows that he doesn't have to do any digging to get roots. 男人知道他用不着挖根茎 来得到想要的。
All he has to do is make sure that when he kills a warthog it's big enough to share some. 他要做的就是猎杀到一头 足够大的疣猪,并用来分享。
And so both sides raise each other's standards of living through the sexual division of labor. 男女双方通过性别分工 相互提高生活水准。
When did this happen? We don't know, but it's possible that neanderthals didn't do this. 这何时发生的呢？我们不得而知,但是 尼安德特人可能没有这样做。
neanderthals:n.穴居人(Neanderthal的复数);尼安德塔人;
They were a highly cooperative species. 他们是高度合作的物种。
highly:adv.高度地;非常;非常赞许地; cooperative:adj.合作的;协作的;同心协力的;协助的;n.合作企业;合作社组织;
They were a highly intelligent species. 他们是高智商的物种。
intelligent:adj.有才智的;悟性强的;聪明的;有智力的
Their brains on average, by the end, were bigger than yours and mine in this room today. 说到底,平均他们的大脑比今天 在座各位的和我的大脑要大得多。
They were imaginative . They buried their dead. 他们富有想像力。他们掩埋他们中的死者。
imaginative:adj.虚构的;富于想象的;有创造力的;
They had language probably, because we know they had the FOXP2 gene of the same kind as us, which was discovered here in Oxford. 他们可能用语言交流, 因为我们所知他们有和我们人类一样的FOXP2基因, 这是在牛津大学研究发现的。
And it looks like they probably had linguistic skills. 尼安德特人可能有语言技能。
linguistic:adj.语言的;语言学的;
They were brilliant people. I'm not dissing the neanderthals. 他们是很聪明的人。我不是说尼安德特人的不好。
dissing:v.对…不尊敬;不公正地批评;(diss的现在分词)
But there's no evidence of a sexual division of labor. 但是没有证据显示 他们有性别分工。
There's no evidence of gathering behavior by females. 没有女性的采集行为,
It looks like the females were cooperative hunters with the men. 这就好比女性和男性一起协同狩猎。
And the other thing there's no evidence for is exchange between groups. 另一件事是没有证据显示 在不同族群之间的交换。
Because the objects that you find in neanderthal remains, the tools they made, are always made from local materials. 因为你在尼安德特人遗址发现的那些物件, 他们制造的工具, 多数是当地材料制成的。
For example, in the Caucasus there's a site where you find local neanderthal tools. 例如,在高加索遗址, 你可以发现当地尼安德特人制造的工具。
Caucasus:n.高加索(俄罗斯南部地区,位于黑海和里海之间,等于Caucasia); site:n.地点;位置;场所;v.设置;为…选址;
They're always made from local chert. 它们都是当地黑燧石制成的。
In the same valley there are modern human remains from about the same date, 30,000 years ago. 在这同样的山谷,大约在3万年前同一日期, 那有现代人类遗址。
And some of those are from local chert, but more -- but many of them are made from obsidian from a long way away. 现代人的一些燧石是当地制成的, 但更多,多数是 从很远的地方的黑曜石制成的。
obsidian:n.黑曜石;
And when human beings began moving objects around like this, it was evidence that they were exchanging between groups. 当人们开始 移动像这个类似的东西时, 这就证明他们开始在不同族群交换东西。
Trade is 10 times as old as farming. 交换贸易比农业有10倍多长远历史。
People forget that. People think of trade as a modern thing. 人们忘了这个。人们认为贸易是现代产物。
Exchange between groups has been going on for a hundred thousand years. 不同族群交换已经延伸 了十万年之久。
And the early evidence for it crops up somewhere between 80 and 120,000 years ago in Africa, when you see obsidian and jasper and other things moving long distances in Ethiopia . 早期证明贸易开始于 8万年到12万年以前的非洲某地, 你看到黑曜石和碧玉和其他东西 是通过埃塞俄比亚的长距离交换贸易而来的。
jasper:n.碧玉;墨绿色; Ethiopia:n.埃塞俄比亚;
You also see seashells -- as discovered by a team here in Oxford -- moving 125 miles inland from the Mediterranean in Algeria. 你也看到海贝, 经牛津大学的团队证明, 这海贝沿地中海的阿尔及利亚 向内陆移动125英里。
seashells:n.海贝壳;(seashell的复数) inland:n.内地;内陆;adj.内陆的;内地的;国内的;adv.在内地;向内地;向内陆;在内陆; Mediterranean:n.地中海;adj.地中海的;
And that's evidence that people have started exchanging between groups. 这就是人们开始在 不同族群交换的证明。
And that will have led to specialization. 这将导致专业分工。
How do you know that long-distance movement means trade rather than migration ? 为什么认为长距离移动是指贸易 而不是指移民？
long-distance:adj.[通信][交]长途的;长距离的;vt.打长途电话给;adv.通过长途电话; migration:n.迁移;迁徙;转移;移居;
Well, you look at modern hunter gatherers like aboriginals , who quarried for stone axes at a place called Mt. Isa, which was a quarry owned by the Kalkadoon tribe . 你观察现代狩猎采集者像澳洲土著人, 他们在伊萨山区（位于澳洲东北）用石斧工作, 那是Kalkadoon卡卡度部落拥有一个开采区。
gatherers:n.采集者,收集器; aboriginals:n.土著居民(aboriginal复数); quarried:n.采石场;猎物;来源;vi.费力地找;vt.挖出;努力挖掘; quarry:n.采石场;猎物;来源;vi.费力地找;vt.挖出;努力挖掘; tribe:n.部落;族;宗族;一伙;
They traded them with their neighbors for things like stingray barbs . 他们与他们的邻居 交换类似魟刺的东西。
stingray:n.黄貂鱼; barbs:n.[昆]倒刺;冷嘲热讽(barb的复数形式);
And the consequence was that stone axes ended up over a large part of Australia. 结果是这配有魟刺的石斧在 澳大利亚的大部分地区都能见到。
consequence:n.结果;重要性;推论;
So long-distance movement of tools is a sign of trade, not migration. 所以长距离移动的工具 是贸易的标志,而不是移民。
What happens when you cut people off from exchange, from the ability to exchange and specialize? 当你切断人们之间交换,阻止人们交换和专业分工能力, 会发生什么呢？
And the answer is that, not only do you slow down technological progress, you can actually throw it into reverse . 结论是 你不仅仅延缓科技进步, 实际上使科技退步。
technological:adj.技术[工程](上)的;因工艺技术高度发展而引起的; reverse:n.反面; v.颠倒; adj.相反的;
An example is Tasmania. 塔斯马尼亚岛就是个例子。
When the sea level rose, and Tasmania became an island 10,000 years ago, the people on it, not only experienced slower progress than people on the mainland, they actually experienced regress . 1万年前,当海平面上升,塔斯马尼亚岛变成个孤岛, 在那的人们比起澳大利亚的人们经历了 更慢的进步, 他们实际上在倒退。
sea level:海平面; regress:vi.逆行,倒退;复归;n.回归;退回;vt.使…倒退;
They gave up the ability to make [bone] tools and fishing equipment and clothing because the population of about 4,000 people was simply not large enough to maintain the specialized skills necessary to keep the technology they had. 他们放弃了生产骨制品, 钓鱼工具和制衣技能, 缘于四千人口 不是足够庞大 到需要专业分工技能, 才能维护他们拥有的科技。
maintain:v.维持;保持;维修;保养;坚持(意见);
It's as if the people in this room were plonked on a desert island . 这就好比今天在座的人们被空投到一个荒岛。
plonked:n.[英国,澳大利亚口语]劣等廉价葡萄酒;劣质廉价酒; desert island:n.热带荒岛;
How many of the things in our pockets could we continue to make after 10,000 years? 在1万年后,我们口袋中有多少物品 会继续使用生产？
make after:v.追随;追逐;跟随;
It didn't happen in Tierra del Fuego -- similar island, similar people. 在火地岛（智力和阿根廷分而治之的岛屿）,同样的岛屿,同样的人们 身上却不会发生这种事。
Tierra:n.高山气候带;
The reason, because Tierra del Fuego is separated from South America by a much narrower straight. 因为火地岛与 南美洲大陆仅隔一个非常狭窄的海峡。（麦哲伦海峡）
South America:n.南美洲;
And there was trading contact across that straight throughout 10,000 years. 整个一万年来,贯穿海峡有往来 贸易合同。
contact:n.接触,联系;v.使接触,联系; throughout:adv.自始至终,到处;全部;prep.贯穿,遍及;
The Tasmanians were isolated . 而塔斯马尼亚岛却是隔绝的。
isolated:adj.偏远的; v.隔离,孤立,脱离;
Go back to this image again and ask yourself, not only who made it and for who, but who knew how to make it. 再回到这幅图片 不仅仅试问,谁制造了它,为谁造的, 也要知道是谁怎样生产出来的。
In the case of the stone axe, the man who made it knew how to make it. 石斧的例子,人们生产它出来就知道怎样制作的。
But who knows how to make a computer mouse? 但是谁知道怎样生产出鼠标吗？
Nobody, literally nobody. 没人,没人完全知道。
There is nobody on the planet who knows how to make a computer mouse. 地球上没人知道怎样生产出鼠标。
I mean this quite seriously. 我真的很严肃。
The president of the computer mouse company doesn't know. 鼠标公司的总裁不知道。
He just knows how to run a company. 他仅知道怎样运作一个公司。
The person on the assembly line doesn't know because he doesn't know how to drill an oil well to get oil out to make plastic, and so on. 安装线上工人也不知道, 缘于他不知道怎样钻探油井, 通过提炼石油生产出塑料等等。
assembly line:na.装配线;
We all know little bits, but none of us knows the whole. 我们所有人只知道一点点,没有谁能全部知晓。
I am of course quoting from a famous essay by Leonard Read, the economist in the 1950s, called "I, Pencil" 的确我要引用1950年代的经济学家, 伦纳德·里德Leonard Read的著名作品里的话, “我,铅笔”（I, Pencil）。
quoting:v.引用;报价;举例说明;开价;为(企业的股份)上市;(quote的现在分词)
in which he wrote about how a pencil came to be made, and how nobody knows even how to make a pencil, because the people who assemble it don't know how to mine graphite . 他写道铅笔是怎样被制做的, 竟然没人知道铅笔怎样被制成的, 缘于人们生产铅笔,却不知道怎样开采石墨。
assemble:vt.集合,聚集;装配;收集;vi.集合,聚集; graphite:n.石墨;黑铅;vt.用石墨涂(或搀入等);
And they don't know how to fell trees and that kind of thing. 人们也不知道怎样砍伐树木等等类似的事情。
And what we've done in human society, through exchange and specialization, is we've created the ability to do things that we don't even understand. 人类社会通过交换和专业分工,我们 做过的事 使我们有创新 能力去做我们完全不理解的事情。
It's not the same with language. 这不等同于语言。
With language we have to transfer ideas that we understand with each other. 我们用语言来传达思想, 然后我们彼此理解。
transfer:n.转移;调任;调离;[体]转会球员;v.调任;调走;转学;转移;
But with technology, we can actually do things that are beyond our capabilities. 但是用科技, 我们的确可以用科技做超出我们能力的事情。
We've gone beyond the capacity of the human mind to an extraordinary degree. 我们已经超越了人类能力的范围到了 一个非凡的程度。
capacity:n.能力;容量;资格,地位;生产力;
And by the way , that's one of the reasons that I'm not interested in the debate about I.Q., about whether some groups have higher I.Q.s that other groups. 顺便说一下, 我对其中一个原因关于智商的辩论 不感兴趣, 这辩论是关于一族群的智商高于另一族群的智商。
by the way:顺便说一下; debate:n.辩论;争论;考虑;v.辩论;争论;考虑;
It's completely irrelevant . 它是完全不相干的。
irrelevant:adj.不相干的;不切题的;
What's relevant to a society is how well people are communicating their ideas, and how well they're cooperating , not how clever their individuals are. 与此社会相关的 是人们怎样交流他们彼此的思想, 怎样互动合作得更好, 而不是独立个体怎样聪明。
cooperating:v.合作;协作;协助;配合;(cooperate的现在分词) individuals:n.[经]个人;[生物]个体(individual的复数);
So we've created something called the collective brain. 所以我们创造了协同合作的大脑（collective brain）。
collective:adj.集体的;共同的;集合的;集体主义的;n.集团;集合体;集合名词;
We're just the nodes in the network. 我们只是这脑网络上的交点。
nodes:n.茎节;(根或枝上的)瘤,节,结;节点;(node的复数)
We're the neurons in this brain. 我们就好比这个脑里的神经元。
It's the interchange of ideas, the meeting and mating of ideas between them, that is causing technological progress, incrementally , bit by bit. 正是思想的交融, 人们之间思想碰撞和交配, 导致技术正逐步,一点一滴地 进步。
interchange:vt.(指两人等)交换;互换;vi.交换;相互交换;n.互换;立体交叉道; mating:n.交尾;交配;v.交配;交尾;使交配;(mate的现在分词) incrementally:adv.递增地;增值地;
However, bad things happen. 尽管如此,坏事情也会发生。
And in the future, as we go forward, we will, of course experience terrible things. 在未来,随着我们社会进步, 我们当然会遇到可怕的事情。
There will be wars; there will be depressions; there will be natural disasters . 例如战争, 经济萧条, 自然灾难。
disasters:n.灾难(disaster的复数);
Awful things will happen in this century, I'm absolutely sure. 我的确肯定本世纪会有糟糕的事情发生。
absolutely:adv.绝对地;完全地;
But I'm also that, because of the connections people are making, and the ability of ideas to meet and to mate as never before. 但是我也确信由于人们彼此的联系结合, 思想能力 相碰撞和交配 都是前所未有的。
I'm also sure that technology will advance, and therefore living standards will advance. 我也也确信 科技会进步, 从而改善人们生活水准。
Because through the cloud, through crowd sourcing , through the bottom-up world that we've created, where not just the elites , but everybody is able to have their ideas and make them meet and mate, we are surely accelerating the rate of innovation. 因为通过云计算, 通过外包集成采购服务, 通过我们已经创建的自下而上世界, 在那里不仅仅是精英,而是每个人 都能有自己的想法, 让彼此想法碰撞和交配, 我们一定会加快创新速度。
sourcing:v.(从…)获得;(source的现在分词) bottom-up:adj.[计]自底向上的;从细节到总体的; elites:n.精英(elite的复数); accelerating:adj.促进的,[物]加速的;催化的;
Thank you. 谢谢大家。
(Applause) （掌声）