与乔丹·彼得森辩论是什么体验｜对话Nihal Arthanayake

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这和密尔沃基相比如何？规模稍大一些。美国巡演怎么样？

How does this compare to Milwaukee? It's a bit bigger. How was the American tour?

相当有趣，而且变化多样。每个站点都有不同的人与我同台，总共11个不同地点，其中一个在加拿大。选举话题出人意料地很少被提及，我很高兴地说，一次都没有被问到。

It was rather fun. It was very variable. There were different people on the stage with me at each location, 11 different locations, one in Canada. And the election came up remarkably little, and I was not not asked once about it, I'm glad to say.

很好。这个话题今晚就到此为止。只是想问问你，美国观众与英国观众相比有什么不同？比如，我相信从统计数据来看，他们接受无神论的方式...美国人嘛，我其实没有——

Good. That ends tonight. Just to just to just to ask you, how different are American audiences compared to British audiences, for instance? So I believe, certainly statistically, embrace atheism in a way that Americans Well, I wasn't

我指的不是无神论。过去我确实讲过这个主题，而且通常反响相当好，尤其是在所谓的圣经地带。因为来听我演讲的人，在南方每个自称'圣经地带核心区'的地方，观众们更像是来互相见面的。他们来到大厅里互相打量，认出彼此。而我只是把他们聚集到——

I wasn't talking about atheism. I have done in the past, And, I tend to get a rather good reception, especially in the so called bible belt, because, the people who come to hear me in the so called bible belt, just about everybody in this everywhere in the South called itself the buckle of the bible belt. And they come and they come to see each other, I think. They come to look at it across the hall, and they see each other and recognize each other. And I all I do is just sort of bring them into the

大厅里。让我们谈谈《基因死书》。首先，它如何与《自私的基因》联系起来？当然，《自私的基因》再过两年就问世五十年了。

hall. Let's talk about the genetic book of the dead. And firstly, how does it connect with the selfish gene, which, of course, in a couple of years time will be fifty years?

五十年了，天哪。是的，这本书算是一种收尾之作。有位采访者这样形容它。

Fifty years. My god. Yes. Well, it is a kind of bookend. One of the interviewers called it that.

我觉得这个说法很贴切。我说过这是我最后一次巡演，至少是最后一次美国巡演。它确实像是个句号，在某种程度上回顾过往。书中内容与《自私的基因》并无矛盾。

I think it's rather a good way to put it. I've described this as my last tour, certainly my last tour of America. And it is a kind of bookend. It sort of looks back in a way. It doesn't contradict anything in the selfish gene.

在某些方面进行了深化，有些角度也有所不同，但核心信息基本一致。

It takes it further in some ways. It looks at it in a different way in some ways, but it is pretty much the same message.

如何，或者更重要的，为什么？为什么你现在想写这本书？是否我们的认知中存在需要填补的空白

How or more importantly, why? Why did you want to write this book now? Is there a space in our understanding that needed

补充和澄清？是的。它采取了一个不同的视角。它认为动物，包括我们在内的任何动物，都是一本书，一本描述其祖先所生活世界的书面书籍。这与自私基因理论并不矛盾，而是看待问题的另一种方式。

filling and clarifying? Yes. It takes a different view. It it has this idea that the animal, any animal including us, is a book, a written book that describes the world in which its ancestors lived. And that doesn't contradict anything that's selfish gene, but it is another way of looking at it.

我更擅长把事情颠倒过来，用不同的方式看待事物，而不会真正与我之前所说的相矛盾。

And I rather specialize in turning things upside down and looking at things in a different way without actually contradicting what I said earlier.

所以你我都是重写本。这里的每个人都是重写本。

So you and I are palimpsests. Everyone here is a palimpsest.

重写本是一种被擦除然后重写，再擦除再重写的文件。这在早期纸张稀缺或纸张不存在、文件被重复使用的时代很常见。纸张被重复使用。表面被书写，然后擦除，再重新书写。所以死亡之书，遗传的死亡之书，是由自然选择在动物基因中写成的描述，描绘了远古世界，然后是稍近一些的世界，再是更近的世界，依此类推，更近的世界。

Palimpsest is a document which is erased and then written over, erased and then written over. This was done in earlier times when paper was scarce or when paper wasn't existence and documents were reused. Paper was reused. Surfaces were written on and then erased and then written on again. So the the book of the dead, the genetic book of the dead, which is a description of the written by natural selection in the genes of the animal, describing ancient worlds and then somewhat more recent worlds and then more recent worlds and so on, more recent worlds.

所以每一个重写本都是部分擦除然后覆盖重写的。

So each one is the palimpsest is erased partially and then overwritten.

在构思这本书时，你是从哪里开始的？这本书的起点是什么？

When constructing this book, where did you start? What was your starting point for this book?

我想我是遵循了疯帽匠的建议。从开头开始，一直写到结尾，然后停下。其实不完全是这样。我工作时倾向于分而治之。我把每一章看作一个密闭的隔间，写完一章再继续下一章。

I followed the Mad Hatter's advice, I think it was. Start at the beginning, go until you get to the end, and then stop. It wasn't quite like that. I I tend to when I work, I tend to divide and conquer. I tend to regard each chapter as a watertight compartment and write the chapter and then go on to the next one.

但我做了大量的修订。我不断地、反复地修订，每次修订都希望能有所改进。这是一种文字的自然选择达尔文过程。每次阅读时，我都通过不同假设读者的视角来审视。每次不同的假设读者都能看到其他假设读者之前未注意到的东西，因此达尔文过程会筛选出可能的误解来源等等。

But I do an immense amount of revision. I'm constantly constantly revising and revising and revising and every time I revise, I hope improve. It's a kind of Darwinian process of natural selection of the words. Every time I read them, I I read them through the eyes of a different hypothetical reader. And each time the different hypothetical reader, as it were, sees things that other hypothetical readers haven't seen before, and so the Darwinian process winnows out possible sources of misunderstanding, etcetera.

我采访过很多小说作者，总的来说，理查德，他们告诉我，总有一个时刻，可能写到3万或4万字时，他们会觉得这简直是垃圾。没人会读这个。太糟糕了。你有过这种不安全感吗？很抱歉，我没有。

Do you have I interview a lot of authors of fiction, and by and large, Richard, they say to me there's a point at which they always think, maybe it's 30 or 40,000 words in, this is rubbish. No one's ever gonna read this. This is terrible. Do you suffer from such insecurities? I'm sorry to say I don't.

毫不意外。是的。

Unsurprisingly. Yeah.

不。我确实对此有顾虑。我确实担心。不是因为它很糟糕，而是担心它可能反响不好，可能会是那样。

No. I I do have misgivings about it. I I do I do worry. Not that it's rubbish. I do worry that it may not go down well, that it may be yeah.

我我我不想听起来自满。我对此并不感到自满。

I I I wouldn't I want I mustn't sound complacent. I don't I don't feel complacent about it.

‘担心反响不好’这个说法很有趣。具体指哪方面？因为，比如写《上帝的错觉》时，你就知道它不会受到某些人群的欢迎。

That's an interesting phrase about worried about it doesn't go down well. In what respect? Because, you know, writing the god delusion for instance, you knew it would not go down well with a certain group of people.

是的。这次我没有那种特定的担忧。书里没什么会引发那种反应的内容。我想我只是担心它没有真正触及人们可能希望我讨论的要点。也许他们会觉得我以前说过这些，在某种程度上确实如此，正如我之前所说，不过，不，我觉得这样没问题。

Yes. I didn't have that particular worry in this. There's nothing about about it. I think it was just a matter of fearing that it was not really addressing the points that people might wish wish to me to talk about. And and maybe they they might feel that I've said it before and and in a way I had, as I said before, but, no, I think it was alright.

确实没问题。

It did.

那么你思考过程中最重要的是什么？是这里所有人对你的期望，作为一位思想家、学者，还是最终你自己必须回答的问题？那是最重要的吗？

So what is paramount in your thought processes then? Is it that what everyone out here is expecting of you as the thinker that you are, as the academic that you are, or ultimately questions that you yourself have to answer? Is that paramount?

我发现通过写下来能帮助自己思考，如果我能向自己解释清楚，那么我觉得也能向别人解释。所以如果我在解释方面有任何成功，或许是因为我自己理解事物有困难，因此如果我能向自己解释清楚，可能也有助于他人理解。

I find that I help myself to think by writing it down and, if I can explain it to myself, then I feel I can explain it to other people. So if I have any success in explaining, it is perhaps because I have difficulty understanding things myself and therefore if I can explain it to myself, it may help to other people to understand it.

谈谈未来的‘软’科学家吧。

Tell me about the soft. Scientists of the future.

未来的科学家，软的。我表达‘基因死亡之书’观点的方式之一是，未来的科学家，未来的生物学家将能够阅读动物这本书。目前，我们还不能在很大程度上真正做到这一点。所以这本书在某种程度上是对‘软’的呼吁，是对未来科学家的呼吁，希望他们发展出阅读动物、阅读其祖先生存环境的技术。

Scientists of the future, soft. One of the ways in which I express the point about the genetic book of the dead is that the scientist of the future, a biologist of the future will be able to read the book that is the animal. At present, we can't really do that in a very to a very great extent. And so the book in a way is an appeal to a soft, an appeal to the scientist of the future to develop the techniques of reading animals and reading the environment in which their ancestors lived.

那么由此会产生哪些问题？从尝试阅读动物，包括我们人类自身，会引出什么问题？

What are the questions then that come from that, from attempting to read the animals, us animals?

这种动物经过数百万年的自然选择塑造而成，正如我所说，它就像一份重写本。因此必然存在痕迹。动物体内必定保留着来自过去的读取信息。这在伪装动物身上显而易见，比如一只完美伪装的蛾子停在树皮上，它的背部似乎确实拥有树皮的精确复制品——不是字面意义上的绘制，而是天然形成的图案。我在书中以一只蜥蜴开篇，那是来自莫哈韦沙漠的沙漠蜥蜴，其背部的图案完美呈现了沙漠砾石与沙地的景象，这正是其祖先经历自然选择的环境写照。

The animal has been shaped by natural selection over millions of years as it's as I say, a palimpsest. And so there must be traces. There must be a readout from the past in the animal at present. Now, this is obvious in the case of a camouflaged animal, a beautifully camouflaged animal like a moth sitting on tree bark, where it appears to have, indeed does have an exact replica of the tree bark painted on its back, not literally painted, painted on its back. I begin the book with a lizard, a desert lizard from the Mojave Desert, which has on its back a beautiful picture of desert stones and sand, which is a rendering of the environment in which its ancestors were naturally selected.

我想说明的是：这种对环境的高度还原不仅限于皮肤表层，它必然渗透到动物的每个部分。动物的每个细节在某种意义上都必须与环境存在同样的精密相似性，只是不像伪装背部那样显而易见。对于伪装背部，你可以用肉眼直接观察。这更像我用二维码作的类比——肉眼无法解读，但智能手机可以识别。因此对于沙漠蜥蜴，你能用肉眼读取其背部信息，但需要更精密的技术来解读其内部构造，从而重建其祖先生存的内在世界。

And the point that I'm trying to make is that that perfection of rendering of the environment on the animal's back cannot only be skin deep, it must penetrate right through every bit of the animal. Every bit of the animal must have the same detailed perfection of resemblance in some sense to the environment, but it won't be obvious as it is in the case of the camouflaged back. In the case of the camouflaged back, you can see it with your own eyes. It's more like I use the analogy of a QR code, which you can't see what you can't read it with the naked eye, but they but your smartphone can. So in the case of the desert lizard, you can read its back with the naked eye, but you'll need soft or soft will need more sophisticated techniques to read the interior of the animal and reconstruct the world in which the animal's ancestors lived on the inside.

请多谈谈自然界中绘画与雕塑的概念。

Tell us more about the the concept of paintings and statues in nature Well, of

回到伪装主题，存在两种伪装类型：绘画与雕塑。沙漠蜥蜴背部承载的是一幅绘画——即背部的沙漠景象，只有当它实际置身沙漠时才会生效。而雕塑则不同，比如竹节虫或尺蠖，它们形似树枝，即使放在不同背景下依然保持这种拟态。

going back to to camouflage, there are two kinds of camouflage, paintings and statues. The desert lizard has a painting on its back. That's to say it's got a picture of the desert on its back, and it only works as long as the animal is actually sitting in the desert. That's a painting. A sculpture on the other hand is something like a stick insect or a stick caterpillar which looks like a stick and it still looks like a stick even if you place it on a different background.

如果沙漠蜥蜴误入绿色草地，会立刻被捕食者发现，因为伪装失效；但竹节虫无论置于何处都像树枝。绘画与雕塑的核心区别在于：绘画需要处于自然背景中才能发挥伪装作用，而雕塑...

So if the desert lizard was a stray onto a gulf green, it would instantly be picked off by some predator because it no longer is camouflaged, but a stick insect would still look like a stick. And so the operational distinction between a painting and a sculpture is that the painting needs to be sitting on its natural background in order for the camouflage to work, whereas a sculpture

即使放在白纸上也依然有效。我阅读这些章节时的兴奋之情，欣赏书中令人惊叹的图片以及您伴侣拉娜绘制的精美插图时，不禁好奇您这种痴迷从何而来——虽然您父亲是博物学家，但您并未立即投身于此。

still works even if you place it on a piece of blank paper. Excitement with which I read those chapters and looked at these incredible pictures and the illustrations that your partner, Lana, did, which are beautiful in the book. I just wondered where your fascination with this came from because your father was a naturalist, but you didn't immediately take to it.

是的，确实如此。与我父亲不同，我从未真正成为博物学家。

Yes. Much as this point. Yes. That's quite right. I I was never much of a naturalist unlike my father.

我是通过更书卷气、更哲学化的途径接触自然的。进化论让我着迷，因为它回答了存在的根本问题：我们为何在此？生命的意义与目的何在？这就是我的兴趣源头。我并非轻视自然史，也喜欢漫步乡间观察鸟类昆虫，但并非专家，无法像我父亲那样辨识万物。

I came to it in a more bookish way, more philosophical way. I I'm fascinated by, evolution because it answers the the deep questions of existence, why are we here, what's life all about, what's it for? So that's where my fascination comes from and I've I mean, I don't disdain natural history, I'm I'm, you know, I I like wandering around the country and looking for birds and insects and things, but I'm not an expert. I don't I can't recognize animals the way my father could.

那么未来的科学家理查德，她应该出于哲学原因去回答这些宏大问题，还是应该专注于理解如何规避潜在灾难？

So then the scientist of the future, Richard, should she be doing that for philosophical reasons to answer those big questions, or is it about trying to understand simply a way of mitigating potential disasters that may

对我而言是哲学驱动，但生物学当然还有其他重要且实用的研究价值。我的兴趣类似于卡尔·萨根研究天文学的方式——沉浸于万物带来的敬畏感。我对生命体、化石历史、生命古老性、生物之美与精巧性，以及那种近乎超自然的设计幻觉抱有同样情感。透过显微镜观察单个细胞的精细结构，想到你体内存在着数万亿这样的细胞，这种体验足以震撼心灵。

Oh, I for for me, it would be philosophical, but, of course, there are other very good reasons to be, to take biology seriously and very practical reasons. For for me, I mean my my interest is sort of the biological equivalent of the Carl Sagan approach to astronomy where where you you sort of wash yourself in in in awe at the the the wonder of it all. And I feel exactly the same way about living things, about the fossil history, the antiquity of life, about the beauty of life, about the elegance, about the almost hyper supernatural illusion of design that all living things have. I mean, it's just such a mind blowing experience to see, to look down a microscope and see the detail of a single cell, and they reflect that that cell is multiplied up trillions of times in your in your body.

为什么我们对星星的了解比对地球物种的了解还要多？

Why is it that we have a greater understanding of the stars than we do of the species on planet earth?

我不太确定。我想星星是相对简单的东西，对吧？我的意思是，它们处在

I'm not sure about that. I suppose stars are relatively simple things, aren't they? I mean, they are in

它们距离非常遥远。现在生气了。它们将会是量子的

they're a very long way. Angry now. They're gonna be quantum

它们都很鼓舞人心，也很奇妙，但很简单。我的意思是，它们是巨大的熔炉，核聚变熔炉，将氢转化为氦，有时还会产生更重的元素。但生命极其复杂。如果你想象通过需要写多厚的书才能涵盖一个实体的所有细节来衡量其复杂性，那么写一本关于恒星的书会相对简短。

They are all inspiring and they are wonderful, but they are simple. I mean, they're they're great furnaces, nuclear nuclear furnaces turning hydrogen into helium and and and sometimes the higher elements than that. But life is immensely complicated. It would if you imagine measuring the complexity of an entity by how big a book you would have to write in order to cover every detail of it. To write a book about a star would be a relatively short book.

而写一本关于，比如说，一只龙虾的书，将会是一本极其庞大的书，因为你需要涵盖龙虾的每一个部分，每一个细节。

Whereas to write a book about, I don't know, a a lobster would be an exceedingly big book because you have to cover every bit of the of the lobster, every detail.

所以你谈到了这个想象中的未来科学家，但如果你就是那个未来的科学家，你想解答哪些问题呢？

So you talk about this imaginary scientist of the future, but if you were that scientist of the future, what are the questions that you want answered?

嗯，在这个特定的情况下，会是关于过去的问题，但当然，未来的科学家也会提出许多其他问题，关于动物如何运作，以及它们来自哪里，但在这本特定的书中，我谈论的是将动物作为一种解读过去的记录来使用。

Well, in this particular case, it would be questions about the past, but of course, the scientist of the future will be asking lots of other questions as well about how animals work, about and where the and of course where where they come from, but but in this particular book I'm talking about using the reading the animal as a as a readout of the past.

但这是建立在未来不会与过去有太大不同的假设之上的。嗯，是这样吗？

But that's on the assumption that the future will not be that different from the past. Well, is it?

你必须做出那个假设。嗯，在某种意义上，如果动物要生存下去，它本身就做出了那个假设。动物被编程为在它们出生的世界中生存，而这只有在未来与过去相对相似的情况下才有效。幸运的是，确实如此，世界是一个相对保守的地方。如果世界以一种疯狂多变的方式不断变化，那么动物就无法生存。

The you have to make that assumption. Well, in in a sense, the animal makes that assumption if it's if it's going to survive. Animals are programmed to survive in the world in which they're born, and that will only work if the future is relatively similar to the past. And fortunately it is, and the world is a relatively conservative place. If the world was constantly changing in a sort of mad capricious way, then, animals wouldn't survive.

它们能够生存，是因为构建它们的基因在过去被选择出来以在过去生存，并且因为现在和未来与过去并没有那么不同，这意味着它们仍然可以生存到未来。在那些未来与过去不同的场合，比如当恐龙因为一颗相当大的陨石撞击地球而灭绝时，那么所有的赌注都失效了。我的意思是，生存不再可能。大多数物种在那个时候都灭绝了。

They survive because the genes that have built them have been selected in the past to survive in the past and because the present and the future is not that different from the past, that means that they can still survive into the future. On those occasions when the when the future is different from the past as when the dinosaurs went extinct because a rather great meteorite came and and collided with with the earth, then all bets were off. I mean, was no longer possible to survive. And most species went extinct at that point.

气候危机是否暗示了其反复无常的特性？

Does the climate crisis not hint at the capricious?

是的，确实如此。

Yes. It does.

可能会发生什么？

What could happen?

确实如此。我的意思是，它不会像恐龙灭绝那样突然，但潜在地，它是另一个大规模灭绝的来源。

It does. I mean, it's it's it wouldn't be as sudden as the dinosaur thing, but it but potentially, it it's another source of mass extinction.

比如说，黑死病对人类进化产生了什么影响？我的意思是，从遗传学角度来看，它在进化史上只是短暂的一瞬。

What impact has, say for instance, the bubonic plague had on the evolution of humans? I mean, in in in genetic terms, it's just a blip in terms of evolution.

有趣。黑死病，以及1665年的大瘟疫，几乎肯定产生了剧烈的选择效应，而我们以及我们的基因是那些大规模死亡事件中幸存者的后代。

Interesting. It it is it does seem likely that that bubonic plague, the black death, and then the great plague of sixteen sixty five, almost certainly that did have a drastic selective effect and we are, and our genes are the survivors of those massive dieings.

因为，在我不太清楚的14世纪，是不是大约有2500万人死亡？

Because between what I don't know, it's the fourteenth century, isn't it something like 25,000,000 people?

数量巨大，是的。仅仅四年时间？没错。而且这肯定是有选择性的。有趣的是，说到更近的时期，艾滋病。

Colossal, yes. In just four years? Yes. And it must have been selective. Interestingly, talking about more more recently, AIDS.

我不久前曾参与一个电视节目，去了肯尼亚，与一位妓女交谈。在她内罗毕的那群同行中，唯独她没有死于艾滋病。所有大约二十年前和她同时开始这行的同伴都去世了。我问她认为原因是什么。顺便说一句，我知道答案，因为她是一项加拿大研究项目的对象，她具有基因免疫。所以她有一个让她免疫的基因。

I I once did a not that long ago, I did a television program, and I went out to Kenya and talked to a prostitute who alone among her cohort of Nairobi prostitutes had not died of AIDS. All her all her contemporaries who started the business at the same time as her about twenty years ago had all died. And I asked her why she thought that was. I I knew the answer by the way because she was the subject of a Canadian research project and she had she was genetically immune. So she had a a gene which immunized her.

她并不知道这一点，但我知道。我问她为什么认为自己能幸存下来，她说，她觉得一定是上帝在眷顾她。

She didn't know that, but but but I I knew I knew that. And I asked her why she thought she'd survived, and she said, she thought that God must have been looking after her.

她这话可找错对象了，是吧？所以我说

She said that to the wrong bloke, didn't she? So I said

于是我说，嗯，这很好，但为什么上帝没有照顾所有和你同期入职的同事呢？然后她...她说，这个我无法回答。但我可以告诉你，上帝爱安全套。

so I said, well, that's very nice, but why wasn't why didn't God look after all your colleagues who started at the same time as you? And she and she said, well, I can't answer that. But I can tell you this, God loves condoms.

教皇恐怕不会同意这个说法。好了，我们完美吗？我们是最优设计吗？

Not sure the pope would agree on that. Okay. Are we perfect? Are we optimal?

这是个非常有趣的问题。答案是否定的，但我们比很多人想象的要完美得多。动物身上存在一些有趣的缺陷，比如脊椎动物的视网膜就是前后颠倒的。

That's a very interesting question. The answer is no, but we're a lot more perfect than many people think. There are interesting imperfections in animals. There are, well, vertebrate retina for example is back to front.

喉返神经？

Laryngeal nerve?

那是另一个例子。我可以接着讲这个。视网膜就像数码相机一样，有一排感光细胞——视网膜中的视杆和视锥细胞。但连接视网膜和大脑的神经线并不是像应有的那样从视网膜后方引出，而是从视网膜前方穿出。

That's another one. I can come onto that. The retina has, as you might expect, just like a digital camera, a bank of photocells, rods and cones in the in in the retina. But the wires that connect the retina to the brain don't come backwards from the retina as they should. They they come forwards from the retina.

所以它们必须越过视网膜表面，然后通过视神经穿透视网膜，这就是为什么我们有盲点。章鱼哥们，章鱼也有相机眼，它们的相机眼相当不错，但它们的神经是从视网膜后方引出的。所以这纯粹是糟糕的设计。伟大的德国生理学家赫尔姆霍兹说过，如果工程师把脊椎动物的视网膜交给他，他会退回去。实际上我们比章鱼看得更清楚，因为自然选择会通过大量修饰和调整来完善最初的缺陷。

So they have to run over the surface of the retina and then they dive through the retina in the optic nerve and that's why we have a blind spot. Morus guys, Morus also have a camera eye, Octopuses have quite a good camera eye, but in this case, the the nerves go backwards from the retina. So this is just bad design. Helmholtz, the great German physiologist said that if an engineer had given him the vertebrate retina, he would have sent it back. Actually, we see it rather better than octopus because natural selection comes along and cleans up the initial imperfection with a lot of titivating, a lot of tinkering.

你刚才提到的另一个例子是喉返神经。有两条喉返神经，是迷走神经的分支——迷走神经是脑神经，从大脑向下延伸。终点器官是喉部，但它没有直接通向喉部，而是径直向下穿过胸腔，绕主动脉一圈——就是胸腔里那根大动脉——然后再返回喉部。在长颈鹿身上，这可是一段相当长的绕路。

Another example you just mentioned was the laryngeal nerve. The the recurrent laryngeal nerve, there are two of them. The branch of the vagus nerve comes it's a cranial nerve, it comes down from the brain. The end organ is the larynx, the voice box, But instead of going straight to the voice box, it shoots straight past down into the chest and loops around an aorta around the aorta and the a great big artery in the chest and then back up to the larynx. Well, in a giraffe, that is a considerable detour.

你亲眼见过这个，对吧？

You've witnessed this, haven't you?

是的。在一只

Yes. In a

长颈鹿的解剖。

dissection of a giraffe.

我曾参与第四频道的一部纪录片，解剖了一只不幸在动物园去世的长颈鹿的颈部。令人惊叹的是，我们看到这条神经在距离喉部仅几厘米的地方飞速穿行，径直掠过它，然后绕动脉一圈又直接返回。对于像雷龙这样的蜥脚类恐龙来说，这趟迂回之旅会更加漫长。这就是一种不完美。从历史角度很容易理解：在所有陆地脊椎动物（即所有四足动物）的鱼类祖先中，这条神经通往其末端器官（当时是某个鳃部）的最直接路径位于相关动脉的南侧。

I took part in a channel four documentary in which we dissected the neck of a giraffe which had unfortunately died in a zoo. And it was spectacular to watch this nerve just go whizzing within within a couple of centimeters of of the larynx, go whizzing straight past it and then loop around the the artery and come straight back up again. In a sauropod dinosaur, something like a Brontosaurus, that would have been an even larger detour. Now that's an imperfection. It's easy to understand in historical terms because in the fish ancestors of all tetrapods of all land vertebrates, the most direct route of that nerve to its end organ which would have been one of the gills was south of the artery concerned.

后来在进化过程中颈部开始变长（鱼类没有颈部），当颈部开始延长时，每次稍微增加绕行距离的边际成本微乎其微。所以每次颈部增长一点点，比如一毫米，绕行距离就增加两毫米。但与神经跳过动脉可能涉及的胚胎学巨变所需付出的巨大代价相比，这点增加微不足道。因此，从历史、进化史的角度来解释就很容易理解了。

And then when the neck started to lengthen in evolution, fish don't have a neck, but when the length when the neck started to lengthen, the marginal cost of each slight increment in the detour was tiny. And so each each time the the neck lengthened a bit a millimeter, then the detour was two millimeters longer. But that was trivial compared to the great cost of the embryological upheaval which would have been involved if the nerve had been jumped over the artery. So the explanation is easy to understand in terms of history, evolutionary history.

当然，还有，就像在座许多中年人一样，包括我自己，当我们起身时，我们会

And then, of course, there's the as as many the people who are middle aged in this audience, me included, when we get up, we'll

发出‘哦’的声音，就像那样

go, oh, like that out

从椅子上站起来，对吧

of the chair right

是的。

now. Yes.

这同样是不完美的标志，因为我们的脊柱最初是为我们作为四足动物而设计的。

Again, a sign of imperfection because we were our spines were initially designed for us to be quadrupeds.

我们是最近才变成两足动物的四足动物，我们的脊柱往往会抗议这种不自然的姿势。

We're we're quadrupeds who who recently become bipeds, and our spine tends to protest this unnatural posture.

您是否认为科学正受到攻击？如果科学受到攻击，那么我认为可以合理地推断理性本身、推理也正受到攻击。如果是这样，应对之策是什么？在座的各位能做些什么来帮助对抗这种情况？

Science, would you say, is under attack. And if science is under attack, then I think it's safe to assume rationality itself. Reason is under attack. If so, what is the counter to that? What can everyone in this audience do to help fight against that?

嗯，我不确定我是回答这个问题的最佳人选。我我你是那种

Well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that. I I You're someone

肯定为理性和理智奋斗过的人。

who certainly has fought for rationality and reason.

嗯，我我我是 而且你一直支持理性和和和科学，但我的态度是实话实说，这未必是正确的做法。我曾被一位非常杰出的科学家尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森批评过，你们很多人可能认识他，他以最友善的方式公开抨击我，因为他说我就像他说的那样，直接抛出观点。他只是实话实说。而他说应该有一种诱惑和说服的行为，你应该尝试引导你的听众。

Well, I I I'm And you've been in favor of rationality and and and science, but I I mean, my attitude is just tell it like it is, and that's not necessarily the right way to do it. I was taken to task by a very distinguished scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, many of you may know, and he, in in the nicest possible way, attacked me in public because he said that I just as he put it, said, put it out there. He just tell tell it like it is. And he said there should be an act of seduction, an act of persuasion. You should try to coax your audience.

不要只是告诉他们事情就是这样，爱接受不接受。他指责我过于简单地陈述事实，说爱信不信。他指出我曾是公众理解科学教授，他说我应该从事说服的工作，而不仅仅是陈述。我我反驳了。嗯，我我首先说，我感激地接受批评，然后我引用了当时《新科学家》的编辑艾伦·安德森的话，他曾告诉我，有一次我问他，你们《新科学家》的政策是什么？

Don't just tell them this is the way it is, lump it. And and he accused me of of of being too simply simply stating the facts and saying take it or leave it. He pointed out that the time I was professor of the public understanding of science, and he said I ought to be engaged in an exercise of persuasion, not simply of stating it. I I retorted. Well, I I first of all said, I gratefully accept the rebuke, and then I said, I quoted the editor of New Scientist as he then was, Alan Anderson, and he told me, I asked him once, what is your policy at New Scientist?

他说，我们《新科学家》的政策是科学很有趣。如果你不同意，你可以滚蛋。

And he said, our policy at New Scientist is science is interesting. If you don't agree, you can fuck off.

好的。对。对。现在你最喜欢的辩论伙伴和对话者之一是物理学家劳伦斯·克劳斯。他也谈到诱惑，但他也说科学家自己在向人们推销科学方面做得很差，而告诉人们滚蛋通常效果不太好。

Okay. Right. Right. Now one of your favorite kind of sparring partners and fellow conversationist is Lawrence Krausz, the physicist. And he also speaks about seduction, but he also says that scientists themselves have been very bad at selling science to people and telling people to fuck off usually doesn't work particularly well.

嗯，那那正是尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森的观点。实际上，劳伦斯·克劳斯本人第一次见我时，也用完全相同的方式抨击我。我我不认识他，但但我在做演讲，结束时他站起来责骂我，为了为了这同一件事。是的，我我这就是为什么我说我可能不是最佳人选，我我我尝试解释，我尝试让它清晰。

Well, that's that was that was Neil deGrasse Tyson's point, of course. And actually, Lawrence Krause himself the first time I met Lawrence Krause, he attacked me in exactly the same way. And I I didn't know him, but but I was giving a talk and at the end he stood up and and and berated me for the for for this for this the same thing. And, yes, I I that's that's why I said I may not be the best person to I I I try to explain. I try to make it clear.

我尝试让它有吸引力，但我不喜欢妥协。当我我一次遇到一位参与为进化论辩护的律师，几十年前在宾夕法尼亚州有一个著名的法庭案件，最终我们这边赢了。后来我遇到了那位大律师，不是他们称呼的

I try to make it attractive, but I don't think I like to compromise. When I I once met the one of the lawyers who was involved in defending evolution, there was a famous court case in Pennsylvania a few decades ago, and it was eventually our side one. And I later met the barrister, not the they call them

大律师。罗思柴尔德。是的。

barrister. Rothschild. Yeah.

那位律师的名字我想是罗思柴尔德。是的。我们聊了一会儿，然后他说，谢天谢地我们没有传唤你作为专家证人。原因是他们传唤的专家证人都对法庭说，你可以保留你的宗教，你也可以拥有进化论。两者可以兼得。

The lawyer whose name was I think it was Rothschild. Yes. And we talked for a bit and then he said, well, thank goodness we didn't call you as an expert witness. And the reason was that what the expert witnesses that they did call were all for say saying to the court, you can keep your religion and you can have evolution. You can have both.

而我不会那样说。因此我很可能会成为导致案件败诉的关键因素。而他们请的专家证人，比如肯尼思·米勒——他是虔诚的罗马天主教徒，同时又是进化论的有力拥护者——才是理想的专家证人，因为他本身具有宗教信仰。

And I wouldn't have said that. And so I would probably have been instrumental in losing the case. Whereas the the expert witness they did have, which were Kenneth Miller, for example, who's a devout Roman Catholic and and a and a very powerful advocate of evolution. He was an ideal expert witness because he was religious.

那么好吧。当你参与辩论时——这是乔丹·彼得森最近在与亚历克斯·奥康纳主持的对话中向你提出的四个选项：第一，你试图

So okay. So when you go into debate, and these are the the four options that Jordan Peterson put before you recently in a conversation that Alex O'Connor was chairing. One, you try to

与时俱进是吧？是不是？你

up to date, aren't you? Aren't you? Do

知道在两千五百人面前不做功课发言有多让人紧张吗？好的。第一，试图获胜；第二，展示你的智力优越性；第三，代表对方立场

you have any idea how nerve racking is to say in front of two and half thousand people and not do your research? Right. One, try to win. Two, demonstrate your intellectual superiority. Three, represent the other.

第四，跟随探索真理的线索看能否有所进展。当你面对与己见相左的人时，你会采取这四种中的哪一种？请再重复一遍。试图获胜。第二，展示智力优越性

Or four, follow the thread of the exploratory truth to see if we can get somewhere. Which of those four do you adopt when you are sitting in front of someone who has a contrary view to you? To tell me them again for. Try to win. Number two, demonstrate your intellectual superiority.

这和第一个是相关联的

Which link to the first one.

我觉得这两个我都不会做

I don't think I do either of those.

明白。我绝对不认为你会故意歪曲对方立场——那是第三个选项。不会。然后是跟随探索真理的线索看能否有所进展

Okay. I definitely don't think you would try and misrepresent the other. That was the third. No. And then follow the thread of the exploratory truth to see if we can get somewhere.

是的。我认为这是

Yes. I think that's

这应该是尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森、劳伦斯·克劳斯和罗斯柴尔德希望我采取的方式

that's what I suppose Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, and Rothschild would have wished me to do.

和劳伦斯·克劳斯在一起时，你说过，我想消灭宗教。他这么说了吗？没有。是你说的。是你对他这么说的。

With with with Lawrence Krauss, you said, I want to kill religion. Did he say that? No. You said that. You said that to him.

嗯，

Well,

我不是说我想杀死信教的人。

I don't mean I want to kill religious people.

不。不。不。不。不。

No. No. No. No. No.

我对信教的人深表同情，他们的宗教往往想要他们的命。

I have the greatest sympathy with religious people who often their religion wants to kill them.

所以事情是这样的。哦，现在继续吧。请说，你的想法。

So here's the thing. Oh, go on now. Please, your thought.

不。我…我试着回忆。我…我最近确实和乔丹·彼得森有过这次对话。我不记得他提到过这些点。他提到了吗？

No. I I trying to recall. I I did have this conversation with with Jordan Peterson recently. I don't remember him mentioning those points. Did he mention it?

他…他绝对提到了。他还说了这个。你在谈论龙。嗯，他当时在谈论龙。你还记得吗？

He he absolutely did. He also said this. You were talking about dragons. Well, he was talking about dragons. Do you remember that?

我确实记得那个。而且

I do remember that. And

他说，如果存在捕食者，如果我们接受有捕食者，那么这是一个巨大的飞跃吗？仅仅是想象，比如说，那是个糟糕的乔丹模仿。这是一个…这是一个巨大的飞跃，认为应该有龙存在吗？他就这个话题絮絮叨叨了相当长一段时间。我本来要…就像他不会…

he said, if there is a predator, if we accept that there are predators, then is it such a huge leap? Only imagination to say, like, that's a terrible Jordan impression. It's a is it such a huge leap that there should be dragons? Now he wanged on for quite some time about this. I was gonna As his won't.

我只是想知道，在那些辩论中，好吧。

And I just wondered, in those debates Okay.

是的。这触及了我们之间分歧的核心。他沉醉于象征和隐喻。所以对他来说，是老虎、霸王龙还是龙都无所谓。因为龙只是掠食性的象征。

Yeah. This gets to the heart of the difference between us. And he is drunk on symbols and metaphor. And so to him, it doesn't matter whether it's a tiger or a tyrannosaurus or a dragon. It's all the same thing because dragons are just a symbol of predatoriness.

而对我来说，事物是否真实存在其实很重要。显然，这个案例并不认为龙存在，但对他来说，他不在乎它们是否存在，因为对他而言，重要的是它们的象征意义。作为荣格原型的重要意义。这在关于该隐和亚伯的故事中再次出现，他认为创世记中该隐和亚伯的故事是一篇非常重要的文学作品，几乎可以说是史上最重要的文学作品。而且它是象征性的。

And to me, it actually matters whether things exist. I mean, the case, obviously, doesn't think dragons exist but it it I it to him, he doesn't care whether they exist because for him, all that matters is their symbolic significance. Their significance as Jungian archetypes. This came up again with respect to Cain and Abel, the story the the Genesis story of Cain and Abel which he thinks is a is a very very important piece of literature, most important piece of literature ever written, think he almost said. And it it is symbolic.

它具有荣格原型意义。全是关于兄弟相残。全是关于兄弟间的嫉妒，诸如此类。但对我来说，该隐和亚伯并不存在这一点其实很重要。我也不认为他认为他们存在，但他说过类似'该隐和亚伯是第一个自然出生的人类'这样的话。

It it has Jungian archetypal significance. It's all about fratricide. It's all about jealousy between brothers, all that kind of thing. But to me, it actually matters that Cain and Abel didn't exist. And I don't think he thinks they exist either, but he said something like Cain and Abel were the first humans to be born naturally.

嗯，这某种程度上意味着他认为他们确实存在，而不仅仅是荣格符号。因为，我的意思是，如果你指的只是象征意义，为什么要说他们是第一个自然出生的人类呢？这正是一个典型的例子，说明他似乎完全不在乎真实事实。

Well, that kind of means he thinks that they actually existed rather than just that they were Jungian symbols Because, I mean, why say they were the first humans to be born naturally if all you mean is something symbolic? Do you This ever was a typical example of where he doesn't seem to care about real facts at all.

对。那么这引出了我的下一个问题：当你坐在像彼得森教授这样的人面前时，你是否曾想过，'我这一个小时再也回不来了'？

Right. So so that brings me on to my next question, which is when you're sitting in front of someone like professor Peterson, do you ever think to yourself, I'm never gonna get this hour back?

是的。不。那个...不。那样太失礼了。我...我不是那个意思。

Yes. No. That that no. That's that's rude. I I don't I I didn't mean that.

我不是那个意思。那是一次有趣的对话。亚历克斯·奥康纳主持得非常出色。他很棒。是的。

I I didn't mean that. It it it was an interesting conversation. It was very well moderated by Alex O'Connor. He's brilliant. Yeah.

是的。这让我清楚地看到了我们之间的本质区别，也就是说，我认为我也喜欢隐喻。我认为我也喜欢象征。我甚至喜欢荣格原型，但我确实区分它们和真实事实，而我认为他不区分。我认为这是一些神学家的典型特点，他们真的不在乎事实。

Yes. And it clarified for me the essential difference between us, which which is that that I mean, I I think I like metaphors too. I I think I like symbols. I even like Jungian archetypes, but I do make a distinction between them and real facts, and I think he doesn't. And I think this is typical of some theologians that they they really don't care about facts.

例如，一位主教或牧师可能会走上讲坛，开始宣讲关于亚当和夏娃的布道，明明知道他们从未存在过，却仍然对会众讲话，仿佛他们确实存在，因为他们具有某种道德意义或象征意义。我认为只要你说清楚这是象征性的，并且不把象征与事实混淆，那就没问题。

For example, a bishop or a priest may get up in the pulpit and start preaching a sermon about Adam and Eve, knowing perfectly well they never existed, but nevertheless talking to the congregation as though they did exist because they have some kind of moral significance or symbolic significance. I think that's fine as long as you make it clear that it is symbolic and you don't muddle up symbols with facts.

你与一名男子交谈过，他的朋友杀害了一名医生和医生的保镖，因为那名医生实施堕胎手术。是的。而且那个男子在美国也服刑了，我想是四年。是的，因为参与其中。你为什么要那样做？

You spoke to a man whose friend killed a doctor and the doctor's bodyguard because the doctor carried out abortions. Yes. And that man in America served also, I think, four years Yes. For being involved. Why did you do that?

你从中得到了什么？我很好奇这是

And what did you get from that? I was curious that this was part

一档电视节目的一部分，是节目制片人为我安排的。我很好奇想见一个道德观与我以及我认识的任何人都如此不同的人。我在同一个节目中也与其他一些人交谈过，他们同样也处于思想撕裂的状态。我认为，如果你真的像他那样相信一个小小的胚胎就是一个人，那么你会认为堕胎就是谋杀，因此你会认为，即使是杀死医生也是正确的事情。我认为像他这样的人实际上相信自己是正义、公正和正确的。

of a television program and it was fixed up for me by the producer of the of the program. I was curious to meet somebody who whose moral compass was so different from mine and that of anybody that I know. And I spoke to other people in the same program who who, similarly were pulled apart. I think if you really do believe as he did that a tiny embryo is a human being, then you think that to abort it is murder and therefore you think that, anything is even killing a doctor is the right thing to do. I think that people like him actually believe they are righteous and just and correct.

而且我认为他们显然是——我认为他们错得可怕，但这实际上又回到了我们之前所说的。在这个问题上，我认为我更多地展现出的是说服、劝诱的一面。我认为，如果我在与一个狂热的反堕胎者争论、为堕胎辩护时，正确的方法是尝试说服他们，一个小小的胚胎没有感觉、没有恐惧、感觉不到疼痛，因此这就是你不应该反对堕胎的原因。而通常的堕胎支持者会说：我是个女人。这是我的身体，我想怎么处置就怎么处置。

And I think they're obviously I think they're hideously wrong, but this actually really coming back to what we were saying earlier. In in this issue, I think I come across rather more as the persuasion, the seduction. I think that if I'm arguing with with somebody in if I'm arguing in favor of abortion against a fanatical opponent of abortion, I think the right way to do it is to try to persuade them that a tiny embryo has no feelings, has no fear, cannot feel pain, and therefore that's the reason why you should not object to abortion. Whereas the the normal the the normal proponent of abortion will say, I'm a woman. It's my body to do what I like with.

那种说法是行不通的。我的意思是，我同意那个观点，但对于认为那是谋杀的人来说，这说不通，因为那个人会说，啊，你说那是你的身体固然没错，但里面还有另一个身体，而你正在谋杀那个另一个身体。所以，说‘我的身体我做主’是没有用的。你那样说服不了他们。引用尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森的话，在这种情况下，说服的行为——这个行为将由我来做——将是说：我希望堕掉的这个胚胎，其感觉和感知并不比一条虫子多。

That won't wash. I mean, I agree with that, but that won't wash with somebody who thinks it's murder because that person will say, ah, but it's all very well saying it's your body, but there's another body inside you, and you are murdering that other that other body. And so it's no good saying it's my body to do what I like with. You won't persuade them that way. The act of persuasion, to quote Neil deGrasse Tyson, in this case, the act of persuasion would be my act, would be to say, this embryo that I wish to abort has no more feeling, has no more sensation than a worm.

因此，这就是你不应该反对堕胎的原因。

Therefore, that's the reason why you shouldn't object to abortion.

美国记者兼作家阿南德·吉里哈拉达斯写过一本名为《说服者》的书，其核心是关于美国人无法被说服去相信与他们原有信念相反的东西。我想知道你是否能给我一些例子，说明你自己的正统观念不仅受到了挑战（因为它们经常受到挑战），而且实际上你已经改变了主意。你被说服，承认自己错了。嗯，我可以做到，

The American journalist and author, Anand Giridharas, has written a book called The Persuaders, which at its heart is about Americans' inability to be persuaded of something contrary to that which they believed. And I wondered if you could give me some examples whereby your own orthodoxies have not only been challenged because they are fairly regularly, but, actually, you've changed your mind. You've been persuaded that you were wrong. Well, I can do that,

但这不会是在一个非常重大的问题上。那会是某种科学上的事情。我的意思是，我可以做到吗？在《自私的基因》第一版中，我嘲笑——或许这个词太重了——我泼冷水驳斥了一个叫做‘累赘原则’的理论，这个理论是由一位名叫阿莫茨·扎哈维的以色列动物学家提出的，它是这样的。

but it would be not on a very great issue. It would be something scientific. I mean, I can I can do that? In the first edition of the selfish gene, I ridiculed is perhaps too strong a word. I I poured cold water on a a theory called the handicap principle, which was put forward by an Israeli zoologist called Ahmad Zahavi, and it goes like this.

如果我们以孔雀的尾巴这样明显的东西为例。孔雀的尾巴是一个累赘。它是一个巨大而华丽的累赘。它显然对动物是一个负担。它显然使它更容易被捕食者吃掉。它显然使得起飞和飞行更加困难。我们都用达尔文之后的性选择来解释这一点：自然选择偏爱它，因为雌性喜欢它的样子。

If we take something like a peacock's tail is the obvious example, The peacock's tail is a handicap. It's a great big ornamental handicap. It clearly is a is is a burden to the animal. It clearly makes it more vulnerable to being eaten by predators. It clearly makes it harder to take off and fly and we all explain that by sexual selection following Darwin, natural selection favors it because females like the look of it.

如果雌性觉得它漂亮，它就能吸引雌性。现在，尽管它是一个累赘，情况依然如此。所以，尽管它是一个累赘，但对雄性来说是值得的，因为它能吸引雌性，即使它可能因此丧命。它因此缩短了自己的寿命。扎哈维采取了一个激进的观点，即它之所以被雌性偏爱，恰恰因为它是一个累赘。

It turns females on if females find it beautiful. Now, and that's in spite of the fact that it's a handicap. So although it's a handicap, it's worth it for the male because he gets females even though he actually loses his life, probably. He shortened his life because of it. Zahavi took a radical view, which is that it is favored by the female precisely because it is a handicap.

雌性看重信号是因为它代价高昂。所以像扎哈维就非常喜欢用人类做类比。垫肩让你看起来像个强壮的大汉，但这太容易伪造了，骗不了任何人。如果你想证明自己是个强壮的大汉，你必须做的是举重或者做一些只有真正强壮的人才能做到的事情。所以对哈维来说，孔雀背负着这个累赘，是为了证明自己是多么优秀的孔雀，因为尽管背负着这个相当大的负担，它还是成功存活了下来。

Females value a signal because it's costly. So something like it Zahavi was very fond of human analogies. Padded shoulders, which make you look like a big strong man, are so easy to fake that they wouldn't fool anybody. And if you want to prove that you're a big strong man, you have to what you do is have to lift some weights or do do something that only a really big strong man could do. So for the Harvey, the peacock has this handicap burden as a way of proving what a fine peacock he is because he managed to survive in spite of having this rather great handicap on his back.

嗯，当时我和其他所有人一样嘲笑这个理论。后来等到《自私的基因》第二版出版时，我以前的学生、现在的同事，我甚至可以说是导师，艾伦·格拉芬，我在牛津的同事，找到了一个数学模型来证明累赘原理实际上是有效的。它在理论上是合理的，现在局面完全逆转了，我们都接受了累赘原理，更多人愿意将其视为累赘原理。在《自私的基因》第二版中，我收回了早先对它的谴责，并承认了自己的错误。数据不值得掌声。科学家喜欢犯错。

Well, I along with everybody else at the time ridiculed that theory, And then later by the time the second edition of the selfish gene came out, my former pupil now colleague and I say even mentor, Alan Graffen, my colleague at Oxford, found a mathematical model to show that the handicap principle actually works. It is theoretically sound and now the tables are completely turned and we all now accept the handicap principle, many more prepared to count as the handicap principle. And in the second edition of the selfish gene, I took I took back my earlier condemnation of it and I ate a tumble pie. Doesn't data doesn't deserve applause. Scientists like being wrong.

是的。

Yes.

一位科学家曾经对我说，他说，‘我深切意识到自己无知的范围之广’。这是谁说的？一个我忘了名字的科学家。所以这就是我自己的无知。哦，真是讽刺。

A scientist once said to me that he said, I am acutely aware of the vastness of my ignorance. Who said that? A scientist whose name I've forgotten. So that's my own ignorance. Oh, the irony.

说得好。我喜欢这个说法。

It's a good one. I I like it.

是的。是的。是的。深切意识到自己无知的...我大概可以谷歌一下。是的，请继续。

Yes. Yes. Yes. Acutely aware of the vastness of my could probably Google it. Yes, please.

而这随之带来了谦逊，即深切意识到自己无知的范围之广。是的。而我们在政治 discourse 中尤其看到，那种缺乏谦逊的态度，你必须什么都知道，并且必须确信自己是正确的，尽管从经验上看——我的意思是，利兹·特拉斯就是一个主要例子，经验证据几乎推翻了她所说的一切。我们该如何应对这种情况，当人们对事实免疫时？

And that brings with it humility to be acutely aware of the vastness of your ignorance. Yes. And what we see especially for instance in our political discourses, that kind of lack of humility that you have to know everything and you have to be certain that it's right when empirically I mean, Liz Truss being a prime example of where empirical evidence counted almost everything she had to say. How do we counter that where people are just immune to facts?

嗯，是的。我的意思是，我想某些科学哲学会说，你永远无法真正证明任何事情是真的。你所能做的只是未能证伪它。对吧。我从来不是特别热衷那种特定的哲学。

Well, yes. I mean, I suppose I mean, certain philosophers of science will say that you can never actually prove anything is true. All you can do is fail to falsify it. Right. I've never been that keen on that particular philosophy.

我认为有些事情...我觉得史蒂夫·古尔德说得很好。总会有那么一个时刻，再否认某件事是真的就显得荒谬了。所以，那么为什么进化论，

I think there are certain things which we I think Steve Gould put it rather well. There there comes a point when it would be perverse to deny that it's that it's true. So So why then evolution,

举个例子？我的意思是，我读到过...是的。在印度，疫情过后不久，他们从一亿三千四百万印度儿童的学校教科书中移除了进化论这个科目。

for instance? I mean, I was reading the Yes. In India, shortly after the the pandemic, they removed the subject of evolution from school textbooks for a hundred and thirty four million Indian children.

是的。嗯，那是政治凌驾于科学之上，这是非常可悲的。我刚刚写了一篇关于俄罗斯李森科事件的论文，在那个案例中，政治再次被允许粗暴地践踏遗传学。这是一个非常悲惨的故事：上世纪四十年代，俄罗斯一个名叫李森科的江湖骗子引起了斯大林的注意，斯大林提拔了他，他随后掌管了俄罗斯乃至后来中国的所有农业，这直接导致了俄罗斯和中国的大规模饥荒。这就是政治。

Yes. Well, that's politics overriding science, and that that is tragic. I have just written an essay about the Lysenko affair in Russia where, again, politics was allowed to run roughshod over, over in this case genetics. It's a very tragic story that a charlatan called called Lysenko in Russia in the nineteen forties got the ear of Stalin and Stalin promoted him and he became in charge of all agriculture in Russia and later in China and it was the direct cause of massive famines in both Russia and China. This was politics.

原因很简单，李森科不相信达尔文主义。他不相信遗传学。他相信拉马克遗传，即获得性遗传。这得到了斯大林的青睐，因为它与某种马克思列宁主义理论相吻合。于是，政治被允许凌驾于科学之上，听起来这和你刚才描述的印度发生的情况如出一辙。

It was simply that Lysenko believed in he didn't believe in Darwinism. He didn't believe in in genetics. He believed in, Lamarckian inheritance, which means inheritance of acquired characteristics. And this was favored by Stalin because it chimed in with some kind of Marxist Leninist theory. And so politics was allowed to to to override science, and and that that sounds as though that's what happened in India, as you've just said.

但有趣的是，劳伦斯·克劳斯也提到了佛罗里达州在进化论教学上发生的类似事情，但那里的学校董事会设法以一种方式扭转了局面，反而更增加了其可信度。

But it's interesting that Lawrence Krausz brought the same thing up about what happened in Florida with the teaching of evolution, but the schools board there managed to kind of flip it in such a way that managed to bring credence even more to the

是吗？

Is that right?

是的。但是，这里‘理论’这个词本身就有问题，不是吗？而且它经常被误解？

Yes. But it it but there's a problem with the word theory here, isn't there, and how it's misconstrued?

没错。这是一个非常重要的问题，因为对许多人来说，‘理论’这个词意味着假说。它意味着未经证实的东西，而科学家回应这一点的标准方式是，科学家以不同的方式使用‘理论’这个词，不是指某种试探性的假说。我认为这是一场必输的战斗。我认为‘理论’这个词已经与假设性的事物联系得太紧密了。

That's right. It it that's a very important problem because for many people the word theory means hypothesis. It means something that's unproven and the standard way scientists will reply to that is to say that scientists use the word theory in a different way, not as something, a sort of tentative hypothesis. I think that's a losing battle. I think that the word theory has become so much associated with a hypothetical.

它可能是真的，也可能不是，我们正在等待证据。更好的做法是彻底停止称其为进化论，它就是事实。我们应该停止谈论进化论，开始谈论进化的事实。如果你愿意，你可以说自然选择理论。你可以说进化的事实是由自然选择理论来解释的。

It might be true and it might not, and we're waiting for the evidence. It's much better to to stop calling it the theory of evolution altogether and it is fact. We should start to we should stop talking about the theory of evolution and start talking about the fact of evolution. You can say the theory of natural selection if you like. You can say that the fact of evolution is explained by the theory of natural selection.

这真的是你的最后一次巡演吗？你是遗传学界的埃尔顿·约翰吗？

Is this really your final tour? Are you the Elton John of genetics?

当我那么说的时候，我指的是在美国的巡演。万岁！但我已经83岁了。

When I said that, I meant it to apply to America. Hooray. But I am 83.

不过看起来状态很好。状态非常好。那么为什么是最后一次美国巡演呢？所以我们还会收到你的更多著作，你认为在这里还会有更多巡演吗？

Looking good on it, though. Looking very good on it. So why the final tour of America? So we will get to we will get more books from you, more tours, you think here?

我现在正在写另一本书，书名叫《海克尔的故事》。海克尔是一位德国生物学家和艺术家。他被视为，有时被称为德国的达尔文。可以说是达尔文在德国的主要追随者。他比达尔文要激进得多。

I am working on another book now, and it's called Tales from Heckle. Heckle was a German biologist and artist. He was regarded, he's called, sometimes called the German Darwin. He was Darwin's leading disciple, I suppose you could say in Germany. He was much more militant than Darwin.

他见过达尔文一次，但他们相处得不太好，嗯，他们语言不通，所以有点问题。但不管怎样，他有点崇拜达尔文，同时也是位杰出的艺术家，描述了大量的动物，主要是原生动物，大多是小型单细胞动物。我的想法是——我已经开始写了——写一本书，每章都以海克尔的一幅画作开头，那些精美、细节丰富的画作。然后我会就他画的动物写一篇随笔。所以这其实是一种引申创作。

He met Darwin once and they didn't get, well, they couldn't really speak the same language, so it was a bit of a problem. But anyway, he's kind of worshiped Darwin and he was also a brilliant artist and he described an enormous number of animals, mostly protozoa, mostly small unicellular animals. And my idea is, which I've started, is to write a book in which each chapter begins with one of Heckel's drawings, beautiful, beautiful detailed drawings. And then I would write an essay about the animals that he that he drew. So it's just really it's a kind of take off.

我之前和颜·王合写过一本书叫《祖先的故事》，书中有很多我所谓的“故事”，这些故事源自特定的动物。比如，蚱蜢的故事全是关于种族的。这是一种方式，你从动物开始，然后拓展到讨论一个主题。所以我现在用海克尔的画作为另一种引入故事的方式。

I wrote an earlier book together with Yan Wong called The Ancestor's Tale in which, there were a whole lot of what I called tales, were stories which arise out of a particular animal. Like for example, oh, the grasshopper's tale was all about race, for example. So it's a it's a way you start off with the animal and then you then you broaden it out into talking about a topic. So I'm using Heckel's pictures as another way of introducing tales.

因为你已经辩论了几十年，你被问到过的最无聊的问题是什么？就是那些现在一被问到，你就翻白眼心想，天啊，怎么又是这个。嗯，你大概不会说天啊。

Because you've been debating for decades now, what are the most boring questions that you've been asked? The ones that now when you're asked, you just roll your eyeballs and go, god, not this again. Well, wouldn't say god presumably.

但你会说‘怎么又是这个’。翻白眼是不公平的。我的意思是，这对那些提出问题的人不公平，他们以为这是个很好、很新颖的问题，没有意识到……

It's But you say not this again. It's it's unfair to to to roll my eyeballs. I mean, but it's it's it's not fair on people who ask the question thinking that it's a nice, pristine, new question, not realizing that

是的。但他们不会知道。我是说，确实有……

that Yes. But they wouldn't know. I mean, there is there is

不。我想我讨厌的一个问题——希望今晚不会被问到——是‘你会给刚起步的年轻科学家什么建议’……

No. I mean, I suppose one question that I hate, and I hope I don't get it tonight, is what advice would you give to a young scientist just starting out in this

哦，好吧。为什么？你为什么……我是说，得了吧。我本来没打算问这个问题的，但既然你打开了话匣子，你看。你是……你看。

Oh, okay. Why? Why do you I mean, that's I don't come on. I mean, I wasn't gonna ask that question, but now that you've opened the door, I mean, look. You are you are look.

很明显，比如扎拉·凯来这里时，她谈到了你对她人生的改变，人们被你的话所鼓舞，一个年轻人要去任何大学……

Clearly, I mean, with Zara Kay, when she came on here and she talked about the difference you'd made to her life, and people are inspired by your words, and a a young a young person going to whatever university

这让我觉得不好意思。说实话，让我感到尴尬。真的吗？是的。我不是什么大师之类的。是的。

Makes me feel coy. Makes me feel embarrassed, to be honest. Really? Yes. I'm not some kind of guru who's Yeah.

关于任何形式的智慧。还有一个我不喜欢的问题，因为我在哲学上太天真而无法应对，那就是自由意志的问题。我的意思是，我通常都会退缩，采用克里斯托弗·希钦斯的回答：我有自由意志吗？我别无选择。

With any kind of wisdom. And and another one that I that I don't like because I'm I'm too philosophically naive to tackle it is the is the free will question. And, I mean, I I usually chicken out and use Christopher Hitchens' answer, is, do I have free will? I have no choice.

在你多年来进行智力交锋的人中，有哪些人让你离开时印象最为深刻，甚至改变了你？

And of the people that you've intellectually sparred with over the years, who are the ones that you've walked away from being most impressed by and even changed by?

我想可能是罗温·威廉姆斯，前坎特伯雷大主教。我不会说被他改变，但印象深刻的是他太好相处，以至于不忍与之争论。而且他非常聪明，他会帮你把话说完，所以他完全知道你要说什么。然后出于某种原因，他并不赞同。

I think maybe Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury. I wouldn't say changed by him, but impressed in the sense that he's too nice to argue with. And he also is so intelligent. He finishes your sentences for you as the so he knows exactly what you're going to say. And then for some reason, he doesn't agree.

想必你没有对罗温·威廉姆斯采取《新科学家》的那种方式吧，我希望。是的。没有。好。很好。

Presumably, you didn't take the new scientist approach to Rowan Williams, I hope. Yeah. No. Good. Good.

这很好，知道这一点非常好。回到《基因死亡之书》，你认为量子计算对未来科学家会产生什么影响？我采访过加来道雄关于他的书《量子霸权》，他在书中详细讨论了量子计算可能带来的革命。

That's good to it's good to it's very good to know. Coming back to the genetic book of the dead, what difference do you think quantum computing will make in terms of the scientists of the future? I I interviewed Michio Kaku about his book, Quantum Supremacy, where he was talking very much about the revolutions that could happen with quantum computing.

我对它了解甚少。我和戴维·多伊奇谈过，也和其他对量子计算很了解的人交流过。我的理解是，如果它真的可行，将会带来极其巨大的革命，各种事情，我的意思是，释放出的巨大计算能力将产生戏剧性的后果，不仅在科学上，也在日常生活中。例如，有人向我指出，计算机将变得如此强大，以至于加密可能变得非常非常困难，甚至不可能，因为任何你可能有的尝试，任何你可能为数据、银行账户详情等设置的密码保护，都将被这种计算机能力的巨大提升轻易破解。

I know rather little about it. I I have talked to, David Deutsch. I've talked to other people who who, know a lot about quantum computing. My understanding is that it is is that if it really works, it's going to be so immensely revolutionary that all kinds of things, I mean, the the sheer amount of computational power that will be unleashed will have dramatic consequences, not just in in science but in everyday life. And for example, one point has been put to me is that computers will become so powerful that encoding will become very, very possibly even impossible because any any attempt you might have, any password protection you might have for for data, for your for your bank account details or something will be will be so easily broken by the the this is this enormous increase in in in computer power.

我不知道。观众中可能有物理学家能更好地回答这个问题。但我认为它目前仍处于起步阶段，所以我们暂时还是安全的。

I don't I don't know. There are probably physicists in the audience who can who can answer that that question better. But I I think it's it's still in its infancy at the moment, And so we're safe from it for a while.

当你想到未来的科学家时，你最羡慕她们将会看到什么？

When you think of the scientists of the future, what is it about what she will see that you most envy?

嗯，我认为我希望看到解决的问题之一是生命的起源。目前这是一个有些令人困惑的问题。我认为我们大致知道答案会是什么样子。意识的生物学，意识的进化，自我意识，在这方面，我甚至不确定答案会是什么形式。在生命起源的情况下，我知道我期望的那种答案。

Well, I think that one of the problems which I would like to see solved is the origin of life. And that is a somewhat baffling problem at the moment. Think it's it's we know the kind of thing the answer will look like. The biology of consciousness, the the the biology, the evolution of consciousness, self awareness, in in that case, I'm not even sure what the what kind of an an answer will look like. In the case of the origin of life, I I know the sort of answer I would expect.

在意识的问题上，我甚至不知道问题是什么。它对我来说似乎就是令人困惑。我的意思是，我知道我有意识。我假定你也有。但这是一种如此内在的东西。

In the case of consciousness, I don't even know what the question is. It just seems to me to be baffling. I mean, I know that I'm conscious. I presume you are. But but it it is a it is such an internal thing.

我们无法确定。我的意思是，哲学家们提出了一个完全有效的观点：一个无意识的僵尸、一个无意识的机器人完全有可能拥有生物的所有属性。那么，换句话说，为什么还要费心考虑意识呢？

We we can't be sure. I mean, it it it is philosophers have made a perfectly valid point that it would be perfectly possible for a an unconscious zombie, an unconscious robot to have all the attributes that a living thing does. And why why bother with consciousness, in other words?

什么更让你兴奋？哲学问题还是科学问题？

What excites you more? Philosophical questions or scientific ones?

嗯，我想是科学问题。是的。是的。我得这么说。

Well, I I suppose scientific ones. Yes. Yes. I would have to say that.

但你在我们对话一开始就说，你热情的基础是哲学性的。

But you said at the very beginning of our conversation that the the basis of your passion was philosophical.

是的。没错。我说过。但我是作为一个……与自然历史爱好者不同，与观鸟者、捕虫者或类似的人不同。所以我没有……但那些是哲学问题。

Yeah. Yes. I did. But I as a as opposed to being a natural history and as opposed to being a birdwatcher or a bug hunter or something of that sort. So I didn't But they were philosophical questions.

是的。它们是。但我并不是通过观鸟进入生物学的。如果我……当我面试牛津大学生物学专业的申请者时，我问他们为什么想学这个，几乎所有人都说因为我一生都喜欢观鸟，或者我喜欢捕捉昆虫、压制花朵之类的。我只是想说我不是他们中的一员。

Yes. They are. But I didn't come to biology through being a birdwatcher. If if if I asked when I when I interviewed candidates to Oxford to to read biology and I asked them why they wanted to do it, nearly all of them said because I'm because I've been all been all my life like to watch birds or I'd like to hunt hunt insects or press flowers or something. And I I just meant that I I wasn't one of those.

好的。明白了。但你仍然录取了他们，对吧？

Right. Okay. But you still let them in, did you?

哦，是的。哦，好吧。好的。是的。

Oh, yes. Oh, okay. Good. Yeah.

那很好。我们的时间快到了。只剩下大约五分钟，接下来将是你们这些出色的人类提交的问题。我想听听你对书中这句话的看法：“基因是被使用的。”

That's good. We're coming to the end of our time. We've only got about five minutes left, then it will be questions that have been submitted by you wonderful humans. I'd like to get your take on this line from the book. Genes are used.

它们不是主动的原因。这是丹尼斯·诺布尔的话。

They are not active causes. That's a quote from Dennis Noble,

他是我在牛津的一位同事，一位非常杰出的生理学家，我专门用了一章的篇幅来反驳这一观点。他不认为基因是任何事物的原因。他认为基因是一种服务，当身体需要制造特定蛋白质时，它会去图书馆，即DNA图书馆，取下相关的DNA片段来合成它所需的蛋白质。对我来说，这完全忽略了自然选择的基本要点。自然选择是基因在基因库中的差异生存。

who is a colleague of mine at Oxford, a very distinguished physiologist, and I divert much of a chapter to refuting that statement. He does not believe that genes are causes of anything. He believes that genes are services that when the body needs to make a particular protein, it goes to the library, the DNA library, and takes down the relevant bit of DNA to synthesize the protein that it that it needs. For me, that completely misses the fundamental point about natural selection. Natural selection is the differential survival of genes in gene pools.

随着世代更替，一些基因在种群基因库中变得更多，其他基因则变得更少，而成功基因之所以成功、变得更多，正是因为它们通过胚胎发育过程对一系列身体产生因果影响。因此，基因对胚胎学从而对身体具有因果影响，这对自然选择至关重要，这就是为什么一些基因存活而另一些没有，自然选择就是一些基因历经许多许多代、数百万年存活下来，而其他基因未能存活。成功与失败的区别在于基因层面，因为只有基因层面的成功才具有长远意义。在生命层次的其他所有层面，如身体或种群，身体会死亡。唯一持续存在的是基因，因此自然选择是潜在不朽实体的差异生存，而基因是唯一以信息形式潜在不朽的实体——不是DNA本身的形式，因为DNA本身是完全会消亡的，但以DNA编码的信息形式，它是潜在不朽的。

As the generations go by, some genes become more numerous in the gene pool in the population, other genes become less numerous, and the reason why the successful ones become successful, become more numerous is precisely that they have causal influence on a succession of bodies via embryo embryonic processes. So it is absolutely fundamental to natural selection that genes have causal influence on embryology and hence on bodies, and that's why some genes survive and others don't, and natural selection is the survival of some genes through many, many generations, through millions of years, and the non survival of other genes. The difference between success and non success is at the level of genes because only at the level of genes does success matter in the long run. At all other levels in the hierarchy of life like the body or the population, the body dies. The only thing that goes on is the genes and so natural selection is differential survival of potentially immortal entities and genes are the only potentially immortal entities in the form of information, not in the form of DNA itself because DNA itself is thoroughly mortal, but in the form of the information coded in DNA, it is potentially immortal.

达尔文，或者从历史角度看，达尔文对人类知识进步的贡献是否应该被认为比爱因斯坦更重要？哦。

Is Darwin or historically should Darwin be regarded as more important to the advancement of human knowledge than Einstein? Oh.

不，我讨厌做那种比较。我的意思是，我认为他们是...劳伦斯·克劳斯做过。他做过。而我...

No. I would I would hate to to make that sort of comparison. I mean, I think they're Lawrence Krausz did. He did. And I

他支持了你这边的人。是的，我知道他支持了。我知道他支持了。

He sided with your guy. Yeah. I know he did. I know he did.

而且他是个物理学家。他是个物理学家。好吧，我的意思是，丹·丹尼特也这么认为。已故的伟大哲学家丹·丹尼特说过，如果我必须把奖颁给有史以来最伟大的思想，我会把它颁给达尔文，而不是牛顿、爱因斯坦或其他任何人。

And he's a physicist. He's a physicist. Well, okay. I mean and Dan Dennett did too. Dan Dennett, the the late great philosopher, said if I had to give a prize to the greatest idea anyone ever had, I'd give it to Darwin ahead of Newton, Einstein, and everyone else.

我...好吧，克劳斯和丹尼特的意思是，达尔文的思想彻底改变了我们看待自己的方式，我们应当如何看待自己的方式，因为达尔文表明，像我们这样庞大复杂的事物有一个机械论的解释，而这是一个重大的发现。这是一个极其简单的想法。我的意思是，令人惊讶的是，爱因斯坦必须非常聪明。我不是否认达尔文聪明，但一旦你理解了达尔文，你就掌握了它。它非常简单。

I well, what what they mean what what Krauss and Dennett mean by that is that the idea that Darwin had totally revolutionized the way we see ourselves, the way we ought to see ourselves because what Darwin showed was that, big complicated things like us have a mechanistic explanation, and that was a big thing to show. It's an immensely simple idea. I mean, that's what's astonishing is that I mean, Einstein had to be really clever. And, I mean, I'm not denying that Darwin was clever, but but once you understand Darwin, you've got it. It's it's perfectly simple.

它...我曾经说过，你可以衡量一个理论或理想的力量。我过去称它为理论的力量，现在我称它为理论的力量，通过它解释的量除以它为了解释而必须假设的量。达尔文的理论是巨大的。我的意思是，它解释了一切关于生命的事物。它的多样性、复杂性、美丽，关于生命的一切都被一个非常非常简单的理论所解释，即随机变异信息的非随机生存这一非常简单的思想。

It's it's I I once said that you could measure the power of a theory of an ideal. I used to call it a theory, a power of a now I'll call it a theory, by the amount that it explains divided by the amount that it has to assume in order to do the explaining. And Darwin is is enormous. I mean, the the amount it explains is everything about life. Its diversity, its complexity, its beauty, everything about life is explained by one very, very simple theory, very, very simple idea of the nonrandom survival of randomly varying information.

就是这样。而且这非常简单。你会觉得任何傻瓜都能想到这一点。令人惊讶的是，直到19世纪中叶才有人想到它，而且它避开了之前所有那些聪明人。但尽管如此，牛顿和爱因斯坦必须非常聪明才能做到他们所做的事情。

That's it. But and and that's very simple. And and any you think any fool could think of that. The the amazing thing is it took until the middle of the nineteenth century for anybody to think of it, and it eluded all those clever people who went before. But nevertheless, Newton and Einstein, they had to be really clever to do what they did.

现在我们对话的这部分就到这里。希望你们喜欢我们刚刚进行的这一个小时。现在轮到你们提问了，首先，你会对一位年轻科学家说什么？句号。我只是开玩笑。你认为你的观点随着年龄增长是如何演变的？

Now that is our part of the conversation over with. I hope you've enjoyed that hour that we've just done. Now it's over to your questions starting with, what would you tell a young scientist period? I'm only joking. How do you think your views have evolved as you've gotten older?

他们是变得温和了还是更加极端化了？我肯定没有

Have they mellowed or become more polarized extreme? I certainly don't

我觉得自己变得更加极端化。我认为世界可能确实如此，尤其是美国，但我不认为我有。我想，是的，也许我变得温和了。我的意思是

think I've become more polarized extreme. I think the world may have done, especially America, but I don't think I have. I suppose, yeah, maybe I've mellowed. I mean

你曾经形容过自己极端吗？我的意思是，即使当人们争论《上帝错觉》是本愤怒的书时，你也会反驳。

you ever have described yourself as extreme? I mean, even you when people argue that the god delusion is an angry book, you you you push back against.

它它不是一本愤怒的书。实际上，我认为它相当有趣。我的意思是，我我它它它不是一本愤怒的书。人们认为它愤怒的原因是我们太习惯宗教享有特权，以至于任何对宗教的温和批评听起来都像愤怒。但它真的不是。

It it's not an angry book. Actually, I think it's rather a funny book. I mean, I I it it it's not an angry book. The reason people think it's an angry book is that we've been so used to the idea that, religion gets a free pass that any even mild criticism of religion sounds angry. But it it really isn't.

它它它其实是本很温和的书。开头非常温和地谈论我十分尊敬的学校牧师，并以非常同情的方式描述。它它它不是一本愤怒的书。我我我想最我我我有一次帕克斯曼式采访了当时的约克大主教，我对此感到遗憾。西达哈什丘克？

It's it's it's quite a gentle book, actually. It begins in a very gentle way talking about my school chaplain whom I had a great respect for and and and describing in a very sympathetic way. It it it's not an angry book. I I think the the the most I I I once Paxmaned I once did a Paxman on the then archbishop of York, and I regret that. Siddharshchuk?

我我问他是否真的相信童贞女怀孕，我帕克斯曼式地追问，他拒绝回答。我一直问这个问题。我觉得那是他

I I asked him whether he really believed in the virgin birth, and I Paxman on, on, on, he refused to answer. And I kept on ask asking it. And I think that was Did he

就直接说是？

just say yes?

不。他没有说是。哇。嗯，你不可能真的相信吧？但他又不能承认自己不相信。

No. He didn't say yes. Wow. Well, you can't you couldn't really believe it, could you? But he but he couldn't admit that he didn't believe it.

所以

And so

哦，我明白了。

Oh, I see.

是的。好吧。所以我一直问他同样的问题确实不太友善。

Right. Okay. And so it was unkind of me to to keep on asking him the same question.

看吧？你一直对一位主教说，我们并不真正相信这个。我就没有。

See, what? You just kept saying to a bishop, we don't really believe it. I didn't.

我只是不断重复这个问题。

I just I just kept repeating the question.

所以这第二个问题，让我很快想到，有一次我看到音乐家加里·纽曼接受采访，他是个无神论者。他还会开飞机。BBC主持人一直对他说，是的。但如果飞机，你知道，开始俯冲呢？你几乎肯定会死。

I So this question number two, just very quickly, reminds me of a once I saw Gary Newman, the musician being interviewed, and he's an atheist. And the BBC presenter and he flies planes. And the BBC presenter kept saying to him, yes. But what if the plane was, you know, going into a dive? You were almost certainly you're gonna die.

你不会，你知道，祈祷吗？你不会呼唤上帝吗？然后他说，不会。他们又说，不会吧。但是，你知道，你现在离地面只有五米了。

Would you not, you know, pray? Would you not call out to god? And then he said, no. And they went, no. But, you know, you're five meters away now from the guy.

你要死了。你知道，你不会祈求吗？他还是说，不会。对吧？因为他是无神论者。

You're gonna die. You know, would you not eat? And he went, no. Right? Because he's an atheist.

对吧？所以问题是：你对无神论的信念是否曾动摇过？从大约16岁起就没有。就是这样。

Right? So here is this question. Has your assertion of atheism ever wavered? Not since I was about 16. There you go.

不管谁回答了这个问题，就是这样。所以，是的，大约67年了。你是否担心未来一百年内因气候变化导致的大规模灭绝？是的。

Whoever answered that question, there you go. So it's, yeah, sixty seven years or so. Are you worried about massive extinction as a result of climate change in the next hundred years? Yes.

我认为你必须担心，而且我认为我们都应该担心，但这并不意味着我夜不能寐地为此焦虑。我的意思是，我天性乐观，尽管在理智上，我认为人们有充分的理由感到悲观。

I think you have to worry and I think we all ought to worry, but I don't think that means that I I'm I lie awake at nights fretting about it. I mean, I'm I'm temperamentally optimistic person, although intellectually, I think one has every have some grounds for pessimism.

在《上帝的错觉》中，你论证了信仰上帝是非理性且不必要的。鉴于当前世俗主义的趋势，你认为西方世界是否正在走向完全抛弃信仰传统？如果是，你认为这种转变何时会完全实现？

In the god delusion, you argue that belief in god is irrational and unnecessary. Given current trends in secularism, do you think the Western world is on a path towards abandoning faith traditions altogether? If so, when do you think this shift might fully take hold?

很明显这些问题是在我们讨论前提交的，因为确实如此。说得对。

It's clear that these questions were submitted before our discussion because yes. Fair enough.

是的。但我的意思是，具体来说，完全抛弃信仰传统。这在美国似乎并没有特别明显的迹象，对吧？实际上，这种情况正在日益增多。如果你看看

Yes. But, I mean I mean, this is I mean, to be very specific about it, abandoning faith traditions altogether. I mean, that shows no sign of happening particularly in America, does it? Well, increasingly, it is actually. If you look at

民调数据，确实表明了这一点。

poll data, suggest it.

我看了皮尤研究中心一月份的民调数据。他们说这种情况可能已经趋于平稳了。

Well, I was looking at poll data from January by Pew Research Okay. Who was saying that essentially it may well have plateaued.

我明白了，对吧？那你掌握的信息比我更新。好的。

I see. Right? Then you're up more up to date than me. Right. Okay.

我没有水晶球能预测社会趋势。我只能表达一个希望：希望它消亡，被科学理性主义、人文主义和道德哲学所取代，但这需要很长时间，我认为。

Well, I don't have a crystal ball to to forecast sociological trends. I could only express a hope that it that it will die and be replaced by scientific rationalism and humanism and moral philosophy, but it'll take a long time, I think.

根据我的经验，这个人说，信仰上帝存在的人似乎对这方面的论证不太感兴趣。我们已经讨论过这一点了。他们的信仰对他们来说就足够了。你认为哪些论证（如果有的话）最能帮助有信仰的人质疑自己的信仰？你已经做到了。

In my experience, says this person, people who have faith in the existence of God don't seem particularly interested in arguments on the matter. Well, we've covered that. Their faith is enough for them. Which arguments, if any, do you believe are most impactful in helping people of faith to challenge their faith? What you've done that.

我的意思是，扎拉·凯就是一个例子。

I mean, Zara Kay is a example of that.

那么哪些是最有影响力的？

So which which are most impactful?

你认为哪些论证（如果有的话）最能帮助有信仰的人质疑自己的信仰？所以如果你试图动摇某人的

Which arguments, if any, do you believe are most impactful in helping people of faith to challenge their faith? So if you're trying to undermine someone's

是的。信念，如何

Yes. Belief, how

做到这一点？

do you do that?

嗯，这取决于他们最初为何有信仰。在某些情况下，是因为设计论的观点。他们对尤其是生物的复杂性印象深刻，可能错误地认为这不可能发生，因为它不可能偶然发生，因此必定是设计的。他们没有意识到进化论不是关于偶然的理论，所以这是一点。另一方面，如果他们是被圣经或古兰经说服的，无论他们碰巧信奉哪本圣书，那么你可以通过研究那些真正考察这些圣书起源的学者来削弱它。

Well, it it depends what why they have faith in the first place. And in some cases, it's because of the argument from design. They're impressed by the complexity of especially living things and they may wrongly think that it can't happen because it can't happen by chance, therefore it must be by design. They don't realize that evolution is not a theory of chance so that that that's one thing. If on the other hand, they are persuaded by the bible or the Koran, whatever whichever their holy book happens to be, then you could undermine it by, looking at the scholars who have actually examined the origins of these holy books.

事实上，我正在读凯瑟琳·尼克斯的《异端》一书，我强烈推荐，它确实，如果我曾对基督教有任何向往，它肯定会彻底削弱这种想法。

Just a matter of fact, I'm reading at the moment Catherine Nixie's book, Heresy, which I strongly recommend and it really does, if I had any hankerings after Christianity, it certainly undermine it, good and proper.

除了生命起源之外，目前关于活细胞基本特征的公认起源是什么？

Beyond the origin of life, what is the current accepted origin for the basic features of living cells?

你问得好。除了起源，我猜你是指生命起源之后的事情。

There you go. Beyond the origin, you mean later than the origin of life, I suppose.

嗯，除了生命起源之外，目前关于活细胞基本特征的公认起源是什么？

Well, it's beyond the origin of life, what is the current accepted origin for the basic features of living cells?

我不确定‘除了生命起源之外’是什么意思，因为生命起源就是开始。我想生命起源应该是第一个自我复制分子的起源，那将是自然选择的开始，然后我认为第一个细胞的起源会比那稍晚一些。阿什，你觉得这是那个问题的含义吗？

I'm not sure what beyond the origin of life means because the origin of life well, It's the beginning. I suppose the origin of life would be the origin of the first self replicating molecule and that would be the start of natural selection and then I suppose the origin of the first cell would be a bit later than that. Is that the implication of that, Ash, do you think?

我只能假设是的。

I can only assume it is.

嗯，也许它指的是真核细胞，这可能要晚得多。真核细胞是一种复杂得多的细胞，是我们、植物和所有动物所拥有的，细胞有细胞核，内部还有许多复杂的结构，而细菌没有。那是由于两个原核生物或类似细菌的东西共生结合形成了真核细胞。泰特，这个我们之前讲过，但我

Well, perhaps it means the eukaryotic cell, which which was probably much later. The the eukaryotic cell being a much more complicated cell, which is which is what we have and what plants and all all animals have, where the the cell has a nucleus and it has a lot of complicated gubbins inside it as well, which bacteria don't have. And that's that came about because of a symbiotic union between two prokaryotes or two bacteria like things which came together to form the eukaryotic cell. This we've covered, Tait, but I

我想你特别提到了《自私的基因》。多年来，你的工作中是否有某些方面你进行了重大修改或重新思考？展望未来，你认为你的工作中哪些领域可能会经历最重大的修订或更新？

think you covered it specifically to the selfish gene. Over the years, have there been aspects of your work that you've significantly revised or reconsidered? Looking ahead, which areas of your work do you anticipate might undergo the most substantial revisions or updates?

是的，我经常被问到这个问题。目前我正在为《自私的基因》五十周年纪念版撰写序言，显然应该谈谈我会修改什么。但令人遗憾的是，我没有什么需要大改的——这并不是因为没有任何新进展，实际上基因组学领域发展非常迅速，但这并不影响《自私的基因》的基本观点，这是一个进化论的观点。

Yes. I I am often asked that, and and I think and I'm I'm often I mean, at the moment, I'm tasked with writing a preface to the fiftieth anniversary edition of the selfish gene. And, obviously, ought to be saying something about what what I would change. And the the rather sad answer is not very much because and it's not because none nothing has happened and I mean, enormous amount things have happened. It's it's a very fast moving field of genomics, but that doesn't really affect the fundamental point of the selfish gene, which is a which is a an evolutionary one.

因此，尽管在基因如何通过胚胎学作用产生身体方面取得了巨大进展且未来必将取得更多突破——这是一个非常令人兴奋的领域，对未来影响深远——但这并不影响基因作为自然选择单位的概念。因为我们只需讨论基因对身体产生影响并导致某些结果，而某些基因在自我复制上比其他基因更成功这一事实就是我们所需讨论的全部，这也是《自私的基因》的核心信息。基因与表型、基因与表现之间的黑箱细节被胚胎学家成功揭开，但这不会改变《自私的基因》的基本观点。

So although in immense strides are being made and certainly will be made in the way genes actually work in embryology to produce bodies, and that's a very exciting field and that's going to be immensely influential in the future. It doesn't affect the idea of genes as the units of natural selection because all we need to talk about there is that genes have effects on bodies leading out how they do that. The fact that some genes are more successful than others in propagating themselves is all we need to talk about and that is the fundamental message of the selfish gene and that's not changed by all the details of the black box that lies between genes and phenotype, between genes and the manifestation. That is a black box which is being opened up by embryologists very successfully but that won't change the fundamental point of the selfish gene itself.

这个问题是：当今哪种广泛的人类行为，你认为在一百年后会受到道德谴责，就像支持奴隶制之类的事情？

This question says, what is a widespread human practice today that you think will be looked back on in a hundred years' time with moral condemnation, you know, like supporting arsenal or something?

这个问题显然期待某个答案，我认为大致是正确的答案是我们对待非人类动物的方式。因为我觉得，这个词是——

The question obviously is expecting the answer, and I think it's sort the right one and the the way we treat nonhuman animals. Right. Because I think if you, I mean the word Is that

也包括吃肉吗？

eating meat as well?

是的。'物种歧视'这个词是通过类比'种族歧视'创造出来的，因为几个世纪前，种族歧视极为普遍，每个人都是种族主义者，而现在我们希望不再是了。不难想象，在一百年后，我们应该以同样的情感回顾我们物种歧视的时代。

Yes. The speciesism has been coined by analogy with racism because a couple of centuries ago, racism was absolutely endemic, everybody was racist and now we're not. I hope we're not. And, it's it's not a big stretch to imagine that in a 100 time, we we should look back on our species' times with the same feelings.

这是一个道德还是科学论点？因为反对吃肉的一个论点当然是它对气候的影响。

Is is that a moral or a scientific argument? Because, of course, the one of the arguments made against eating of meat is the the impact that it has on the climate.

嗯，那也是一个方面。我的意思是，它确实也是一个科学论点，但我认为提问者更倾向于道德论点，是在暗示一个更偏向道德的论证。是的。

Well, there there's that too. I mean, it it is a a a scientific argument as as well, but but I think the questioner was A moral. Was was implying a more moral argument. Yes.

第九个问题。回顾你卓越的科学生涯和人生，你认为自己作为科学家和/或作为一个人，最大的成就是什么？你希望留下怎样的遗产？那么我们先从作为科学家的最大成就和作为人的最大成就开始吧。我想两者都可以谈。

Question number nine. Looking back on your incredible career and life, what do you consider to be your biggest achievements as a scientist and or as a human being? And what would you like your legacy to be? So let's start with biggest achievements as a scientist and biggest achievements as a human being. It can be both, I guess.

我认为我的第二本书《延伸的表现型》是我作为科学家的最大成就，我在《自私的基因》第二版中也重申了这一点。为什么？嗯，这这这这大概是我最具原创性的贡献。我之前谈到基因通过它们对身体产生的影响而存活，而延伸的表现型不仅包括它们对所在身体的影响，还包括它们对整个世界的影响，这会增加它们自身的存活机会。延伸表现型最简单的例子是动物制品，比如鸟巢，它们不是身体的一部分，但显然是达尔文式的适应。

I suppose my second book, The Extended Phenotype, would be my biggest achievement as a scientist, and I reprise that in the second edition of The Selfish Gene. Why? Well, it it it it's I suppose it's my most original contribution. I was talking about genes surviving by virtue of the effect they have on bodies, and the extended phenotype is not only the effect they have on the body in which they sit, it's the effect they have on the world at large, which increases their own chance of survival. And the simplest examples of extended phenotypes are animal artifacts, things like birds nests, which are not part of the body, but nevertheless, obviously Darwinian adaptations.

它们显然是由自然选择塑造的，这意味着必然存在控制巢穴形状、巢穴大小、巢穴内衬等的基因。海狸坝是另一个例子，但我随后将其推广到寄生虫对宿主的影响。因此，有许多相当骇人的例子，寄生虫操纵宿主的行为以促进寄生虫自身的利益。例如，许多蠕虫，寄生蠕虫有一个中间宿主，可能是蜗牛或蚂蚁，而最终宿主也许是绵羊或牛。寄生虫，即蠕虫，需要蚂蚁或蜗牛被绵羊或牛吃掉，以便进入其生命史的下一阶段。

They're obviously shaped by natural selection and that means there has to be genes for nest shape, genes for nest size, genes for nest lining, etcetera. And any beaver dam is another example, but then I generalized from that to effects of parasites on their hosts. So there are lots of rather macabre examples of parasites manipulating the behavior of hosts in order to further the interest of the parasites. Many worms, for example, parasitic worms have an intermediate host, which might be a snail or might be an ant, and the definitive host is perhaps a sheep or a cow. And the the parasite, the worm, needs the ant or the or the snail to be eaten by a sheep or a cow in order to get into the next stage of its life history.

因此，它的做法是操纵蜗牛或蚂蚁的行为，增加蚂蚁被绵羊无意中吃掉的概率，它实际上会进入并爬进蚂蚁的大脑，在大脑中造成一个脑部病变，从而改变蚂蚁的行为，增加其被吃掉的概率。现在，这是一种表型效应，是蠕虫体内基因的一种延伸表型效应，是在寄生蠕虫体内。因此，它是一种达尔文式的适应，是由基因的自然选择产生的，而这些基因以影响蚂蚁行为的形式表现出来。所以这是论证的下一步，然后下一步会说，被操纵的生物体不必是，寄生虫不必位于宿主体内。杜鹃的雏鸟以类似的方式操纵其养父母，但它并不在养父母体内。

And so what it does is it manipulates the behavior of the snail or the ant to increase the probability that the ant will be eaten by inadvertently by a sheep and it actually goes into crawls into the brain and makes a brain lesion in the brain of the ant which changes the behavior of the ant, which increases its probability of being eaten. Now that is a phenotypic effect, an extended phenotypic effect of genes in the worm, in the in the parasitic worm. It is a Darwinian adaptation, therefore, it's produced by the natural selection of genes and the genes are manifesting themselves in the form of an effect on the behavior of the ant. So that's the next step in the argument and then the next step would be to say that the manipulated organism doesn't have to be, the parasite doesn't have to be sitting inside the the host. A cuckoo fledgling nestling is manipulating its foster parent in the same kind of way, but it's not sitting inside the foster parent.

所以这是远距离作用，然后远距离作用被进一步推广到任何形式的动物交流，例如鸟鸣。以金丝雀为例，雄性金丝雀的歌声会导致雌性金丝雀的卵巢肿胀，从而改变雌性的荷尔蒙状态。这是雄性基因在雌性身上产生的一种表型效应，因为它是作用于雄性基因的达尔文式适应。这就是延伸的表现型。

So this is action to distance and then action at a distance is generalized yet further to be any kind of animal communication, birdsong for example. Birdsong, in the case of canaries, the song of a male canary causes the ovaries of a female canary to swell and therefore changes the hormonal state of the female. This is a phenotypic effect in the female of genes in the male because it's a Darwinian adaptation working on genes in the male. That's the extended phenotype.

那么，如果那本书是你作为科学家的最大成功，你认为哪本书是你作为人的最大成功呢，还是同一本？

So if that book was your greatest success in as a scientist, what book would you identify as being your greatest success as a human being, or is it the same?

我不确定我作为一个人取得了多少成功。嗯，我写了一本叫《解析彩虹》的书，试图审视科学的诗意，并将科学视为文化的一个分支。

I'm not sure I've had much success as a human being. Well, I wrote I wrote a book called Unweaving the Rainbow, which was an attempt to examine the poetry of science and and to treat science as a as a branch of culture.

《上帝的错觉》难道不会在你对自己留下的最大印记的任何考量中占有一席之地吗？

Would not the god delusion feature in your any reckoning of the greatest mark you've left?

嗯，确实，我我我确实收到大量来信，人们说他们被改变了信仰，或者同样常见的是，这本书为他们清晰表达了他们已有的感受。

Well, it's true that that I've I've I do receive lots and lots of letters from people who who say they've been converted or or or or equally often that that it's articulated for them what they already felt.

理查德，这个问题是，抗生素耐药性是我们最大的威胁吗？我们能做些什么？

This question is, is antibiotic resistance, Richard, our biggest threat? What can we do about it?

是的。它是一个威胁。它可能不是我们最大的威胁，但它它它是一个威胁。它它，它是自然选择力量的一个很好例证，因为，当然，它就是自然选择。我在医生候诊室时相当恼火，我拿起一本小册子，鼓励人们完成抗生素疗程。

Yeah. I it's a threat. It's probably not our biggest threat, but it it it is a it is a threat. It's it's, it's a very good illustration of the power of natural selection because, of course, it it is natural selection. I was rather irritated when in my doctor's waiting room, I picked up a pamphlet which was encouraging people to finish their course of antibiotics.

它说，这样做的原因是细菌很聪明。但这并不是真正的原因。这是一个错失解释真正原因（即自然选择）的机会。

And it said, the reason for doing this is that bacteria are clever. Well, that's not the reason. It it it's such a missed opportunity to explain what the the real reason, which is natural selection.

你向你的全科医生提出过这个问题吗？

And did you bring this up with your GP?

我的全科医生太忙了，我没法跟他提这个。

My GP is too busy for me to bring that to

我的手指。好吧。行。好的。道金斯教授，在您看来，人类寻求生活目的和意义的天性是具有进化优势，还是仅仅是意识和智慧的副产品？

my finger. Okay. Right. Okay. Professor Dawkins, in your view, does the human tendency to seek purpose and meaning in life have an evolutionary advantage, or is it simply a byproduct of consciousness and intelligence?

这非常有趣。我认为它确实有优势。我认为任何编程良好的动物都会有一个它自己并不知道的终极目的，即传播其基因，但为了服务于这个终极目的，大脑被编程以发展出一系列近期目的，比如去猎取下一餐，然后这又分解为一些子目的，比如出发寻找猎物，然后繁殖。接着是寻找足迹或嗅闻地面等等。因此，会存在一个由目的嵌套目的的完整层级结构，这是一种非常明智的组织生活的方式。

And that's very interesting. I think it does have one. I think that any well programmed animal would be would have an ultimate purpose, which it doesn't know about, which is propagation of its genes, but in the service of that ultimate purpose, the brain is programmed to develop a set of proximal purposes which are things like go hunting for the next meal and then that breaks down to some sub purposes, which is whatever it is set set out looking for prey and then Reproduce. And then look at look for footprints or smell the ground, and there so that there'll be a whole nested hierarchy of purposes within purposes within within purposes, and that's a very sensible way to organize your life.

这个问题还有第二部分，它问：这种对意义的追求，是否会通过引导我们在不存在的地方强加模式和叙事，从而阻碍科学进步？

There's a part two of this question, which said, could this drive for meaning hinder scientific progress by leading us to impose patterns and narratives where none exist?

存在这种危险。我们可能倾向于写入模式和叙事，而不是...但它们也确实存在。所以我认为我们可能被“叙事”和“模式”这类词语的使用引入了歧途。

There is a danger of that. We are prone perhaps to write in patterns and narratives rather than But they do exist as well. So I I think we might be being led astray by the use of words like narrative and pattern pattern.

下一个问题。您认为我们会在太阳系内发现生命吗？您认为它会拥有相同的遗传密码吗？

Next question. Do you think we'll discover life in our solar system, and do you think it would have the same genetic code?

如果它有相同的遗传密码，那么我认为几乎可以肯定这是交叉感染的结果，因为遗传密码是如此任意，它独立出现两次的机会微乎其微。所以，例如，如果在火星上发现某种细菌生命，并且它碰巧拥有相同的遗传密码，那肯定是通过交叉感染。这并非不可能，因为我们确实知道有些落到地球上的陨石来自火星。反过来也有可能。所以我不认为我们应该在太阳系内发现生命。

If it had the same genetic code, then I think it would be pretty certain that it was by cross infection because the genetic code is so arbitrary that the I that the chance of it arising twice independently is is vanishingly small. So if, for example, some kind of bacterial life was discovered on Mars and it turned out to have the same genetic code, then that would definitely be by cross infection. That's not implausible because we do know that meteorites landing on earth have some of them have come from Mars. And so it could be other way around as well. So I don't think we should discover life in the solar system.

如果我们发现了，我会非常高兴，但我不认为这可能性很大。这确实关系到生命起源有多么不可能、生命起源事件概率有多低的问题。如果存在独立的生命，如果在火星上发现的生命拥有不同的遗传密码，也许是完全不同的遗传系统，我冒昧地说，它也会是达尔文式的生命，并拥有某种基因或遗传系统。假设我们在土卫二或火星上发现具有不同遗传密码的生命，那立刻意味着宇宙中充满了生命，因为如果它在一个太阳系内发生了两次，那就意味着生命起源是一个概率极高的事件。另一个极端是，如果宇宙中其他地方没有生命（有些人相信这一点，有些人相信我们是宇宙中任何地方唯一的生命形式）。

I'd be delighted if we did, but I don't think it's very likely. It it really bears upon the question of how improbable the origin of life, how improbable an event the origin of life was. If there is independent life, if life was discovered on Mars, which had a different genetic code, maybe relatively different genetic system altogether, I stick my neck out and say, it'll be Darwinian life and would have some kind of gene of genetics. So suppose we find life on Enceladus or on Mars, which had a different genetic code, that immediately means that life is that the universe is crawling with life because if it happened twice in one solar system, that means that the origin of life is a very, very probable event. The other extreme, if there's no life elsewhere in the universe, which some people believe, some people believe that we are the only life form anywhere in the universe.

如果你相信这一点，那么你就必须接受这样的观点：地球上的生命起源是一个极其不可能的事件，因为宇宙中有太多其他地方可能产生生命。如果它只在这里发生了一次，那就意味着这是一个如此不可能的事件，以至于我们不是在寻找一个合理的理论来解释它是如何发生的，而是在寻找一个高度、高度不可信的理论。我不相信这一点。所以我认为宇宙中很可能存在生命，但它可能非常罕见，整个宇宙中可能只有十亿个其他生命形式。

If you believe that, then you're committed to the view that the origin of life on this planet was a quite staggeringly improbable event because there are so many opportunities for it to have arisen elsewhere in the universe. If it only happened once here, then that means that it's such an improbable event that any theory we're not looking for a plausible theory of how it happened. We're looking for a highly, highly implausible theory for how it happened. I don't believe that. So I think that probably there is life in the universe, but it may be as rare as only a billion other life forms elsewhere in the universe.

只有十亿个确实非常、非常罕见。

Only a billion would be very, very rare indeed.

下一个问题是关于克里斯托弗·希钦斯的。如果希奇（Hitch）在这里和我们在一起，第一，你会问他什么？第二，你认为他会怎么说？

The next question is about Christopher Hitchens. If the hitch was here with us, one, what would you ask him? And two, what do you think he would say?

嗯，我只见过他大约五次，和他相处得很好。

Well, I only met him about five times and got on very well with him.

你很高兴他能站在你这边。

You were very pleased to have him on your side.

是的。我曾经写道，如果你被邀请与克里斯托弗·希钦斯辩论，请拒绝。我认为他是我见过的最雄辩的人。他对历史和政治有着卓越的掌握能力。他非常雄辩。

Yes. I once wrote, if you're invited to have a debate against Christopher Hitchens, decline. He was, I think the most eloquent person I've ever met. He had a magnificent command of history, politics. He was eloquent.

他可以信手拈来。我不确定我会问他什么。我的意思是，我不确定他会说什么，但我希望他在这里。

He could pull things out at the drop of a hat. I'm not sure what I would ask him. I mean, I'm not sure what he'd say, but I I I wish he were here.

鉴于你在宗教进化基础方面的工作，你认为宗教是否有可能进化或被其他能满足相同社会和心理角色的事物所取代？如果可以，我们该如何应对？嗯，你已经回答了这个问题。

Given your work on the evolutionary basis of religion, do you think religion could ever evolve or be replaced by something else that fulfills the same social and psychological roles? If so, how can we deal with that? Well, you've answered that question.

嗯，社会和心理角色，我的意思是，就它确实如此而言，例如，可以说它将人们联系在一起，给他们一个共同的目标。是的。可以以良好的情谊聚会，有很多方法可以做到这一点。所以我不反对这一点，我反对的只是宗教的事实主张。我认为，我所支持的世俗人文主义可能是这个问题的答案。

Well, social and psychological roles, I mean, in insofar as it does that, it for example, it could be argued that it binds people together, gives them a common purpose. It Yeah. Can meet together in in in good fellowship, and there are all sorts of ways you could do that. So I'm I'm I'm not against that, and and all I'm against is is the factual claims of of religion. I think that, secular humanism, of which I'm a supporter, is is, probably the answer to the question.

我们看到大多数西方国家的生育率急剧下降，各种原因被提出。西方生育率的下降是否可以作为自然人口控制的一部分，因为现代技术现在可以对抗饥饿和疾病？我们现在是否在潜意识里实施我们自己的控制？

We are seeing dramatic falls in reproductive rates in most Western countries with various reasons being touted. Can the drop in fertility in the West be part of a natural population control as starvation and illness can now be countered by modern technology? And are we now subconsciously implementing our own control?

我认为这其中有很多神秘主义色彩，因为那种认为大自然以某种方式看到人口控制的需求并因此采取措施实施的观点。大自然不是这样运作的，它没有预见能力。所以无论生育率下降的原因是什么，我认为不能将其描述为某种自然补偿或类似的东西。

There's a lot of mysticism in that, I think, because the idea that nature somehow sees a need for population control and therefore takes steps to implement it. That's not the way nature works. Nature has no foresight. So whatever the cause is of the drop in fertility, I don't think it's can be written I don't think it can be described as some kind of natural compensation or something like that.

最后，我们即将结束，只剩下几分钟时间。这个问题说：我的背景是生物学。但我目前正在修读一门社会研究课程，该课程声称性别或种族没有生物学基础。

Now, lastly, and we're coming to the end now, we've only got a few minutes left. This question says, my background is in biology. However, I'm currently undertaking a social research course which state that there is no biological basis to gender or race.

什么

What

您对此持什么立场？

what is your stance on this?

嗯，如果他们所说的性别是指生理性别，那几乎不可能有比这更大的生物学基础了。我的意思是，所有动植物都有两种性别，其基础是配子大小。所以存在两种配子，大的和小的。大的是卵子，小的是精子，所有动植物都有两种性别。即使是雌雄同体生物，它们也拥有雄性器官或雌性器官，所以这很简单。

Well, if by gender they mean sex, there could hardly be a greater biological basis. I mean, there are two sexes in all animals and plants, and the basis of the of this is gamete size. So there are there are two kinds of gametes, big ones and small ones. Big ones are eggs, small ones are sperms, and, there are two sexes in all animals and plants. Even in hermaphrodites, they have either male farts or female farts, so that that's easy.

种族则更为复杂。像理查德·卢翁廷这样杰出的生物学家曾说过，不存在种族这回事。显然存在地理上不同的种群——不是截然不同的种群，而是基因在特定地理区域的分布，这些基因可识别地来自某些地区。所以，如果你找来一个日本人、一个澳大利亚原住民、一个乌干达人、一个挪威人、一个纳瓦霍人和一个亚诺马米人，让人们猜测他们各自来自哪个国家，大多数人都能准确无误地猜中。所以很明显，基因变异在人群中的分布存在地理差异。

Race is is more difficult. It has been said by, distinguished biologists such as Richard Lewontin, there's no such thing as race. There are clearly, geographical geographically distinct populations, not distinct populations but geographically distributions of genes in certain geographical areas which are recognizably coming from certain areas. So if you if you were to get us say a Japanese, an Australian aboriginal, a Ugandan, Norwegian and a Navajo and Yanomamo and invited people to guess which country each of these came from, most people would guess infallibly. So there is clearly a variation in genetic variation in peoples geographically distributed.

然而，这些变异是重叠的，并且显然它们完全能够相互杂交。卢翁廷提出的观点是种族间的变异大于种族内的变异。抱歉，说反了——种族内的变异大于种族间的。但遗传学家AWF·爱德华兹将其称为卢翁廷谬误，他指出变异是相关的，这就是为什么能够识别某些人来自世界何处。

They are however overlapping and they are perfectly capable of interbreeding obviously. The point that Luntin made is that the variation between races is greater than the variation with it. Sorry. The other way around variation within is greater than between. But it this has been described as Luontin's fallacy by the geneticist, AWF Edwards, who pointed out that the variation is correlated and that's why it's possible to recognize where certain people come from in world.

重要的是，从道德角度来说，我们应该说这并不重要，我们不应基于种族进行歧视。这才是关键。我们不应否认存在某种地理分布的基因变异。我们绝不能做的是基于种族而非个人品质来歧视和评判他人。

The important thing, the moral thing is to say that it doesn't matter and we should not discriminate on basis of race. That's that's the important thing. We shouldn't deny that that there is some genetic variation which is which is geographically distributed. What we must not do is discriminate, judge people on the basis of their race rather than on the basis of their individual qualities.

现在请大家，如果方便的话，请起立为理查德·道金斯教授鼓掌。

Now please, if you can and it's comfortable, be upstanding for professor Richard Dawkins.