【2017-10-17】 @whigzhou: 去年我在谈论当代低生育率问题时，曾提出一个猜想：传统文化对婚育行为所创造的强大约束，或许弱化了部分人类的本能生育倾向，结果是，即便这方面本能已有所削弱的个体，也并不比其他人少生育，于是，当文化约束在现代迅速解除时，生育率便急剧下降。（当然，这里说的只是需求侧，成本侧还有诸多原因，对后者已经有了足够多的分析，我就不啰嗦了） @whigzhou: 最初产生这个念头是在若干年前考虑文化宽容对同性恋的影响时，今天又想了一下，发现这其实可以推广为一个更一般的原理，不妨将其称为『寄居蟹效应』（典出自《群居的艺术》第二部分导言）：文化铠甲让我们变得更强大，但也替代从而削弱了我们的某些本能，就像寄居蟹丧失了部分甲壳。 @whigzhou: 最著名的例子是骨骼纤细化，工具和火的控制部分取代并弱化了我们的牙齿、咬肌、口轮匝肌和颚骨…… @whigzhou: 文化进化一定也在我们生理和心理系统的许多方面留下了痕迹，而且不同群体所走过的不同文化经历留下的痕迹将有所不同，我相信沿此方向的探索会有不少发现，近视眼会不会是个候选？

食物与人类#2：吃还是不吃 辉格 2018年6月18日 常有人感叹人类食谱之广泛，简直能把什么东西都弄上餐桌，从某些角度看，确实如此，不过这里有几件容易混淆的事情，首先，人类食谱之广泛，主要归功于人类文化的巨大多样性，群体间的饮食习俗差异，以及个体间的口味嗜好差异，假如分解到单个群体或个人，其广度就远不如一本《食材大全》所显示的那么值得惊叹了。 其次，假如我们随便挑几个食俗不像因纽特人那么极端的群体，用赫芬达尔-赫希曼指数(Herfindahl-Hirschman Index)——这是经济学家度量供方离散度的标准方法——来测量食物来源离散度，那么人类得分确实不低，毕竟我们是杂食动物，可是，假如我们把衡量标准换成『有能力消化因而有可能吃多少种食物并从中获取营养』的话，那么得分最高的脊椎动物远不是人类，而是——你或许会吃惊——食草动物（注：除非特别说明，本文所谈论的动物仅限于脊椎动物）。 食草动物也吃肉 因为凡食肉动物和杂食动物吃的东西，食草动物几乎也都能吃，鹿经常被观察到在啃动物尸体，甚至同类的内脏，牛在吃草叶时也常有开点小荤的机会：草丛里的蜗牛，树上掉下来的雏鸟或鸟蛋，死老鼠……河马上岸吃草时甚至偶尔会主动猎杀动物，畜牧业者也早就懂得往牛羊饲料里添加屠宰下脚料。 反过来却不行，食草动物消化纤维素和对付植物毒素的能力太强大了，以至很多被它们当作主食的植物其他动物都吃不了，而食草动物很少吃其主食之外的东西，特别是肉食，并不是因为消化吸收上存在任何障碍，而是一种策略选择：基于它们在生理和技能上的相对优势，把时间和精力花在寻找、争夺和获取肉食上，几乎总是不划算的。 比如一头鹿，在一天中可用于觅食的那几个小时里，若面临两个选择：要么专心吃树叶（并时刻警惕着随时出没的老虎），要么漫游林中寻找尚未过度腐烂的动物尸体，动物尸体能量密度高，消化成本低，一只野兔或许顶得上啃两天树叶的净收益，可同时，大张旗鼓的搜索尸体，扩大了活动范围，提高了自己的活跃度和曝光率，因而更可能被老虎吃掉，也增加了与食腐动物（比如狼）发生冲突的机会。 更要命的是，搜索尸体的结果远不如啃树叶那么确定，很可能连续几天一无所获，况且鹿又不像食腐动物那样具备远距离发现尸体所需要的灵敏嗅觉，也不像老虎那样能够大块吞肉，一次吃下一周所需，相比之下，树叶虽能量密度低，消化成本高，但收益十分确定，因其难消化，竞争者也少，而且竞争者都是无威胁的食草动物。 只有当尸体是沿途偶遇的，并且附近没有危险的竞争者，因而无须承担上述种种风险时，鹿才会去吃，这就好比偷窃，食肉动物是职业小偷，将生计建立在偷窃之上，并为此而发展了高度特化于偷窃的生理机制、行为模式和后天技能，食草动物没有这些优势，但若是有顺手牵羊的便宜机会出现，它们也不会漠然放过。 草饲与谷饲 所以，尽管食草动物拥有强大的纤维素消化和毒素处理能力，但只要在成本与风险无差异的条件下给它们选择，它们还是会偏爱高能量密度、低消化成本和低毒性的食物，野生条件下，成本风险无差异这个条件只是偶尔会满足，而在人工饲养时，由于这些成本和风险转移给了饲养者，而后者拥有的技术又将它们降至极低水平，因而可以轻松满足。 于是我们有了谷饲牛，与草饲相比，谷饲牛长肉快，产肉多，脂肪含量高，容易出雪花，同等产肉量所需土地面积仅为草饲的1/3，这些优点对于谷物充裕而草场相对稀缺（相对于加拿大、澳洲和阿根廷）的美国尤为显著，西欧谷物和草场都稀缺，所以更倾向于往饲料里添加屠宰下脚料，这也是为何疯牛病首先在西欧爆发的缘故。 有些情况下，谷饲不仅有好处，而且不可或缺，比如军马；若是只吃草，马一天至少要花八小时咀嚼草料（这是人工饲喂干草的情况，若自己在草场吃，需十几个小时），每公斤嚼3500-4500下，约需40分钟，而且吃完后三四小时内消化负担极重，其长达20米的小肠在此期间将分泌100多升消化液，随后50多升食糜进入一米多长的盲肠并在那里开始发酵。 这样，每天能用于行军（牵引或骑乘）和作战的时间就十分有限，最多四五个小时，这还得益于马的睡眠很短，每天不到三小时，外加两三个小时的伏坐休息，所以它们能在夜晚继续进食；但若能将部分草料换作谷物，比如燕麦，每公斤咀嚼次数便降至850次，只需十分钟，替换一半即可省下三小时进食时间，并大幅减轻消化负担。 正是谷饲，让优良役马在轻负荷条件下每天能工作多至8-10小时，从而让一些骑兵部队能以每天50-60公里的速度行军（如果能沿路获得补给的话），勉强超出罗马步兵自带给养的行军速度，至少马不再是行军速度的瓶颈。 最优觅食理论 关于特定动物吃什么，不吃什么，偏爱哪些食物，优先寻找哪些食物，当条件改变时食谱会如何改变，以及有关动物食性的其他种种问题，生物学家发展了一套被称为最优觅食理论（optimal foraging theory, OFT）的成本收益分析方法来寻找解释，该理论考虑的因素主要有：觅食的时间成本，失败的几率和自身的风险承受能力，各种食源的竞争强度和自身的竞争优势，在消化能力和消化成本上的相对优势，因暴露在觅食环境中而被捕食的风险，中毒风险，等等。 理解该理论的一个要点是，某种动物花最多时间和努力去寻找，因而事实上也吃得最多的，未必是（且常常不是）它最喜爱的食物，反之，它很少或根本不花精力去寻找某些食物，未必是它消化不了、不爱吃、或没能力获取，而常常是因为，在综合考虑上述因素之后，它“发现”，把时间精力投入在寻觅该食物上并不合算，要么失败风险高的难以承受，要么边际净收益低于将这份时间精力投入于其他食源的收益。 沿着这条思路，不同动物的食性差异，觅食相关的种种行为模式，以及人类饮食习俗的形成与变迁，都将得到更为深入也更系统化的理解。 食草与食肉 这是最鲜明的一组对比，但这对名称本身并未揭示出这一对比的要点所在，关键区别其实并不在于食物来自植物还是动物，而在于对待风险的策略差异：食草动物代表了策略光谱的稳妥保守一端，而像猫科这样的顶级食肉动物则代表了冒险激进一端。 捕猎是高风险活动，专以捕猎为生更是高风险生存策略；捕猎成功率往往很低，而且越是大型猎食者越倾向于大型猎物，而猎物越大，成功率越低，猫科之王老虎的成功率只有5-10%，北极熊10%，狼14%，非洲狮18%，体型苗条的猎豹成功率高的出奇，40-50%，但猎物经常被抢走；对于大型猎食者，连续几天空手而归的情况很平常，他们就像赌场里喜欢博大输赢的赌客，赢上一把够吃上一阵，但经常输个精光。 相比之下，草虽然营养密度低，摄食时间长，消化负担重，但分布广泛，供给充分，收益非常确定，一份付出一份回报，是勤恳吃苦耐劳者可以依靠的生计来源；但具备这些特征的食物未必来自植物，在海滩捡拾贝类，在蚁穴舔食蚂蚁或白蚁，在河流入海口捕捞洄游鱼群，都更像是采集而非捕猎，那些以此为生的动物，在生理特征和行为模式上更靠近食草动物。 比如在食蚁兽身上，你看不到食肉动物的典型特征：大脑发达，认知能力强，活跃好动，好奇心强，爱探索，爱玩耍，反倒有许多食草动物的特征：安静，不好动，重防御，以及高度特化的摄食与消化系统：能快速伸缩的超长舌头，高粘度的唾液，胃内用于碾碎昆虫的搓板状结构（类似鸟类的嗉囊），分泌的胃酸是甲酸而非常见的盐酸；类似的，以洄游鱼群为主食的人类族群，其文化与社会结构的各方面都更像农耕者而非狩猎者。 风险策略上的分化，起初可能只是因为所处环境不同，比如在空旷平坦的大草原上捕猎，比在温带森林中困难的多，因为最普遍的捕猎方式是偷偷靠近然后突然袭击，老虎和豹在扑袭之前通常会贴近猎物到十几米甚至几米以内，这一战术需要有足够多的掩蔽物，树丛、土丘、岩石、沟壑，或特别高的草，只有像猎豹这样速度优势极为显著的猎手才会在百米之外就发动进攻，或者像非洲野狗这样的团队捕猎者，能靠合作与耐力长途追逐猎物将其拖垮；总之，在那些捕猎难度过高的生态位（另一个例子是热带雨林的树冠层）中，动物更可能向保守稳妥的食草、食果或食虫发展，反之亦然。 然而一旦策略分化出现并长期持续，进化机制便会将这一差异扩大并固化下来，选择压力作用之下，主吃低营养密度食物的动物，重点发展消化和防御，而食肉动物则重点发展搜索、追踪、潜行、擒杀等捕猎技能，这些特征，相信大家都已耳熟能详，这里我仅以视觉为例略加说明。 同样是两只眼睛，食草动物更注重视野广度，以便全方位探知正在靠近的捕猎者，所以双眼分别朝向头部两侧，视野重叠少，比如牛的视野广度330度，重叠部分仅20-50度，马的视野350度，重叠65度，而食肉动物则高度依赖立体视觉和景深感知，因而两眼向前，形成双眼视觉，视野广度小，但重叠度大，比如猫的视野200度，重叠140度，这一差别，在食肉猛禽和其他鸟类的对比中也可看到。 随着时间推移，选择了不同觅食策略的动物逐渐被自然选择朝着不同方向改造，从生理构造，行为模式，到生存技能，都发生了与其主要食物对应的特化适应；这些改造是全方位和成套出现的，因为生理结构受着基本生化规律和长期积累的进化包袱的严格局限，其设计空间有限，要强化某方面性能，就不得不在其他方面作出牺牲，比如发达的消化系统往往对应着较小的大脑和较低的认知能力。 而且很多生理/行为特性是连锁的，一个改动将引发一系列相应改动，而食性改变往往是触发连串改动的初始启动因素，因而它总是我们认识一种动物生理、习性和行为模式——以及，对于人类，文化与社会结构——的最佳起点；比如在开阔草原吃草的动物都成群出没，这不是因为它们友爱互助，恰好相反，它们需要同类替它们挡子弹：在开阔地躲避捕食者的最好办法就是往同类群里扎；成群出没的习性极大提升了雄性间的性竞争强度，和交配关系中的雌雄比，继而导致雄性发达的第二性征和巨大的性器官。 重要的是，特化适应是个不断加速的正反馈过程，策略选择与生理/技能改变轮番相互加强：消化能力越提升，食草策略越受青睐，爪牙越锐利，立体视觉越好，捕猎越有优势，食肉策略越受青睐，反之，草叶在食谱中比例越高，对消化系统的选择压力越强，肉类比例越高，对爪牙和双眼视觉选择压力越强，如此循环，走上一条特化的不归路。 专食与杂食 物种（及更大类元）在特化道路上可能会走得很远，考拉几乎只吃桉树叶，而桉叶以营养低、难消化和毒性强而著称，桉叶精油是强效杀虫杀菌剂，只有考拉和一些负鼠有能力对付；对付桉叶的独特能力让考拉占据了一个极少竞争的生态位，但也失去了很多：考拉代谢率非常低，行动迟缓，反应迟钝，活动范围小，每天睡20个小时，清醒时间几乎全部用来嚼桉叶……幸好澳洲没有擅长爬树的大型食肉动物（比如豹）。 猫科则走向另一个极端，它们将捕猎禀赋发展到了极致，但由于几乎专吃肉食，其消化系统处理植物的能力严重退化，比如味觉系统丧失了甜味感受器，而后者是辨别植物营养价值的重要手段；无论朝哪个方向，高度特化都降低了物种的适应灵活性，当食物来源随环境条件而改变，或出现新的天敌或竞争者时，很难转向或掉头。 然而并非所有动物都沿食性特化道路走的很远，熊科和猪科都是高度杂食的，犬科和人科的食谱也相当广泛；杂食让这些动物保持了应对环境变化的适应灵活性，所以熊科里才会既有专吃肉食的北极熊，也有吃素——而且几乎只吃极难消化的竹子——的大熊猫，大熊猫从杂食向素食的转变只有两三百万年的历史（和人类转向肉食的时间差不多），这很好的展示了熊科的灵活性。 当然，大熊猫要是在这个特殊生态位下继续进化几百上千万年，或许也会像考拉一样走上高度特化的不归路，反过来说，杂食性可能恰恰体现了这些动物的祖先所走过的进化道路上，环境条件的摆动更频繁，幅度更大，从未提供充足时间让它们完成食性特化。 机会主义者 杂食性代表了一种觅食策略上的机会主义，在素食-肉食这一光谱上，它显然处于中间位置，不过，这个维度对我们理解该策略并没有多大帮助，我们最好从时间分配的角度看待它，即，在面临各种潜在的觅食机会时，将多少时间分配给自己熟悉且擅长处理的食物源，而多少分配给较为陌生的，新颖的，充满未知因素的，价值不明确的食物源。 让我用一个有点类似的生活问题来说明我的意思：我发现自己在超市买食品时经常面临一个两难：日复一日的买同样的食品，难免让人厌倦，感觉自己错过了太多美味，可是尝试新鲜事物的风险也很高，以我个人经验，其中大部分会让我失望，很多最后进了垃圾桶，所以必须作出权衡：将多少预算分配给新食品？多年前我还不会做饭时，在选择餐馆上也面临同样权衡：每十顿饭里几顿留给熟悉的饭馆，几顿用来探索新饭馆？ 一旦我们转换到守旧-探索这一维度上，便发现，原来杂食动物才是策略上的激进分子，它们随时准备捕捉任何出现在面前的新机会，而不是一心专注于自己最熟悉擅长的食物源上；所谓机会主义，就是对特定食物源较少持有内在偏好或固有习惯，对新食源总是持开放态度，某一时刻作何选择，全看哪个机会在此时此刻的有着最高预期收益。 这听起来简单，实则对动物的某些禀赋极具挑战，诚然，杂食性对特定捕食技能——诸如鹰的锐眼，猫的柔韧性，鳄鱼的咬合力——没有那么强的选择压力，可是对综合感官和一般认知能力的要求却很高，因为它要求动物在不断面临新情境、新食源的条件下能够良好辨别物体种类与数量，评估其可食性、营养价值和中毒风险，以及面对不同竞争者时的获胜可能性，正因此，猪、熊、狗普遍有着较高的智力，鸟类中的杂食冠军乌鸦也以高智力出名，更别提人科了。 不妨再以人类职业倾向作类比，许多人偏爱一份稳定职业，有着相对固定的收入，就像食草动物，也有些人是命中注定的连续创业者，朝九晚五这种事情对他们是完全不可接受的，他们是食肉动物，但还有另一些人，他们对职业类型没有任何内在偏好，没有好机会时，也能朝九晚五安心打一份工，可一旦机会出现，比如诱人的跳槽机会，激动人心的创业念头，捞笔外快的良机，则决不会轻易放过，他们是杂食动物——一个并不像其名称所显示的那么中庸的类型。   参考资料 Richard Wrangham: Catching Fire (2009) Wikipadia: Optimal foraging theory Wikipadia: Cattle feeding Wikipadia: Bovine spongiform encephalopathy Wikipadia: Binocular vision Wikipadia: Koala Wikipadia: Eucalyptus Wikipadia: Cat senses Wikipadia: Giant panda How Horses Digest Feed https://aaep.org/horsehealth/how-horses-digest-feed Sleep Requirements of Horses https://ker.com/equinews/sleep-requirements-horses/ Grazing Management for Horses http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/agriculture/livestock/horses/feed-requirements-of-horses/grazing-and-feeding/grazing-management-for-horses Hunting success rates: how predators compare http://www.discoverwildlife.com/animals/hunting-success-rates-how-predators-compare Anteater Facts http://facts.net/anteater/ Lori Marino & Christina M. Colvin: Thinking Pigs https://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com.au/&httpsredir=1&article=1042&context=acwp_asie The Average Bear Is Smarter Than You Thought https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/the-average-bear-is-smarter-than-you-thought/  

【2016-05-18】 @Helen干杯:关于保守派以高生育率取胜, 恐怕难。现在生育率高的时移民,且移民多为民主党所虏。 @whigzhou: 亚裔移民生育率很低，比白人低，第二代更低，拉丁移民第一代生育率很高（但也没摩门教徒高），第二代就高得不多了 @whigzhou: 不同种族背景移民前三代生育率：http://t.cn/RqFqmHV @whigzhou: 当前亚裔移民年度增量已超过拉丁裔，墨西哥移民已开始净流出，若边境控制收紧，还会继续降低，所以移民生育率高这个判断已不再成立 @whigzhou: 半只烤鸭下肚，再说说刚才那个生育率的问题。 1）要区分生育意愿和实际生育率，前者是行为倾向，后者是行为表现， 2）所谓行为倾向就是将外部条件映射为实际行为的函数， 3）两个在某件事上有着不同行为倾向的人，对应两个行为函数， 4）这两个函数在某个区间可以是重合的， 5）这意味着，拥有不同生育意愿的人，在区间A有着相同生育率，在区间B则不同 6）决定生育率的行为函数有着众多参数，姑且只考虑其中三个：A）收入，B）迫使个人生儿育女的社会压力，C）与生养儿女竞争时间（特别是女性时间）和金钱的各种其他活动的机会（或曰诱惑）， 7）现代化和城市化尽管提高了收入，但也大幅降低了不生育带来的成本B，并大幅提高了生育带来的成本C， 8）与自由派相比，保守派对成本B更敏感，对成本C更不敏感， 9）所以，即便两种生育函数在传统条件下接近重合，可是当B和C大幅改变时，其行为表现上的差距就拉开了 10）同性恋的情况与之相似（可能表现得更纯粹更极端），在传统社会的巨大社会压力下，同性恋尽管缺乏意愿，实际上多数也会结婚生子，换句话说，他们的行为函数和其他人的函数在传统区间取值很接近甚至大致重合，但在现代区间就形同天壤了， 11）那些不肯生或生的很少的人，绝大多数并非不喜欢孩子，而是因为一方面促使其生育的社会压力消失了，同时自己又经不住各种与孩子抢时间的现代诱惑，结果她们便转向各种帮助其释放母爱的廉价替代品，于是便有了猫狗党和圣母婊。 【2018-2-15】 昨天发现这一逻辑在经济学里已经有了名字，叫动机挤出（[[motivation crowding]]）或过度正当化效应（[[overjustification effect]]），只是还没人将它运用于生育率问题，目前的应用场景也都不涉及遗传改变，实际上，这是考察文化-基因协同进化的很好切入点。 鲍德温效应和动机挤出是文化-基因协同进化的两种很相似但方向恰好相反的效应，前者由文化条件对遗传特征作同向拉动，后者作替代。

‘When life hands you a lemon, just bite in’ “如果生活递给你一个柠檬，那就去咬它吧” 作者:Judith Rich Harris @ 2016-09 译者:明珠(@老茄爱天一爱亨亨更爱楚楚) 校对:辉格(@whigzhou) 来源:The Psychologist, http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-29/september/when-life-hands-you-lemon-just-bite Judith Rich Harris takes Lance Workman through her extraordinary fightback against entrenched views of child development. Judith Rich Harris对话Lance Workman，对已被深深认同的儿童发展心理学观点作出了非同寻常的回击。 Judith Rich Harris is a psychologist and author. Judith Rich Harris是一位心理学家和作家。 【译注：粗体字是Workman的提问，常字体是Harris的回答】 I first become aware of you when I read The Nurture Assumption in 1998. In it you proposed that a child’s peer group has greater influence on development than her parents. Can we begin by outlining this theory? 我第一次认识你是读到你1998年出版的《教养的迷思》。在书中你提到，同龄人群体对孩子成长的影响大于父母。我们从简要概括这个理论开始，好吗？ Group socialisation theory was my attempt to solve a puzzle I had encountered while writing child development textbooks for college students. My textbooks endorsed the conventional view of child development – that what makes children turn out the way they do is ‘nature’ (their genes) and ‘nurture’ (the way their parents bring them up). But after a while it dawned on me that there just wasn’t enough solid evidence to support that view, and there was a growing pile of evidence against it. 群体社会化理论是我在撰写儿童发展心理学的大学教材时试图解决的难题。我的教材赞同儿童发展心理学的传统观点——是‘先天本性’（基因）和‘后天培养’（父母养育他们的方式）共同使孩子们形成他们的做事方式。但一段时间后我明白了，并没有足够确凿的证据支持这个观点，同时，反对证据却越来越多。 The problem was not with the ‘nature’ part – genes were having their expected effect. But ‘nurture’ wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. In studies that provided some way of controlling for or eliminating the effects of heredity, the environment provided by parents had little or no effect on how the children turned out. 问题不在于‘天性’部分——基因有其预期效果。不过‘培养’并未如大家所认为的方式发生作用。在一些以某种方式控制或消除了遗传作用的研究中，父母提供的环境对孩子如何变成后来的样子很少或者没有影响。 And yet, genes accounted for only about 50 per cent of the variation in personality and social behaviour. The environment must be playing some role. But it wasn’t the home environment. So I proposed that the environment that has lasting effects on personality and social behaviour is the one the child encounters outside the home. 然而，基因改变个性和社会行为的作用大约只占50%。环境肯定发挥着一定的作用。但这不是家庭环境。因此我认为，持久影响孩子个性和社交行为的环境是其面对的家庭之外的环境。 This makes sense if you think about the purpose of childhood. What do children have to accomplish while they’re growing up? They have to learn how to behave in a way that is acceptable to the other members of their society. How do they do this? Not by imitating their parents! Parents are adults, and every society prescribes different behaviours for children and adults. 如果想想童年的目标，你会发现这是有道理的。随着孩子长大他们不得不做什么呢？他们不得不学习他们的社交圈里其他成员可以接受的行为方式。他们如何做到这一点？不是通过模仿父母！父母是成年人，社会给孩子和成人规定了不同的行为。 A child who behaved like his or her parents (in any context other than a game) would be seen as impertinent, unruly or weird. So the first step in becoming socialised must be to figure out what sort of person you are. Are you a child or an adult? A male or a female? In complex societies there are more categories, but age and gender were probably enough for the small groups of hunter-gatherers of our ancestors. 在除游戏之外的任何情境下，孩子若像父母那样行事，会被视为不得体、任性或怪异。因此，社会化的第一步是弄清楚你属于哪类人。是孩子还是成人？男人还是女人？复杂社会分类更多，但年龄和性别对于我们祖先的狩猎采集小团体可能足够了。 Once a child had identified with a particular social category – let’s say, female child – her next job would be to learn how to behave like the others in her category. A social category is an abstract concept, not necessarily an actual group of children. My use of the term ‘peer group’ turned out to be misleading. I should have said ‘social category’ or perhaps ‘reference group’. 一旦一个孩子明确了自己属于某个特定社会类别——比方说，女童——她接下来的工作将是学会如何像她这个类别的其他人一样行事。一个社会类别是一个抽象概念，并非儿童的实际群体。我后来发现使用‘同龄人群体’这个术语是个误导。我应该说‘社会类别’或者‘参照群体’。 Why?  为什么？ The problem with ‘peer group’ was that it made people think ‘friends’. Group socialisation theory is not about the influence of friends. Friendships are relationships. Socialisation is not a product of relationships. ‘同龄人群体’这个词的问题在于，它让人想到‘朋友’。群体社会化理论无关朋友的影响。友谊是关系。社会化不是关系的产物。 The expanded theory presented in my second book, No Two Alike, explains why. The theory is based on the idea, put forth by evolutionary psychologists such as Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, that the human mind is modular, a collection of specialised devices which each evolved as a solution to a specific problem or need. 我在第二本书《没有两个人是一样》中提出的扩展理论解释了其中缘由。这个理论基于如进化心理学家Leda Cosmides和John Tooby所提出的思想，即人类大脑是模块化的，是一套随着解决某个特定问题或需要而进化出的专门化元件的集合。 I proposed that there are three such devices involved in social development – the relationship system, the socialisation system and the status system. These systems work more or less independently; sometimes they even issue contradictory commands. They collect different kinds of information from the environment and process it in different ways. Friendships – like parent–child relationships – are in the purview of the relationship system, which collects data on specific individuals and makes fine distinctions among them. The socialisation system, in contrast, doesn’t bother with individuals – it computes means. It forms a prototype for each social category. The child is influenced by the norms of the social category she identifies with, even if she never interacts personally with any of its members. 我提出三种元件参与社会发展——关系系统、社会化系统和身份系统。这些系统或多或少独立工作；有时他们甚至发出相互矛盾的命令。它们从环境中收集不同种类信息并以不同方式进行处理。友谊——如亲子关系——属于关系系统范畴，它收集特定个体的数据，并在它们之间做出精准区别。相反，社会化系统与个体无关，它计算的是平均情况。它构成了每种社会类别的原型范式。孩子是被其身份认同的社会类别的规范所影响，即便她从未亲自与群体其他成员发生互动。 The Nurture Assumption completely split the field. People either said it was a serious step forward in our understanding of child development or they just weren’t having any of it. I’m in the first camp – it changed my view of child development. But why do you think there was so much hostility? 《教养的迷思》彻底分裂了这个研究领域。要么有人说这是我们理解儿童发展心理向前迈进的重要一步，要么就说它什么也不是。我是前者，它改变了我关于儿童发展心理学的看法。但是，为什么对它有这么多敌意呢？ Part of the problem was the media coverage, which was often headlined ‘Do parents matter?’. Parents were understandably irked by the question. (My answer, by the way, is: Of course parents matter!) 部分问题出在媒体报道，它们常用‘父母重要吗？’这样的标题。可以理解家长们被这样的问题搞得苦恼不已。（顺便说一句，我的回答是：当然，父母重要！） But the real opposition to my work came from the academic world – from professors of developmental psychology. Some of these people had spent their entire careers doing studies designed to support the traditional view of child development. Then some troublemaker pops up – a complete nobody, with no PhD and no academic affiliation – and announces that the professors are wrong and their studies are worthless. You wouldn’t expect them to greet me with open arms, would you? 但是对我工作的真正反对来自学术世界——发展心理学的教授们。他们中的一些人毕其全部职业生涯做研究，旨在支持儿童发展心理学的传统观点。然后一些捣乱者冒了出来——不知何方人士，没有博士学位，没有学术任职——就胆敢声称教授们是错误的，他们的研究毫无价值。你不会指望他们张开双臂欢迎我，对吗？ You were particularly critical of their correlational studies of development.  你对于发展心理学相关研究表现的特别有批判性。 I still see those worthless studies all the time – they get a lot of publicity. I see them as a shameful waste of time and research money. I see them as reminders that I failed in my goal of reforming the methodology of developmental psychology. 我总是仍然看到那些毫无价值的研究——他们获得大量宣传。我认为这是时间和研究经费的可耻浪费。我将这些视为对我改革发展心理学之方法论的雄心所受挫折的提醒。 The studies are worthless because the results they produce are ambiguous, so the researchers can interpret them any way they please. Let’s say they find a correlation between how often a family eats dinner together and how well their teenager manages to stay out of trouble. Such results are presented as evidence that eating dinner with their parents has ‘protective’ effects on teenagers. 这些研究毫无价值，因为其结果模棱两可，研究者以他们乐意的任何方式解释之。比方说，他们找到了一家人多久一起共进晚餐和青少年多大程度上努力不出乱子之间的相关性。这个结果作为与父母共进晚餐对青少年有‘保护’作用的证据呈现出来。 But the research method provides no way of controlling for, or estimating, the effects of inherited genes on the teenagers’ behaviour. (Conscientious parents tend to have conscientious children.) No way of controlling for what I call ‘child-to-parent effects.’ (Parents are more likely to enjoy eating dinner with well-behaved teenagers.) No way of controlling for the teenagers’ own willingness to show up at dinnertime. (Teenagers are less likely to enjoy eating dinner with their parents if they are doing things their parents don’t approve of.) The researchers assume that, even though these other factors might play a role, some of the correlation must be due to the beneficial effects of family dinners. That is a logically indefensible assumption, not supported by studies that do provide the necessary controls. 但是研究方法却没有提供任何控制或者估计遗传基因影响青少年行为的方法（有责任心的父母的孩子往往有责任心）。没有控制我所说的‘从孩子到父母的影响’（父母更乐意与举止礼貌的孩子共进晚餐）。没有控制青少年自己乐意露面的晩餐时间（如果青少年正在做父母不认可的事情，他们不大可能喜欢与父母共进晚餐）。研究者认为，尽管其他因素可能有一定作用，但一些相关肯定是由于家庭晚餐的正面作用。这是一个逻辑上站不住脚的假设，并且没有得到那些确实控制了其他因素的研究的支持。 I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to state that The Nurture Assumption pretty much made you famous almost overnight. It’s not only a radical alternative to traditional ideas, but also a real ‘page-turner’. Was it your intention to write in that style? 我不觉得《教养的迷思》几乎让你一夜之间出名是夸张的措词。这本书不仅对传统观点来说是激进的，也是真正的‘新篇章开启者’。用这种风格写作是你的目的吗？ Actually, I started out by writing a traditional article and publishing it in a traditional journal, the Psychological Review. No one called it a page-turner. In fact, though it did get some favourable responses from people in other areas of psychology, it was completely ignored by the audience I was hoping to reach – those professors of developmental psychology. 实际上，我一开始是要写篇传统文章发表在传统期刊《心理学评论》上。没有人把它称为新篇章开启者。事实上，尽管它确实得到了其他心理学领域的积极反响，但却被我希望能看到它的观众——发展心理学领域的教授们——完全忽略了。 So I decided to go over their heads, as it were, and take my message directly to the general public. If you’re writing a book on a complex topic and you want people to read it, you have to make it interesting. It also helps if you can give your readers an occasional laugh. My model for how to write a book for the general public was Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct. 因此我决定，这么说吧，越过他们，直接把我的研究呈现在广大公众面前。假如你正在写一本复杂话题的书，还希望有人读它，那你就要让它有趣起来。如果读者时而笑出声来，那也有所帮助。我所借鉴的如何为广大公众写书的模本，是Steven Pinker的《语言本能》一书。 Pinker of course went on to write several more books for the public – all page turners, and in many cases game changers. I noticed that he dedicated The Blank Slate to ‘Don, Judy, Leda and John’. I would assume that three of these are Don Symons, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. Would I be right in thinking you are the Judy?  当然，Pinker为大众写了不少书——全都是新篇章开启者，许多情况下还是游戏改变者。我注意到他把《白板论》一书献给‘Don, Judy, Leda and John’。我猜其中三个是Don Symons, Leda Cosmides和John Tooby。你是Judy，对吗？ Yes. Steve and I became e-mail friends after I sent him a copy of my Psych Review paper and some comments on The Language Instinct. After we had exchanged a few e-mails, he asked, ‘Have you ever thought of writing a book?’ It wasn’t exactly a new idea to me, but it was nice to have the encouragement. 是的。在我给他寄送了我写的《心理学评论》论文拷贝和对《语言本能》一书的个人见解后，Steve和我成了电邮笔友。后来，我们互通了一些电子邮件，他问我：“你有没有想过写一本书？”这对我实在不是新想法，但它是很好的鼓励。 I think Steve was particularly receptive to my arguments because he’s a psycholinguist. I often use examples from psycholinguistics in explaining my theory, for two reasons. First, the outcome is usually obvious. You don’t need fancy statistical tests to decide whether or not someone has a foreign accent. Second, language and accent are among the very few social behaviours in which genetic differences play no role at all. Whether you speak Japanese or Swahili, whether your accent is Oxbridge or Liverpudlian, has nothing to do with heredity. But it does have a great deal to do with social context. The children of immigrants have the same accent as the other kids in the neighbourhood, even if they use their parents’ native language at home. Around the world, it is quite common for children to use one language at home and a different one outside the home, or one language with Mummy and a different one with Daddy. 我感觉Steve特别能接受我的观点，因为他是心理语言学家。我经常使用心理语言学例子解释我的理论，有两个原因。首先，结果通常显而易见。不需要花哨的统计学计算来确定某人是否有外国口音。其次，语言和口音是极少数遗传基因差异不起作用的社会行为之一。无论你说日语或者斯瓦希里语，无论你操牛津剑桥口音或者利物浦口音，均与遗传无关。而它确实与社会背景有很大关系。即便在家说父母亲的母语，移民孩子的口音与其他邻居孩子也一样。在世界各地，常常可见孩子在家使用一种语言而出门使用另外一种，或者和妈咪说一种语言而和爹地说另一种。 A central tenet of my theory is that social behaviours are tightly linked to the context in which they were acquired. It’s a mistake – one that’s incorporated into all the major theories of child development – to assume that children automatically generalise what they learn, from one context or person to another: Mummy is nice to them so they expect everyone to be nice to them. But discrimination, not generalisation, is the default setting of the baby’s mind. 我的理论的核心要义是，社会性行为与从中习得它的社会情境紧密相连。假设孩子自动将所学内容一般化，从一种情境或一个人推及另外一种或另一个人：就像妈咪善待他们，因此期待人人善待他们——这个假定被植入了儿童发展学的所有重要理论中，但它是错误的。相反，区别对待而非一般化处理，是婴儿心理的默认设置。 Many of the behaviours that children acquire at home would be counterproductive elsewhere. Children who dominate their younger siblings at home would be making a mistake if they tried to treat their schoolmates the same way, especially if they happen to be small for their age. Fortunately, children don’t make that mistake. Firstborns are no more likely than laterborns to try to dominate their peers. 孩子在家习得的许多行为在别处则是有害无益的。在家对弟妹指手划脚的孩子，如果试图以同样方式对待同学，就犯错了，尤其如果他们碰巧在同龄人中个头偏小。幸运的是，孩子不会犯类似错误。排行高的孩子不比排行低的孩子有更多可能性对同龄人指手划脚。 Of course, some of the things children learn at home are useful elsewhere. Those who learn to speak the local language, or to read, or to play a musical instrument, don’t have to acquire these skills all over again when they step outside. But they don’t trot them out automatically. They are tentative at first, until they’re sure that the behaviour or skill they learned at home will also work in the new setting. 当然，也有孩子在家学习的一些事情在别处是有用的。掌握了言说和阅读本地语言或演奏乐器的人，走出家门不必重新学习这些技能。但是，他们不必机械地小跑离家出来。他们先试探，直到确信那些在家里学到的行为或技能在新的环境设定中也管用。 For a young child, it’s safer to discriminate than to generalise. The child’s mind is not short of storage space. A child can store different rules of behaviour for every setting, and different expectations for every individual he or she encounters. 对于小孩子，区别对待比一般化处理更安全。孩子的意识不缺存储空间。可以为不同环境设定存储不同行为规范，以及为他所与之交往的每个人分别存储各自对对方的期望。 Your goal in No Two Alike was to explain why individuals differ so much, even if they grew up in the same family, right? 您写《没有两个人一样》一书是解释为什么每个人如此不同，即使他们在同一家庭长大，对吗？ Right. I realised a couple of years after The Nurture Assumption was published that I had done only half the job: I had explained only how children get socialised. Socialisation is a process that causes children to become more similar in behaviour to their same-sex peers. And yet, despite being socialised, children continue to differ from one another in personality and social behaviour. 对。《教养的迷思》出版后过了几年，我发现自己只做了一半工作：我只解释了孩子是如何社会化的。社会化是导致孩子行为处事更像同性同龄人的过程。尽管被社会化，孩子们的个性和社会行为仍然彼此不同。 If anything, the differences widen during childhood and adolescence. I made some ineffectual efforts to deal with that problem in The Nurture Assumption, but I didn’t have a theory to account for it till I wrote the second book. The improved version of the theory presented in No Two Alike explains how children can, at the same time, become more similar to their peers in some ways and more different in other ways. 很可能，个体差异在孩童期和青春期扩大了。在《教养的迷思》中我做了些无效努力面对这个问题，但没有理论可以解释它，直到我写第二本书。《没有两个人一样》提出的改进版理论解释了为什么孩子在一些方面与同伴更相似，与此同时在另一些方面却变得更为不同。 There was a fair bit of replying to arguments put forward by critics of The Nurture Assumption. Was that one of the aims? 之前你针对《教养的迷思》批评者所提出的观点给出了不少直接回应。那是你的写作目的之一吗？ It was. I was tired of journalists telling me that my theory must be wrong because some expert at some big university had told them that there were plenty of studies that disproved it. I searched diligently for the studies they cited. In some cases they were nowhere to be found; at any rate, they had never been published in a peer-reviewed journal. In other cases a study had been published but the results didn’t do what the experts claimed – they didn’t disprove my theory. In one case, a study they cited actually did the opposite – it supported my theory! 是的。我厌烦了记者告诉我，我的理论肯定错误，因为某些著名大学的某些专家已经告诉他们，有大量研究反驳我的理论。我努力分析他们引用的研究。有些研究什么也没发现；不管怎么说，它们从未在同行评议的学术期刊上发表。另一些研究，发表的一项实验没获得专家声称的实验结果——并没有反驳我的理论。一个研究援引的一项实验结果实际上恰好相反——它支持我的理论！ That 1995 Psychological Review piece you mentioned won the George A. Miller award for an outstanding article in general psychology. There was a certain irony about that? 你提到的1995年那篇《心理学评论》文章荣获了George A. Miller心理学杰出论文奖。这是某种嘲讽吗？ In 1960 I was a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at Harvard. One day I got a letter saying that the Department had decided to kick me out of their PhD programme. They doubted I would ever make a worthwhile contribution to psychology, the letter said, due to my lack of ‘originality and independence’. The letter was signed by the acting chairman of the Department, George A. Miller! 1960年，我是哈佛大学心理学系研究生。有一天，我收到一封信，说系里已经决定把我排除在博士项目之外。信中说，由于我缺乏‘原创性和独立性’，他们对我做出有价值的心理学贡献表示怀疑。这封信正是由代理系主席George A. Miller签署的！ Sometimes, when life hands you a lemon, you should just bite in. Getting kicked out of Harvard was a devastating blow at the time, but in retrospect, it was the best thing that Harvard ever did for me. It freed me from the influence of ‘experts’. It kept me from being indoctrinated. Many years later, it enabled me to write The Nurture Assumption. 有时，当生活递给你一个柠檬时，你就应该咬它。当时被踢出哈佛是一个毁灭性打击，但现在回想起来，这是哈佛为我所做过的最好的事情。这让我从‘专家’的影响解脱出来。让我不被灌输。许多年以后，让我写出《教养的迷思》。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Sex on TV: Less impact on teens than you might think 电视上的色情内容: 对青少年的影响比你想象的少 作者:Christopher Ferguson @ 2016-08-02 译者:babyface_claire(@许你疯不许你傻) 校对:鳗鱼禅(@鳗鱼禅) 来源:https://theconversation.com/sex-on-tv-less-impact-on-teens-than-you-might-think-61957 Few people would doubt that sex is ubiquitous in media – whether movies, television, music or books – and that teens today have unprecedented access to all of it. It’s often taken for granted that this easy access to “sexy media” has an influence on teenage sexuality. 性在媒体上无处不在，这个论断少有人质疑。无论电影、电视、音乐或书籍，对当今的青少年而言，有关性的一切信息触手可及，这种便捷史无前例。人们经常理所当然的认为，随处可见的“色情媒体”会对青少年性行为产生影响。 Specifically, the worry is that teens may have sex earlier or engage in higher-risk sexual activities such as having multiple partners or exposing themselves to potential pregnancies or STDs. In 2010 the American Academy of Pediatrics even published a position paper claiming that sexually explicit media could promote risky teen sexual behavior. 具体来说，人们担心的是青少年可能更早发生性行为，或者参与高风险性行为。比如与多位同伴有性行为，或者暴露于怀孕或染上性病的风险中。2010年美国儿科协会甚至发表了一篇意见书，声称色情媒体可能诱发青少年危险性行为。 But government data find that teens are actually waiting longer than in the past to have sex. And teen pregnancy rates are at historic lows. How is it possible that sexy media has such a pernicious effect even as teen sexuality is becoming healthier? 然而政府数据显示，事实上青少年发生性行为前的等待时间比过去更长。且现时未成年人怀孕率处于历史最低点。色情媒体如此有害，而青少年性行为反而比以往健康，这怎么可能呢？ I’ve spent more than a decade researching how media – like video games or advertising – influences youth behavior. What fascinates me is how society interacts with media, often embracing salacious content while simultaneously blaming it for societal problems, whether real or imagined. 我花了超过十年的时间研究视频游戏和广告之类的媒体如何影响青少年行为。让我着迷的是，社会如何与媒体相互作用。媒体经常热衷于色情内容，同时却将之归咎于真实或假想中的社会问题。 So my colleagues and I decided to look at the research on sexy media and teenage sexual behavior to see how the strong the link between the two is. 于是我和我的同事们决定研究色情媒体和青少年性行为的关系，看看这两者之间的相关性有多高。 Sexy media doesn’t predict sexual behavior 色情媒体不是性行为的有效预测变量 Despite the common assumptions about sex in the media and its alleged effects on teens, the evidence behind the link is weak. Some studies find evidence for a small effect (perhaps in some circumstances but not others), while others find no evidence for any effect. 尽管人们声称媒体上的性信息会影响青少年，这个受到普遍认同的假设前提并未得到多少证据支持。有些研究发现了微弱效应存在的证据（可能在某些情形下有相关性，其它情形下没有），然而另一些研究没有发现存在任何影响的证据。 One reason the evidence may not be conclusive is that there are practical and ethical limitations to conducting research. We can’t run experiments where teens watch different TV shows and we wait around to see who has sex. This means research often relies on self-reported data. What we do is ask teens to report on their sexual behavior and their media preferences, as well as other variables we might like to control for (such as personality or family environment) and see if correlations exist. 证据可能不够有说服力的原因之一是，开展此类研究有操作上的和伦理上的限制。我们不能在青少年观看不同电视节目的地方进行实验，并且在周围等待，看谁发生了性行为。这意味着研究经常依赖自我报告的数据。我们所做的是，让青少年报告他们的性行为和偏好的媒体，以及我们可能想控制的其它变量（比如性格和家庭环境），来看是否存在相关性。 With this in mind, my colleagues Patrick Markey at Villanova and Danish researcher Rune Nielsen and I conducted a meta-analysis of 22 studies with over 22,000 participants that examine the correlation between sexy media and teenage sexual behavior. A meta-analysis lets us look for commonalities in the results, and is something that had not been done previously with this pool of research. 出于这种考虑，我和在维拉诺瓦的同事Patrick Markey，还有丹麦研究员Rune Nielsen进行了一项对22个研究，包含超过2.2万参与者的荟萃分析，来检验色情媒体和青少年性行为之间的相关性。这个荟萃分析让我们寻找已有研究结果中的共性，这批研究此前未做过荟萃分析。 All of the studies in the meta-analysis looked at depictions of sexual situations, nudity, partial nudity or explicit discussions of sex in television shows or movies easily accessible to minors (and thus excluded pornography). 这次荟萃分析里的研究都着眼于电视节目上对行为情景的描述、裸露、部分裸露或者公开讨论的性内容, 或者容易被未成年人接触到的电影 （因此排除了色情文学）。 In particular, we were curious to see whether sexy media predicted teen sexual behavior once other variables had been controlled. For instance, maybe boys tend to watch sexier media and also are more sexually risk-taking. Or perhaps youth who are more liberal in terms of personality are more open both to sexy media and earlier sexual initiation. Perhaps a difficult family background is the underlying key to understanding any correlation between media use habits and actual sexual behavior. 我们特别好奇的是，一旦其它变量受到控制，色情媒体接触行为能否预测青少年性行为。例如，可能男孩更倾向于观看更色情的媒体内容，并且愿意承担更多的性风险。或者有更自由人格的青少年更易于接受色情媒体和早期性启蒙。也许一个复杂的家庭背景是理解媒体使用习惯和实际性行为相关性背后的关键。 Ultimately, this is what we found. Once other factors such as family environment, personality or even gender were controlled, sexy media exposure did not meaningfully correlate with teen sexual behavior. 最后，这是我们的发现。一旦其它因素，比如家庭环境、性格甚至性别都受到控制，色情媒体的曝光与青少年性行为没有显著的相关。 Contrary to common fears, sexy media doesn’t seem to have any practical significance for when teens first have sex or start other sexual behaviors. This lack of correlation is a warning sign we might be on the wrong track in trying to blame media for teen sexual risk-taking. 与常见的恐惧相反，色情媒体内容似乎对青少年首次性行为或者进行其它性接触的时间没有任何实际影响。缺乏相关性是一个警告信号，我们将青少年冒险的性行为归咎于媒体的观点可能是错误的。 Why doesn’t media influence teens? 为什么媒体内容影响不了青少年？ There are numerous theories that discuss how individuals and media interact. However, many older media effects theories didn’t consider why people were drawn to media, how they processed it, or what they hoped to get from it. Such theories assumed viewers simply irrationally and purposelessly imitated what they saw. Most of the papers we examined in our meta-analysis were tests of these basic, automatic, media effects theories. 有很多理论讨论个人和媒体如何相互影响。然而，许多早期媒体效应理论没有考虑为什么人们被媒体内容吸引，他们如何处理媒体内容，或者他们想从媒体内容中得到什么。这些理论假设观众只是简单非理性和无目的地模仿他们观看的内容。我们荟萃分析里的大多数论文就是这些基本、自动的媒体效应理论的实验测试。 In the past few years, some scholars (myself included) have specifically called for the retirement of these older media effects theories. This is because the evidence increasingly suggests that fictional media such as feature movies or sitcoms media is too remote to have a clear impact on consumers' behavior, especially compared to families and peers. 过去几年，一些学者（包括我自己）号召淘汰这些早期媒体效应理论。越来越多的证据表明，像故事电影和情景喜剧这样的虚构媒体内容太遥不可及，不足以对消费者的行为产生清晰明确的影响，尤其是与家庭和同龄人这两个因素相比。 In addition, emerging evidence suggests that young children process fictional media differently from real events. If small children are able to process a difference between fictional events and real events, we can assume that teens don’t really expect media to reflect reality. 此外，新出现的证据表明，年轻的孩子处理虚构媒体的方式不同于真实事件。如果小孩子都能够辨别虚构事件和真实事件之间的差异，我们可以假设青少年从来没有真正想过媒体反映了现实。 Our results regarding the limited impact of media also fit with the observations from societal data. Despite a plethora of sexual media available to teens, a crisis of risky teen sexual behavior has not emerged. 我们关于媒体有限影响的研究结果也符合来自社会数据的观察。尽管青少年接触到种类繁多的色情媒体，高风险青少年性行为的危机并没有出现。 We watch what we’re interested in watching 我们观看我们感兴趣的 Newer models of media use suggest that it is the individuals who consume media, not the media itself, who are the driving agents of behavior. Evidence suggests that users seek out and interpret media according to what they want to get from it, rather than passively imitating it. 较新的媒体使用模型表明，是消费媒体内容的个人而不是媒体本身，驱动了行为。有证据表明，用户根据他们想要从中得到什么来寻找和解读媒体，而不是被动的模仿。 People don’t generally accidentally watch media, sexual or otherwise, but are motivated to do so because of preexisting desires. 人们通常不是偶然地观看媒体、性或者其它，而是被先前存在的欲望驱动。 For instance, some recent studies have indicated that youth seek out media that fit with preexisting motives, called a selection effect, but that media don’t necessarily lead to further problem behaviors. For example, research suggests that some teens who are already aggressive might be interested in violent video games, but playing such games doesn’t make kids more aggressive. 例如，最近的一些研究显示青年人寻求适合先前已经存在的动机的媒体，这被称为“选择效应”。但是媒体并不一定导致进一步的问题行为。比如，研究表明一些本来就已经好斗的青年人可能对暴力视频游戏感兴趣，但玩这样的游戏并没有让孩子更好斗。 That’s a point that sometimes seems ignored when we talk about teens and sex. Interest in sex is a largely biologically motivated process; fictional media really isn’t required. Teens will become interested in sex all on their own. 这就是当我们谈论青少年与性时，有时候会忽略的一点。对性的兴趣很大程度上是生物性驱动的过程，虚构媒体并非必需。青少年自发的对性产生兴趣。 Parents have more influence than the media 父母比媒体影响更大 Parents can rest a bit easier since the evidence suggests that media isn’t a primary driver of teen sexuality. 父母们可以松口气了，因为证据表明媒体不是一个青少年性行为的主要驱动力。 To the extent media has any impact at all, it is likely only in a vacuum left by adults reluctant to talk to kids about sex, especially the stuff kids really want to know. 即便媒体能施加影响，也只是在一个由成人所留下的真空内起作用，有些成人不愿意跟孩子谈论与性有关的话题，尤其是孩子真正想知道的事情，由此便产生了真空。 How do you ask someone out on a date and how do you handle it if they say no? What does sex feel like? When is it OK to have sex? What are the risks and how do you avoid them? In the face of patient, empathic and informative discussions about sex by adults kids trust, the media likely has little influence. 你怎么邀请别人出去约会？如果他们拒绝了，你怎么处理？性爱是怎么样的？什么时候可以发生性行为？性行为有什么风险，你怎么避免这些风险？在成人与孩子之间互相信任、耐心、有同理心和有理有据的讨论面前，媒体可能几乎没有影响。 Ultimately, whether media have salacious or more conscientious portrayals of sexuality, we should not expect media to replace conversations with youth by parents, guardians and educators. 最后，无论媒体是否有露骨或更谨慎的性描写，我们都不应期待媒体取代父母、监护人和教育工作者与青少年的谈话。 I’m not suggesting everyone run out and buy “50 Shades of Grey” for their teen, but if teens happen to come across it (and they will), it’s not the end of the world. 我不是建议每个人都跑出去买《五十度灰》给他们的小孩，但是如果青少年无意中发现这本书（他们肯定会），这不是世界末日。 The important thing for parents is to talk to their kids. 作为父母，重要的是和他们的孩子谈一谈。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

（本文删节版发表于《长江日报·读周刊》） 塑造行为的多重机制 辉格 2016年12月2日 人的行为方式千差万别且变化多端，这也体现在我们描绘行为的形容词的丰富性上：羞涩，奔放，畏缩，鲁莽，克制，放纵，粗野，优雅，勤勉，懒散，好斗，随和……这些词汇同时也被用来描绘个体性格，有些甚至用来辨识文化和民族差异，由此可见，尽管人类行为丰富多变，却仍可识别出某些稳定而持久的模式。 那么，究竟是哪些因素，经由何种过程，塑造了种种行为模式呢？在以往讨论中，流行着一种将遗传和环境影响对立两分的倾向，仿佛这两种因素是各自独立起作用的，最终结果只是两者的线性叠加，就像调鸡尾酒，人们关注的是各种原料的配比，五勺基因，两勺家庭，两勺学校，再加一勺『文化』，一个活蹦乱跳的文明人就出炉了。 这种将成长中的孩子视为受影响者或加工对象的视角，是不得要领的，实际上，成长是一个主动学习的过程，基因和环境的关系更像软件中代码和数据输入的关系，基因编码引导个体从环境中采集数据，以便配置自身的行为算法，把代码和数据放一起搅一搅不可能得到想要的功能，在软件工程中，也没人会谈论代码和数据对算法表现分别有多大比例的影响。 正如马特·里德利（[[Matt Ridley]]）在《天性经由教养》中所阐明，成长是遗传代码随教养进程依次执行的过程，然而，对于这一过程具体如何展开，迄今只有零散的论述，而缺乏一幅系统化的全景图，幸运的是，心理学家朱迪·哈里斯（[[Judith R.Harris]]）在《教养的迷思》中提出的开创性见解，为我们拼凑这样一幅系统流程草图提供了便利。 对于个人，最持久而一致的那些行为特征被称为人格，主流人格心理学识别了经验开放性、尽责性、外向性、亲和性、情绪稳定性这五个最具一致性的特征，它们很大程度上是先天的（遗传差异可解释一半以上的人格差异），并且至少从成年后就伴随终身，在不同场景中的表现也相当连贯。 但人格并不直接对应行为模式，个人在决定如何行事时，还会考虑所在群体的规范，并借助由文化所传承的整套符号，正因此，有着相似人格的两个人，在不同文化或同一文化的不同群体中，会表现出十分不同的行为，比如同样一个外向型高亲和度的人，在向客人表达亲热时，是拥抱、亲吻、抚手，还是捶胸、拍肩、摸头，将随文化而异。 在这方面，儿童有着非凡的学习能力，只须借助少量样本，便可构建出一个范本模式，据此判断在何种情景下怎么做才是地道的、妥贴的；而且他们十分清楚不同群体和不同性质的关系中适用不同规范，家人、亲戚、邻里、同学、朋友、陌生人之间的规范学习和范本建模将分别进行，学习结果独立存储，并在相应场景下被激活。 哈里斯指出，这一学习过程主要在年龄相近的同侪群体中自发进行，长辈的做法会被参考，但训导和传授的努力几乎是徒劳的，当孩子们从某些线索发现长辈的做法已过时落伍，会毫不犹豫的弃之不顾，甚至当缺乏可供参照的样本时，他们也会经由群体内协调而创造出一种全新规范，就像他们创造克里奥尔语和尼加拉瓜手语那样。 在规范学习中，并非所有样本都被同等对待，那些看起来更受青睐和尊崇，更具号召力和支配力——总之地位更高——的个体，其行为将被赋予更高权重，而青少年在识别哪些是高地位受尊崇个体方面，有着敏锐直觉（其中受异性青睐程度是关键线索之一，这也是性选择得以发生的重要途径），正是通过这样的学习和协调过程，社会等级结构代复一代自我再生。 识别、追随和效仿群体中的尊贵者，并努力为自己赢得体面和尊贵（因为这会为个体带来切实的利益），是文化进化的一大动力机制，它维持着社会的等级结构和价值阶梯，也推动着风尚潮流的循环轮替，值得一提的是，性选择也在其中发挥了殊为关键的作用，因为识别高地位者的一大线索便是受异性青睐的程度，同时这一青睐也是对追逐地位和追随群体价值取向的重要激励。 习得规范进入群体之后，下一步便是确立自己在群体中的位置，个体出于自身的人格特质和资源与天赋条件，在群体中寻找适合自己的生态位，个体差异也将随此选择而展开，同时其行为方式会在群体规范所给定的框架之下，按照自身地位及与群内他人的关系而调整。 上述『先同化后分化』的两阶段模型，可帮助我们理解青春期躁动这一极为普遍的文化现象，青春期躁动表现为跟风盲从，集体狂热，缺乏个性与独立思考，强烈且富有攻击性的团体意识和民族主义，这实际上是一个强化群体认同的机制，在部落社会，它常以严酷的成人礼和结伙对外攻击等更正规和有组织的方式进行。 在经历躁动过程的严酷考验之后，个体习得规范并被纳入群体，同时，考验过程中的表现也将决定他未来在群体内的地位，一旦这一过程结束，成员身份确立，各自找到自己的生态位，躁动与狂热便会消退，规范的强制性和集体义务将逐渐放松，大家分头过自己的小日子去了，但躁动中所建立的群体认同、团伙情谊和个人间关系纽带仍将长期存续，并服务于更为功利性的目标。 两阶段模型也可解释一个哈里斯所强调、且常被忽视的现象：尽管人格具有相当高一致性，但同一个人在不同社会情境中的行为模式仍可十分不同，不同到像两个人那样，比如一位长兄在家里对弟妹们表现出长子所常有的那种强势和支配性，在学校却可能甘做跟班小弟，一个在办公室里沉默寡言的人在兴趣社团中却滔滔不绝、能言善辩，一个父母跟前的乖孩子在街头帮派中也许是个狠角色，哈里斯将此称为人格多面性，或许也就是人们常说的多重人格。 这是因为从先天人格特质到具体行为模式之间，经过了自我生态定位和个性展现，而这是针对不同群体分别进行的，当个人进入这些群体时，将根据自身禀赋优势和价值取向与该群体规范和价值阶梯的匹配程度作出定位，从而展现人格的不同侧面：是争当其领导者？努力向上爬的积极分子？寻求庇护的弱势追随者？还是不太情愿的服从者？或三心两意的投机分子？不同定位的行为差异是显而易见的。  

Schizophrenia: No Smoking Gun 精神分裂症：缺乏“冒烟”的确凿证据 作者：Scott Alexander @ 2016-01-11 译者：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 校对：小册子（@昵称被抢的小册子） 来源：Slate Star Codex，http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoking-gun/ [Note: despite how some people are spinning this, tobacco is still really really bad and you should not smoke it] 【请注意：尽管许多人言之凿凿，但烟草真的真的还是很不好，不应该抽烟。】 I. Schizophrenics smoke. A lot. Depending on the study, about 60-80% of schizophrenics smoke, compared to only about 20% of the general population. And they spend on average about 27% (!) of their income on cigarettes. Even allowing that schizophrenics don’t make much income, that’s a lot of money. Sure, schizophrenics are often poor and undereducated and have other risk factors for smoking – but even after you control for this, the effect is still pretty strong. 精神分裂症患者抽烟，而且很多。根据某项研究，大约60%至80%的精神分裂症患者会抽烟，与之相比，总人口中只有约20%。而且，他们在烟草上的花费大约占到其收入的27%（！）。即便考虑到精神分裂症患者收入不高，这也是一大笔钱。无疑，精神分裂症患者通常都很穷、受教育程度不高，并且还有其他导致其吸烟的风险因素，但即便把所有这些都加以控制，精神分裂症与抽烟之间的统计关系还是很强。 Various people have come up with various explanations. Cognitively-minded people say that schizophrenics smoke as a maladaptive coping strategy for the anxiety caused by their condition. Pharmacologically-minded people say that schizophrenics smoke because smoking accelerates the metabolism of antipsychotic drugs and so makes their side effects go away faster. Pragmatically-minded people say that schizophrenics smoke because they’re stuck in institutions with nothing to do all day. No points for guessing what the Freudians say. 许多人已经为此提出过许多各种解释。关注认知的人说，精神分裂症患者抽烟，是对该疾病所致焦虑的不良应对策略。关注药理的人会说，他们抽烟是因为抽烟会加快抗精神病药物的代谢，从而能够促使其副作用更快消失。更为务实的人会说，他们抽烟是因为他们被困在了整日无所事事的社会福利机构里面。猜测弗洛伊德主义者的说法就没必要了。 But all these theories have problems. Sure, schizophrenics are often institutionalized, but even the ones at home smoke a lot. Sure, some schizophrenics are often on antipsychotics, but even the ones who aren’t on meds smoke a lot. Sure, schizophrenics are anxious, but we don’t see people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder having 80% smoking rates. 但所有这些理论都存在问题。毫无疑问，精神分裂症患者通常都被社会福利机构收容，但即便是那些散居在家的也抽很多烟。毫无疑问，有些精神分裂症患者经常服用抗精神病药，但即便是那些不服药的也抽很多烟。毫无疑问，精神分裂症患者很焦虑，但我们并没有在患有广泛性焦虑障碍的人群中看到80%的吸烟率。 As usual, I’m more biologically-minded, so I find it interesting that some of the genes that most commonly turn up as linked to schizophrenia – especially CHRNA3, CHRNA5, and CHRNA7 – are in nicotine receptors. Indeed, some of them are also the genes identified as risk factors for smoking. 我素来更倾向从生物学方面考虑，所以我发现了一个有趣之处，那就是部分最经常被与精神分裂症联系在一起的基因，特别是CHRNA3、CHRNA5和CHRNA7，都能在尼古丁受体上找到。 Further, there’s a lot of evidence that schizophrenic people actually feel better and have fewer symptoms when they’re smoking. Further, schizophrenics tend to gravitate toward cigarettes with higher nicotine content, and smoke them in ways that maximize nicotine absorption. 实际上，部分此类基因同时也被确认为影响吸烟的风险因素。此外，大量证据表明，精神分裂症患者在吸烟时确实会更加舒坦、更少症状。此外，精神分裂症患者一般会较喜欢尼古丁含量更高的烟草，而且吸烟时会设法尽量吸收更多的尼古丁。 It seems like part of the problem with schizophrenia is that the brain’s nicotine system isn’t working well. Smoking supplements nicotine and makes the system run smoother, so schizophrenics feel better when they smoke and continue to do so. This is the widely accepted self-medication hypothesis. 精神分裂症的问题似乎部分在于患者大脑的尼古丁系统运转不良。吸烟能够补充尼古丁，从而让这一系统运转更加顺畅，所以精神分裂症患者在吸烟时会感觉更加良好，并且乐此不疲。这就是受到广泛认同的“自发用药假说”。 I like this because it’s a really elegant example of…I don’t know what you’d call it…memetic evolution? Nobody knew that nicotine helped schizophrenia, nobody told the schizophrenics that, but they sort of naturally gravitated to an effective treatment for their condition by going in the direction of things that make them feel better, even going so far as to unknowingly gravitate toward cigarette brands with more nicotine. 我喜欢这一假说，因为它真是模因进化（我不知道你们如何称呼它）的一个极好例证。原先并没人知道尼古丁有助于缓解精神分裂症，没人这么告诉患者，但他们通过追随让他们感觉良好的事物，可以说是自然地找到了有效的治疗方法，甚至不自觉地偏爱尼古丁含量更高的烟草品牌。 They did all of this before psychiatry had any idea why they were doing it, and in the face of constant protests that it was stupid and useless. This should be a warning to anyone who’s too quick to tell patients that their coping strategies are maladaptive. 早在精神病学对其做法之缘由有任何了解之前，他们就已经在这么做了，尽管当时人们一直批评这种做法既愚蠢又无用。有些人会过于仓促地认为患者的应对策略调整不佳，上述事实应当能让这些人引以为戒。 But there’s a much more important question here: does smoking cause schizophrenia? How about prevent it? 但此处还有一个更为重要的问题：吸烟会导致精神分裂症吗？又会不会防止精神分裂症呢？ II. First, the causation argument. Gurillo et al do a meta-analysis and conclude that “daily tobacco use is associated with increased risk of psychosis and an earlier age of onset of psychotic illness. The possibility of a causal link between tobacco use and psychosis merits further examination”. That is, schizophrenics are already smoking much more at the moment their schizophrenia starts. This suggests that maybe smoking is helping to cause the schizophrenia? 首先来看因果论证。Gurillo等人做了一个荟萃分析，得出结论认为：“每日使用烟草与精神病风险的增加和精神疾病发病年龄的提早均有关。烟草使用和精神病之间存在因果关系的可能性还需要进一步研究。”也就是说，精神分裂症患者在初次发病时就已经在大量抽烟了。这是否意味着吸烟有可能增加患精神分裂症的风险？ All nice and well, except for a few things. First, this study ignores the possibility that the genes that cause schizophrenia might also cause increased smoking, even though we have some evidence that this is true (actually, it doesn’t ignore this, it mentions it, but uses it as a reason why a schizophrenia-smoking link is more plausible). 听上去很好，就是有一点点问题。首先，该研究忽略了一种可能性，即导致精神分裂症的基因可能也会导致烟瘾增加，而我们在这方面有一些证据。（实际上该研究并没有忽略这种可能性，而是有所提及，但只是把它作为精神分裂症与吸烟有关联这一说法更可信的理由）。 Second, we know that people who will later develop schizophrenia are seen as kind of odd even before they come down with the disease, and it’s possible that they’re already in some unusual brain state that smoking helps relieve. Third, this study is not controlled – meaning that we’re totally helpless before factors like “people destined to later develop schizophrenia are often poor, and poor people smoke more”. 第二，我们知道，有些后来得了精神分裂症的人早在得病之前就看起来似乎有点奇怪，可能那时候他们的大脑就已经处于某种不正常状态，而吸烟能帮助缓解这种状况。第三，该项研究没有进行对照控制，也就是说如果把某些因素考虑进去，比如“后来注定会得精神分裂症的人通常很穷，而穷人通常抽烟更多”等，我们就无力回答。 And fourth, another study shows exactly the opposite. 还有，第四，另一项研究有完全相反的发现。 Zammit et al (thanks to @allfeelsallthetime for the tip) looks at 50,000 teenage Swedish conscripts, then follows them throughout their lives to see which ones do or don’t get schizophrenia. They find that without adjusting for confounders, smokers are more likely to get schizophrenia. Zammit等人（感谢网友@allfeesallthetime提示）选取了50000个应征入伍的瑞典青少年，然后终身追踪他们，观察哪些会得精神分裂症，哪些不会。他们发现，如果不就混杂因子【编注：混杂因子是指同时导致A与B两个因子，从而使得A与B表现出相关性的因子。】作出调整，吸烟者便看起来更可能得精神分裂症。 But when you do adjust for confounders, smokers are less likely to get schizophrenia, (hazard ratio 0.8, p = 0.003) and heavy smokers are much less likely to get schizophrenia (hazard ratio 0.5)! A dose-dependent relationship was found between smoking and protection from schizophrenia. This is really interesting. 但如果你就混杂因子作了调整，吸烟者得精神分裂症的可能性相对就会较低（风险比为0.8，p=0.003），而重度嗜烟者患精神分裂症的可能性相对而言非常低（风险比为0.5）！在吸烟与避免精神分裂症之间居然找出了这种与剂量相关的关系，真是非常有意思。 Why do we find such different results from these two studies? The only explanation I can think of is that the second study controls for various factors including cannabis use, personality variables, IQ, past psychiatric diagnoses, and place of upbringing (thanks @su3su2u1 for the tip) and the first study controls for zilch. 为什么两项研究会得出如此不同的结论？我能想到的唯一解释就是，第二项研究对照控制了许多不同因素，包括吸食大麻、个性差异、智商、既往精神病诊断史、成长地点等（感谢网友@su3su2u1提示），而第一项研究没做任何控制。 In fact, we find that the second study’s uncontrolled numbers are not that different from the first study’s uncontrolled numbers, and that the only difference is that the second study then went on to control for confounders and get the opposite result. Controlling for more things is not always better, but controlling for a few things that previous studies and common sense suggest are very relevant is pretty superior to just leaving the data entirely unprocessed. Advantage very much second study. 实际上，我们发现第二项研究中未进行控制的因子数目跟第一项研究中未进行控制的因子数目没有多大出入，两者唯一的差别就是第二项研究进一步控制了混杂因子，然后就得出了相反的结论。控制的因子并不总是越多越好，但对此前研究和基本常识都认为，对非常相关的一些事项进行控制，比对数据完全不加任何处理的做法要好得多。第二项研究因而拥有压倒优势。 III. Unlike certain people on Facebook, I fucking hate science. Let me explain why. 跟Facebook上的某些人不同，我真他妈讨厌科学。让我来解释解释。 The first study here, Gurillo et al, was published ten years after the second study. Since it is a meta-analysis, it included the second study in it. The authors of the first study definitely read the second study. They just didn’t care. 此处提到的Gurillo等人所做的第一项研究，发表于第二项研究完成后的10年之后。由于它是一个荟萃分析，所以它的对象包括了第二项研究。该研究的作者们必定读过第二项研究。他们只是毫不在乎。 Nowhere in the first study does it say “By the way, we read this other study that got the opposite results from us, let’s try to figure out why, oh, it was because they controlled for things and we didn’t, maybe that should call our findings into question.” 第一项研究从未在任何地方说过：“此外，我们读到了另外一项研究，其结论与我们的正相对立；我们来看看原因是什么，哦，原来是因为他们对一些事项进行了控制而我们没有，这也许会对我们的发现构成质疑。” You know what they did do? They listed the second study as finding that smoking increased schizophrenia risk, because the rules of their meta-analysis said they would only take uncontrolled data, and so they did. You can read this entire study, which cites the second study no fewer than six times, without hearing at all about the fact that the second study got the opposite result using likely better methodology. 你知道他们实际干了什么吗？他们将第二项研究列为吸烟增加精神分裂症患病风险的发现之一，因为他们做荟萃分析的一项原则是只采用未控制的数据，他们也真是这么做的。你们可以读读其全文，它引用第二项研究不下六次，但在任何地方你都看不到它提及第二项研究利用可能更好的方法得出了完全相反的结论这一事实。 Then they go on to conclude that: 然后，他们在结论中说：

Cigarette smoking might be a hitherto neglected modifiable risk factor for psychosis, but confounding and reverse causality are possible. Notwithstanding, in view of the clear benefits of smoking cessation programs in this population, every effort should be made to implement change in smoking habits in this group of patients. 吸烟可能是引发精神病的可改造风险因素之一，这一点迄今为止一直为人所忽略。但是，混杂偏差和反向因果关系也有可能存在。尽管如此，考虑到在这一人群中实施戒烟计划的明显好处，我们应该全面努力，促使这一病患群体改变吸烟习惯。

Clear benefits! Every effort! Aaaaaaah! 明显好处！全面努力！啊哈哈哈哈！ I mean, I know where they (and the Lancet editors, who write a glowing comment backing them up) are coming from. Smoking is bad because lung cancer, COPD, etc. But now we have these things called e-cigarettes! They deliver nicotine without tobacco! As far as anyone knows they carry vastly less risk of cancer, COPD, etc. If nicotine actually prevents schizophrenia rather than causing it, that is the sort of thing we should really want to know. And instead we’re just getting this “We should make schizophrenia patients stop smoking, because smoking is bad”. 我说，我知道他们（以及《柳叶刀》的编辑们，他们写了篇热情洋溢的评论支持前者）的出发点在哪儿。吸烟不好，因为会导致肺癌、慢性阻塞性肺炎等等。但我们现在已经有了所谓的电子烟！它们无需烟草就能提供尼古丁。如果尼古丁确实会预防而不是导致精神分裂症，这种事应该是我们确实想要明白知晓的。但是，我们听到的却是这样一些话：“我们应该让精神分裂症患者停止抽烟，因为抽烟不好。” Look. I am not going to come out and say that there’s great evidence that nicotine decreases schizophrenia risk. There’s one study, which other studies contradict. I happen to think that the one study looks better than its competitors, but that’s my opinion and I have nowhere near the evidence I would need to feel really strongly about this. 注意，我不是跳出来说有很强的证据表明尼古丁有助于减少精神分裂症患病风险。有一项研究这么说，还有许多研究跟它有抵触。我只是凑巧觉得，这项研究似乎比其他研究做得更好，当然这只是我的个人看法，要说我对这一想法的信念有多强烈，那根本还缺乏必要的证据支持。 But I feel like we are very far from the point where we know enough to be pushing people at risk of schizophrenia away from nicotine, and light-years away from the point where we can use phrases like “clear benefits”. 但是，我也认为，要说我们已经具备了足够的知识，以催促有精神分裂症患病风险的人远离尼古丁，那我们现在还差得远；要说使用“明显好处”一类的说法，那我们还差着很多光年。 Possibly I am an idiot and missing something very important. But if this is true, I wish the authors of the new study, and the editors of The Lancet, would have acknowledged the existence of the conflicting study and patiently explained to their readership, many of whom are idiots like myself, “Here’s a study that looks better than ours that seems to contradict our results, but here’s why our study is nevertheless far more believable.” That’s all I ask. 也许我是个笨蛋，忽略了一些非常重要的事情。但如果真是如此，我就希望上述新研究的作者们，以及《柳叶刀》的编辑们，能够承认与他们有相互冲突的研究存在，并能耐心地向读者们解释，因为许多读者跟我一样是笨蛋。“有项研究看起来比我们做得好，结论与我们的相反，但我们的研究仍然更可信，理由如下。”这才是我希望看到的。 No matter how much of an idiot I am, I can’t possibly imagine how that wouldn’t be a straight-out gain. 不管我有多么傻，我也根本无法想象，这么做怎么会不是一件彻头彻尾的好事。 PS: Cigarette smoking definitely decreases your risk of Parkinson’s Disease. Parkinson’s is similar to schizophrenia in that both involve dopamine. But schizophrenia involves too much dopamine and Parkinson’s too little, so the analogy could go either direction. 附：吸烟绝对会减少你患帕金森症的风险。帕金森症跟精神分裂症有些类似，两者都涉及到多巴胺。只是，精神分裂症是多巴胺过多，而帕金森症则是过少，所以该类比可以指向两个方向。【译注：即吸烟可能会减低，也可能会增加精神分裂症的风险。】 PPS: Tobacco smoking is definitely still bad! Nothing in here at all suggests that tobacco smoking has the slightest chance of not being a terrible decision! 又附：吸烟仍然绝对有害！本文没有任何地方说吸烟有可能不是个糟糕的决定，没门。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

It may be baby talk, but ‘parentese’ is an infant’s pathway to learning the language, international study shows 跨国研究表明：“妈妈语”虽然萌萌哒，但却是婴儿学习语言的必经之路 作者：Joel Schwarz @ 1997-7-31 译者：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 校对：Drunkplane（@Drunkplane-zny） 来源：UWToday 网址： http://www.washington.edu/news/1997/07/31/it-may-be-baby-talk-but-parentese-is-an-infants-pathway-to-learning-the-language-international-study-shows/ Parentese, the exaggerated, drawn-out form of speech that people use to communicate with babies, apparently is universal and plays a vital role in helping infants to analyze and absorb the phonetic elements of their parents’ language. An international study shows that infants are so good at analyzing this speech that by the age of 20 weeks they are beginning to produce the three vowel sounds common to all human languages — “ee,” “ah” and “uu.” 妈妈语，指的是人们在和幼儿交流时使用的那种夸张、拖长的说话方式。它似乎是普天下皆有的现象，而且在帮助婴儿分析和掌握父母语言的语音要素方面发挥着关键作用。一项跨国研究表明，婴儿分析这种说话方式的能力极高，以至于他们在20周那么大时就开始发出所有人类语言都共有的三个元音，即ee，ah和uu。 “Parentese has a melody to it. And inside this melody is a tutorial for the baby that contains exceptionally well-formed versions of the building blocks of language,” explains Patricia Kuhl, a University of Washington neuroscientist. Kuhl recently headed a team of nine researchers from the United States, Russia and Sweden investigating how infants master the complex task of acquiring speech. Their findings are being published in tomorrow’s issue (Aug. 1) of the journal Science. “妈妈语具有内在的韵律。对幼儿的辅导就藏在这一韵律之中，其内容包括了语言基本材料的极为成熟的形式”，华盛顿大学神经系统科学家Patricia Kuhl如此解释道。Kuhl近来带领一个9人团队对婴儿如何得以完成学会说话这种复杂任务进行了研究，研究者分别来自美国、俄罗斯和瑞典。他们的发现将于明天（8月1日）发表于《科学》杂志上。【编注：注意本文发表于1997年。】 The new study examined differences in how American, Russian and Swedish mothers speak to their infants and to other adults. The study shows that parentese is characterized by over- articulation that exaggerates the sounds contained in words. Mothers in the study were, in effect, sounding out “super-vowels” to help their infants learn the phonetic elements of language, says Kuhl, who is the chair of speech and hearing sciences and the William P. and Ruth Gerberding professor at the UW. 这项新研究考察了美国、俄罗斯和瑞典的妈妈们在和她们的婴儿说话时跟她们和其他成人说话时的区别。研究表明，妈妈语的特征是夸张发音，对词语中的音素进行夸张。Kuhl说，实际上，被研究的妈妈们都会发出“超级元音”来帮助她们的孩子学习语言中的语音要素。Kuhl在华盛顿大学担任言语及听觉学院主席，同时还是该校的“盖博丁夫妇”讲席教授。 “In normal, everyday speech adults generally race along at a very fast pace,” Kuhl says. “But we know it is easier to understand a speaker when they stretch out sounds. That’s why we tend to speak more slowly and carefully to increase understanding when we teach in the classroom or talk to strangers. We also do this unconsciously with babies, giving them an improved verbal signal they can capitalize on by slowing down and over articulating.” “在正常的日常交谈中，成年人一般都会以非常快的速度放连珠炮”，Kuhl说。“但我们知道，如果说话者拉长声音，就更容易被人听懂。这就是为什么我们在进行课堂教学或和陌生人说话时会把话说得更慢更仔细，这是为了增进理解。面对幼儿时，我们也会下意识地这么做。通过放慢语速、夸张发音，我们向幼儿提供了一种改良过的语言信号，以便他们利用。” The mothers in the study were not aware of what they were doing, she says, and so parentese was produced unconsciously and automatically. “When women across three different cultures, speaking three different languages, show the same pattern when speaking to their infants, biology is telling us something about it’s necessity and value to their babies. It’s our job to figure out why they do it and what it’s good for,” Kuhl adds. 她还说，被研究的妈妈们对于自己的作为并没有自觉意识，因此妈妈语是无意识、不经意产生的。“来自三种不同文化、使用三种不同语言的妇女在和她们的婴儿交谈时都呈现出同一种模式，这是生物学在向我们透露某些东西，关乎其必要性及其对幼儿的价值。我们的任务就是要搞清她们为什么要这么做以及这么做的好处”，Kuhl补充说。 To explore differences in the way people communicate with infants and adults, 10 women from each of the three countries were first recorded talking for 20 minutes to their infants, ranging in age from two to five months. Then they were recorded in conversation with an adult. 为了查明人们与婴儿及他们与成人交流时的区别，研究者首先对分别来自上述三国的各10位妇女与其婴儿的交谈进行了20分钟的录音，婴儿年龄从2至5个月不等。然后又录制了她们与某一成人的谈话。 In both cases, the mothers were told to talk naturally and were given a small list of target words containing the three common vowel sounds and asked to include them in the conversations.. The selected English words were “bead” for the “ee” sound, “pot” for “ah” and “boot” for “uu.” Similar common words were selected in Russian and Swedish. The three languages were chosen because they represent substantially different vowel systems occurring in human languages: Russian has five vowels, English has nine vowels and Swedish has16. 在两种情形中，妈妈们都被要求进行自然交谈，并拿到了一份简短的目标词汇表，这些词汇都包含有常见的三种元音。妈妈们被要求在对话中使用到这些词汇。被选中的英文单词包括bead（含元音ee），pot（含元音ah）和boot（含元音uu）。俄语和瑞典语中也选的是类似的常见词汇。之所以选这三种语言，是因为它们代表着人类语言中存在本质区别的不同元音体系：俄语有5个元音，英语有9个，而瑞典语有16个。 The more than 2,300 recorded target words spoken by the subjects were then isolated and acoustically analyzed by spectrograph. This analysis showed speech directed at infants had more extreme or stretched out vowel sounds than speech with an adult. This was true among all 30 mothers across the three languages, says Kuhl. 然后，研究者把研究对象说过且被录制的2300多个目标词汇单独提取出来，并用声谱仪对之进行声学分析。分析表明，跟对成人说的话相比，对婴儿说的话中包含有更过分或更为拖长的元音发音。Kuhl说，使用三种语言的30位母亲全都如此。 The use of parentese seems to benefit infants in three ways, she believes. It makes the sounds of vowels more distinct from one another, and it produces expanded vowel sounds not produced in ordinary adult conversations. This exaggerated speech allows mothers to produce a greater variety of vowel pronunciations without overlapping other vowels. Kuhl相信，使用妈妈语似乎会从三种途径有利于婴儿。它能使元音发音彼此之间区分得更为清楚，同时能发出成人们在日常对话中不会发出的拖长元音。这种夸张的说话方式能让妈妈们发出更为多样化的元音读法，且不与其它元音重叠。 To speak, an infant must be able to reproduce the appropriate features of individual phonetic elements using a tiny vocal tract which is about only one-quarter the size and lacks the same frequency range of an adult’s. The exaggeration of parentese helps the infant separate sounds into contrasting categories and helps the baby distinguish between different categories, she believes. 婴儿的小声道在大小上只有成人的大约四分之一，缺乏成人所具备的那种频率范围。为了说话，婴儿必须要用这种声道来再现每个语音要素的恰当特征。Kuhl相信，妈妈语的夸张发音能帮助婴儿将声音分为对比鲜明的类别，并帮助他们区分不同类别。 “What infants are doing with this information is not memorization. Their minds are not working like a tape recorder,” says Kuhl. “Because their mouths and vocal tracts can’t form the same sounds as adults, they have to transform adult sounds to frequencies they can use. So they must be analyzing speech.” “针对这些信息，婴儿们做的并不是熟记。他们的心智并不像是录音机那样运转”，Kuhl说。“因为他们的小嘴和小声道无法发出成人那样的声音，他们必须将成人的发音转化为他们能够使用的频率。因此，他们必定分析发声。” Babies’ brains, like their bodies, need to be nourished, she says, and parentese provides them with “essential nuggets” of information about language that their lightning fast brains analyze and absorb. 她说，幼儿的大脑跟他们的身体一样需要滋养，而妈妈语则为他们提供了语言信息的“基本材料”，以便他们能用其闪电般快速运转的大脑进行分析和吸收。 The use of parentese seems to be universal, she says, and parents don’t have to worry about learning it when they take a newborn home from the hospital. 她说，使用妈妈语似乎是普天下共有的现象，父母们把新生儿从医院抱回家后并不需要担心如何学会妈妈语。 “Moms, dads, caretakers, younger siblings and even college students who were handed a baby in the classroom have been observed speaking parentese. Talking that way seems to be a natural communications mode we all use. That means parents don’t have to work hard at this. Just by talking and communicating with their infants they are playing a vital role without being aware of it,” Kuhl says. “人们已经发现，妈妈、爸爸、保姆、小哥哥小姐姐都会说妈妈语，甚至是在课堂上被塞给了一个小宝宝的大学生也是如此。以这种方式说话似乎是我们所使用的一种自然的交流模式。这就是说，父母们无需在这方面用功。只要和他们的婴儿说话交流，他们就在不自觉的扮演一个关键的角色”，Kuhl说。 Collaborating researchers in the study come from the Early Intervention Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Stockholm University in Sweden. The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. 参与本研究的合作研究者分别来自俄罗斯圣彼得堡的早期介入研究所和瑞典斯德哥尔摩大学。研究得到了美国国立卫生研究院、加拿大社会科学与人文研究委员会及瑞典银行三百年基金会的基金资助。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Giving Genes Their Due, But Not More 正视基因的功劳，但不要过誉 作者：Erik Parens @ 2015-5-21 译者：Tankman 校对：Drunkplane （@Drunkplane-zny） 来源：quillette，http://quillette.com/2016/05/21/giving-genes-their-due-but-not-more/ A review of Behaving: What’s Genetic, What’s Not, and Why Should We Care?   by Kenneth B. Schaffner. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2016), 304 pages. 对牛津大学出版社出版的Kenneth B. Schaffner的《行为：什么是遗传的，什么不是，以及我们为何要在意这些》的书评。 No one gets anxious about using genetics to help explain a medical disease like cancer or heart disease. But using genetics to help explain a normal behavior like aggression, or a psychiatric disorder like depression, can be an entirely different story. At first blush, this difference in response to using genetics to explain different features of the same animal seems odd. 没有人会担心用遗传学来帮助解释疾病，如癌症或心脏疾病。但是用遗传学来帮助解释普通的行为，例如攻击行为，或精神障碍，如抑郁，则是一个完全不同的故事。对于用遗传学来解释同一动物的不同特征却有不同的反应，乍一看这似乎很奇怪。 After all, it’s not as if medical geneticists, on the one hand, and behavioral and psychiatric geneticists, on the other, employ different research methods. The difference, of course, is that the behavioral and psychiatric geneticists investigate features of ourselves that we take to be central to our humanity: our ways of acting and being in the world. To use genetics to try to explain those features elicits the anxious question, is human behavior genetically determined? 毕竟，这并不是说医疗遗传学家与另—边的行为和精神遗传学家，采用的是不同的研究方法。所不同的当然是，行为和精神遗传学家研究我们自己的特征，我们认为这些特征是我们人性的核心：我们行动和存在于世界的方式。试图用遗传学解释这些特征引起了一个令人焦虑的问题，人的行为是不是遗传决定的？ Few people have been thinking about that question for as long, or with as much devotion to the scientific facts and philosophical subtleties, as the philosopher of science, Kenneth Schaffner. In his magisterial, wise, and succinct new book,Behaving, he disentangles its two separate but related components. The first, which he devotes the lion’s share of the book to illuminating, concerns reductionism: specifically, can behavior be reduced to genes? No, it can’t. 没几个人像科学哲学家Kenneth Schaffner这样，长期思考这一问题，并大量精力投入科学事实和深奥哲理。在他的权威，智慧，简洁的新书《行为》中，他理顺了行为的两个独立但相关的成分。第一，他用本书的大部分篇幅，做了关于还原论的阐释：具体而言，行为可以被简化为基因吗？不，不能。 But it can, at least in principle, be reduced to, or explained in terms of, a mind-bogglingly large number of variables — including genes — which interact over time. The second concerns determinism: even if genes alone don’t determine behavior, does the fact that behavior is determined mean that freedom is an illusion? No. But it does mean that we have to jettison the sort of freedom that children sometimes imagine — freedom untethered to our bodies and histories. 但它可以，至少在原则上，可以简化或被解释成，包括基因在内的一大堆变量，数量多到令人发狂，且这些变量一直交互作用。第二点则关于决定论：即使基因并不能单独决定行为，行为是被决定的这一事实是否意味着自由是一种错觉？不。但它确实意味着我们必须抛弃那种自由，即有时孩子们会想象的那种——不受我们的身体和历史羁绊的自由。 In the course of decreasing the anxiety associated with genetic determinism, Schaffner’s book also decreases the anxiety associated with the fantasy of “designer babies” — a fantasy which depends on the notion that just by “editing” genes we can produce any trait we want, from great athleticism to great intelligence. 在试图减少遗传决定论所带来的焦虑时，Schaffner的书也降低了与“设计婴儿”狂想有关的焦虑——这一狂想基于以下概念：仅通过“编辑”基因，我们便可以创造任何我们想要的特质，从强大的运动能力到极高的智力。 By dispelling this wildly simplistic notion, Schaffner’s book serves not only as an anxiety reducer — or “anxiolytic” — but also as a “mood stabilizer”: it helps stabilize the mania that can afflict those who envision the Human Genome Project as the key to the future of medicine. 通过打消这种疯狂简单化的概念，Schaffner的书不仅可充当一种焦虑缓和剂——或“抗焦虑药”——而且可充当一种“情绪稳定剂” ：它有助于稳定一种狂热，这狂热让那些把人类基因组计划当成开启医学未来的金钥匙的人备受折磨。 Schaffner provides a balanced account while never losing sight of what has been and will be achieved by using genetics to explain medical, behavioral, and psychiatric traits — especially if integrated with insights at myriad other levels of analysis, from the genetic and neuronal to the psychological and social. Schaffner提供了一个平衡的描述，他从未忽视在用遗传学解释医疗、行为和精神特质的方面，已经和将会实现的成就—— 特别展望了若把这些成就和遗传学、神经科学、心理、社会等诸多其他层面的分析相结合所能带来的前景。 A Judge and a Behavioral Geneticist Have a Conversation 一个法官和一个行为遗传学家的对话 Schaffner begins with three Socratic dialogues (minus any Socratic snarkyness or dead ends) that elegantly introduce the basic concepts and methods of behavioral genetics. They are worth rehearsing here. The dialogues feature a Behavioral Geneticist and a fictional Judge. Based on the breathless headlines she’s read over the years, the Judge anticipates that she will increasingly confront the results of behavioral genetics research in her courtroom. Schaffner以三个苏格拉底式对话开始。（没有任何苏格拉底的反讽或死结）这些对话优雅的介绍了行为遗传学的基本概念和方法。他们值得在此被回溯。这些对话的主角是一个行为遗传学家和一个虚构的法官。根据她多年来读到的那些令人喘不过气的头条新闻，法官预计，她将在她的法庭面对越来越多的行为遗传学研究结果。 This provides the Behavioral Geneticist with a pretext for explaining how such results can — and cannot — help explain human behavior, and how such results are — and are not — relevant to everyday understandings of behaviors like aggression, traits like performance on IQ tests, and disorders like ADHD. (Because there is no difference between the concepts and methods of behavioral genetics and psychiatric genetics, from here on out I will use “behavioral genetics” to include the use of genetics to illuminate behaviors and traits, whether or not they are associated with a psychiatric diagnosis.) 这为行为遗传学家提供了理由，来解释这些结果可以或者不可以帮助解释人类行为，以及这些结果和一些对行为，特质，或者疾病的日常理解怎样关联或不相关。例如攻击性人格的行为，智商测试的表现，以及多动症。（因为行为遗传学的概念和方法与精神病遗传学之间没有区别，在此我将使用“行为遗传学”，以包括遗传学在解释的行为和特征上的应用，无论其是否与精神病诊断相关。） Two radically different sorts of investigation are undertaken by behavioral geneticists, and the dialogues introduce a basic but crucial distinction between them. The first uses “classical” methods to demonstrate that genes help explain observed differences in human traits and behaviors, whereas the second uses “molecular” methods to determine which genes or genetic differences are generating those observed differences. 行为遗传学家进行了两种截然不同的调查，而对话介绍了它们之间基本但关键的一个区别。第一种是使用“经典”方法来阐明基因有助于解释人的特征和行为上可见的差异，而第二个则使用“分子层面”方法，以确定哪些基因或遗传差异产生了那些可见差异。 The distinction is important — the distance is enormous between being able to say that a trait “is genetic” and being able to say which gene variants are contributing to the emergence of that trait (much less being able to say how they are contributing). 这种区别很重要 ——能够说一个特征“是遗传的”，和能够说出哪些基因变异正在促成该性状的涌现，这之间有着巨大的鸿沟（更别提说出它们是如何促成的）。 The basic idea for the classical method has been around since the pioneering statistician and father of modern eugenics, Francis Galton, published “The History of Twins” in 1875 — long before anyone knew anything about DNA. In its simplest contemporary form, geneticists compare identical and fraternal twins on a trait of interest, whether heart disease, schizophrenia, or performance on IQ tests. 自统计学先驱和现代优生学之父Francis Galton以来，经典方法的基本思想就已经出现，Galton于1875年发表了《双胞胎的历史》，那时人们还不知道DNA。在当时最简单的形式中，遗传学家比较同卵和异卵双胞胎的目标性状，无论是心脏疾病，精神分裂症，或智商测试的表现。 The first premise of such investigations is that identical twins are nearly 100% genetically similar and fraternal twins share on average only 50% of their genetic material. The second premise is that identical twins and fraternal twins are raised in equally similar environments. 这种调查的第一个前提是同卵双胞胎遗传上近乎100％的相似，而异卵双胞胎则平均只有50％的遗传物质相似。第二个前提是，同卵双胞胎和异卵双胞胎在同样相似的环境被养大。 If one accepts those premises and observes that genetically identical twins are more similar with respect to some trait than fraternal twins, then one has reason to make the simple but profound inference that genetic factors help explain why the identical twins are more similar to each other than are the fraternal twins. 如果一个人接受这些前提并观察到同卵双胞胎的某些特质比异卵双胞胎更相似，那么他便有理由做出简单而深刻的推论，即遗传因素能够帮助解释为什么同卵双胞胎之间比异卵双胞胎更相似。 Over time, by deploying ever more sophisticated variations on that basic logic, behavioral geneticists have demonstrated that identical twins (whether raised together or apart) are not only more similar with respect to traits like height and weight and heart rate, but are also more similar with respect to traits like depression, schizophrenia, aggression, and intelligence. 随着时间的推移，在该基本逻辑的基础上增加更复杂的变量，行为遗传学家已证明同卵双胞胎（无论是一起或分开抚养）不仅在诸如身高、体重和心率等性状上更为相似，而且在诸如抑郁症，精神分裂症，攻击性行为和智力等性状上也更相似。 As Schaffner’s Behavioral Geneticist patiently explains to the Judge, such classical studies produce what are called “heritability estimates.” These are the numbers that are invoked when it is said that depression “is 40% genetic” or that intelligence “is 60% genetic.” 正如Schaffner的行为遗传学家耐心地给法官大人解释的，这样的经典研究产生了所谓的“遗传率估计”。当讨论到抑郁症“40 ％是遗传性的”，或智慧“60 ％是遗传性的”时，有数字可以列。 They are estimates of how much of the variation with respect to a given trait in a given population can be attributed to variation in genetic factors and how much can be attributed to variation in environmental factors. However, in a different environment the observed variation can be different, and thus so can the heritability estimates. 这些估计反映了：对于一个给定群体特定性状的差异，有多少可以归因于遗传因素的差异，多少可以归因于环境因素的差异。毕竟，在不同的环境中可观察到的差异可以是不同的，因此，这样就可以估计遗传率。 To say that heritability estimates can be different in different environments is not to say that heritability estimates tell us nothing! (Indeed, how our genes can affect the environments we choose is an area of behavioral genetic research.) 如果说，遗传率在不同的环境下可以是不同的，这并不意味着遗传率什么都没告诉我们！ （事实上​​，我们的基因如何影响我们为自己选择身处其中的环境，是行为遗传学研究的一个领域。） An old but ever-relevant example of how much heritability estimates can tell us comes from the 1960s, when behavioral geneticists used classical studies to discredit the then-popular idea that schizophrenia and autism were due solely to bad environments — in particular, to “refrigerator mothers.” 关于遗传率，有个老旧但十分相关的例子，来自1960年代。当时行为遗传学家采用经典的研究方法，以贬斥当时十分流行的观点：精神分裂症和自闭症纯粹由恶劣环境引发—— 尤其是“冰箱妈妈”。【译者注：让孩子感到缺乏母爱的妈妈。】 The good news is that these studies helped relieve already-devastated mothers of the burden and social stigma associated with believing that their mothering had caused the disease in their child. 好消息是，这些研究有助于缓解已经受创颇深的母亲们的负担和社会污名，这些负担和污名来自这样一种见解：这些妈妈的抚育方式导致了她们孩子的疾病。 The bad news is that the knowledge gleaned from those classical studies does not help diagnose or treat — much less prevent — a disorder like schizophrenia. To go from noticing that genetic differences were making a difference to knowing which genetic differences were making a difference, geneticists had to move from the classical twin methods to the modern “molecular” methods. 坏消息是，从经典研究中获取的知识并不能帮助诊断或治疗——更不用说预防——如精神分裂症之类的疾病。从注意到遗传差异，到知道哪个遗传差异导致某种不同，遗传学家必须从经典的双胞胎方法跨越到现代的“分子”方法。 The Genome: A “Molecular Crystal Ball”? 基因组：一个“分子层面的水晶球”？ This move only became possible in the second half of the 20th century, when researchers began to understand the molecular structure of genes and how to map and sequence human genomes. Indeed, the purpose of the Human Genome Project (HGP), which officially launched in 1990, was to map the genome and to specify the sequence of the base pairs, the As, Gs, Cs, and Ts, that are the building blocks of genes. 此举直到20世纪下半叶才成为可能，当时研究人员开始了解基因的分子结构，以及如何对人类基因组进行绘制和测序图谱。事实上，于1990年正式启动的人类基因组计划（HGP）的目的，便是绘制基因组，并指定基因的积木——碱基对AS、GS 、CS和TS的序列。 The fervent hope was that knowledge of those sequences would lead rather quickly and directly to understanding and treating human disease. In reflecting back on that time, the geneticists Linda and Edward McCabe speak ruefully of the dream that an individual’s genome would be like a “molecular crystal ball.” 人们热切希望有关这些序列的知识将相当快且相当直接的导致对人类疾病的理解和治疗。忆起那个时候，遗传学家Linda 和 Edward McCabe懊丧的谈起当时的梦想：一个人的基因组将会像一个“分子层面的水晶球”。（http://content.ucpress.edu/pages/10867/10867.ch01.pdf） This idea of identifying “genes for” diseases made intuitive sense. After all, one year before the official launch of the HGP, in 1989, Francis Collins — who would go on to direct the National Human Genome Research Institute and who now directs the entire NIH — did co-discover “the gene for” cystic fibrosis, which constituted a prime supporting case in point for the idea dubbed OGOD: One-Gene-One-Disease. 直觉上，确定“致病基因”的想法是有道理的。毕竟，正式启动人类基因组计划前一年，即1989年，Francis Collins ——美国国家人类基因组研究所后来的领袖，也是现在整个美国国家卫生研究院（NIH）的领袖——和他人共同发现了囊性纤维化的“致病基因” ，这构成了OGOD理念，即一个基因对应一种疾病（One-Gene-One-Disease）的主要支撑例证。 If a rare medical disorder like cystic fibrosis could be caused by one gene, then maybe common medical diseases like heart disease could, too. And if common medical diseases could be caused by single genes, then maybe the same was true for psychiatric disorders and behavioral traits. 若是像囊性纤维化这样一种罕见的医学疾病可以由一个基因引起，那么也许常见病，如心脏病，也可能如此。如果普通疾病可能由单个基因引起的，那么也许精神疾病和行为特征同样如此。 Sure enough, in the 1990s, articles in the scientific and lay presses announced discoveries of “genes for” everything from bipolar disorder to aggression. But as Schaffner’s Behavioral Geneticist tells the Judge, those findings (which sparked the Judge’s initial interest) could not be replicated. “Genes for” diseases like cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s and sTay Sach were exceptions to the rule. 诚然，在1990年代，科普界的文章宣布发现各种各样的“致病基因”，从躁郁症到攻击性人格，无所不包。但正如Schaffner的行为遗传学家告诉法官的，这些（引发了法官最初兴趣的）发现无法被复制。诸如如囊性纤维化、亨廷顿舞蹈症和Tay-Sachs 病的“致病基因”是这一规律的例外。 “Failures to replicate” reminded geneticists of the yawning gap between discovering that a trait “is genetic” and figuring out which genes help explain it. 这些研究“无法被复制”提醒遗传学家们，在发现一种特质“是遗传的” ，和搞清哪些基因有助于解释该特质之间的存在着巨大鸿沟。 Genetic Reductionism: A Panacea or a Boondoggle? 遗传学还原论：万灵药还是打水漂？ One of the fascinating features of Schaffner’s book is his commitment to telling the story of how he came to reform — not renounce — his own vision of reductionism. When he began his career in the 1970s, he resonated with the hardcore genetic reductionists, who dreamt that understanding the operation of genes would be a panacea: a cure for our ignorance with respect to how disease and behavior come into being. Schaffner这本书的一个令人赞叹的特点是，他坚持讲述他如何变革——而不是抛弃——自己对还原论的看法。当他的职业生涯在1970年代开始时，他和铁杆遗传还原论者很合得来，这些还原论者有一个梦想，即理解基因的操作将会是一个万灵药：在疾病和行为是如何产生的这个问题上，能治愈我们的无知。 But already at that time people who called themselves developmentalists (such as the much-discussed evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin) were challenging that dream, suggesting that, especially in the context of behavior, genetic reductionism was a boondoggle. 但在那时自称是发育展主义者的人士（如备受争议的进化生物学家Richard Lewontin）则挑战了这一梦想，他提出，基因还原论打了水漂，尤其是在行为问题上。 To understand how Schaffner arrived at a middle path, it helps to understand the developmentalists’ challenge. According to Schaffner, that challenge boils down to five core concepts, two of them helpful and three overstated. 了解Schaffner如何到达一条中间道路，有助于理解发育主义者的挑战。据Schaffner看，这一挑战可以归结为五大核心理念，当中有两个有用，有三个被夸大其辞了。 The first helpful one concerns “contextualism” — the idea that genes do not have inherent meaning, but only acquire meaning “in context with other genes, and in the environment that is cellular, extracellular, and extraorganismic” (p. 95). 第一个有用的理念和“背景主义”相关——即基因不具有固有的意义，但仅“在其他基因的背景中，并且在细胞内环境，细胞外环境，和生物体外的环境中”获得了意义（第95页）。 The other helpful (or at least wholly unobjectionable) core concept is “nonpreformationism” — the developmentalists’ rejection of the very old idea that genes contain within them little copies of the traits with which they are associated. 另一个有用的（或至少是完全无法反驳的）核心理念是“非预成论”——即发育主义者拒绝了基因中含有与其相关的性状的微小副本这一古旧想法。 As for the overstated ones, they include the core concept of “parity” — the idea that genes have no more explanatory power than many other features of the organism and environment. Schaffner dismisses this as an exaggeration, at least insofar as it ignores the extent of our current understanding of the molecular structure and function of DNA. 而那些夸大的理念，包括“等价性”——即基因和生物体以及环境的许多其他特征相比，并没有更多的解释力。至少目前，Schaffner把这作为一种夸张来驳斥，因为它忽略了我们当下对DNA分子结构和功能的了解程度。 “Unpredictability,” their fourth core concept, is also exaggerated: genes can contribute to some predictions. As for the developmentalists’ fifth concept, “indivisibility,” Schaffner reminds us of the extent to which reductionism can make incremental progress in “dividing” behavior into analyzable components. 他们的第四个核心理念 “不可预测性”，也是夸张的：基因可以帮助做出一些预测。而对于发育主义的第五个理念， “不可分割性”，Schaffner提醒我们在把行为分割成可分析组件方面，还原论能够取得何种程度的渐进性进展。 To better illustrate his revised vision for reductionism, he introduces the humble roundworm, a wonderful organism for research purposes precisely because we have such highly detailed knowledge of its genes, neurons, neuronal connections and circuits, and of the typical behaviors it engages in during its short life. 为了更好地说明他的修正版还原论，他介绍了不起眼的蛔虫。对做研究来说，这个生物真是棒极了。我们对它的基因，神经元，神经连接和回路，及其短暂一生中的典型行为都有非常详细的知识。 In his characteristically even-handed way, Schaffner actually begins his account of worm behavior with one of those exceptional cases that can mesmerize journalists, pop psychologists, bioethicists, and others — a case where mutations in a single gene do indeed appear to be the necessary condition for a behavior: specifically, in this case, for determining whether a roundworm eats alone or in groups. In other words: one gene appears to determine the worm’s dining preference! 以其特有的不偏不倚的方式，Schaffner实际上用一个极好的例子开始阐释蛔虫的行为，这例子可以让记者，通俗心理学家，伦理学家和其他人着迷。那就是某个基因的变异看起来确实可以是一种行为改变的必要条件：具体来说，决定了一条蛔虫单独进食还是和群体一起进食。换句话说：看来是一个基因决定着该蠕虫的进食喜好！ But then the remainder of his discussion of the roundworm illuminates what’s wrong with the One-Gene-One-Behavior idea — and more generally, with the One-Gene-One-Disease (OGOD) idea. 但书中关于蠕虫的讨论的余下篇幅阐明了“一个基因一种行为”， 更宽泛的来说是“一个基因一种疾病”（One-Gene-One-Disease ，缩写为OGOD）这一理念的谬误之处，。 To show why the “gene for style of eating” example is an exception to the big rule of thumb that behaviors cannot be reduced to genes, much less to single genes, Schaffner introduces eight smaller “rules.” 为了解释为何“决定进食偏好的基因”只是“行为不能被还原为基因，更不能被还原为单个基因”这条更一般性的经验法则的一个例外，Schaffner 介绍了八条较小的“法则”。 These emphasize the interactions, occurring on multiple levels of analysis (from genes to neurons and nutrients), which change over time, and which shape and are shaped by the cellular, extracellular, and extraorganismic environments. 这些法则强调了发生在多个分析层次上的交互作用，从基因到神经元和营养物，而且这些交互作用一直在变化，并且塑造着细胞内，细胞外和生物体外的环境，反过来又受到这些环境的影响。 For example, “social deprivation,” he patiently explains, can adversely affect even the development of worms. Those raised in isolation were slower to respond to taps on the plates that constitute their environments (the “tap withdrawal reflex”), were physically smaller, and had delayed development — and the delay was correlated with the altered expression of a gene coding for a protein involved in the tap response. 他耐心地解释道，例如“社交剥夺”，甚至对蠕虫的发育也会造成负面影响。那些在孤独中被培育的蠕虫对轻拍培养皿的反应更慢，而培养皿构成了它们的生存环境（轻拍回撤反射实验），而且它们身形更小，发育更迟缓。而这迟缓与一个基因表达上的改变相关，这一基因编码了一种与轻拍反射相关的蛋白质。 Schaffner quotes the researcher’s conclusion: “Experience … can alter both gene expression and the structure of the nervous system” (p. 92). Even in the roundworm, there is no “gene for” the tap response; instead, the tap response is the result of a complex network, including, at a minimum, genes, neurons, and environments. If we hope to explain behavior, then, according to Schaffner, we need a “network perspective.” Schaffner 引用研究者的结论：“经验……能够改变基因表达和神经系统结构”（第92页）。即使在蠕虫里，也没有负责轻拍反应的基因；反之，轻拍反应是一个复杂网络的结果，这一网络至少包括基因、神经元、和环境。如果我们希望解释行为，那么根据Schaffner 的观点，我们需要一个“网络视角”。 If this “network” type of genetic explanation holds for most behaviors, including even more complex organisms than worms and fruit flies, such as mice and humans, it raises barriers both to any simplistic type of genetic explanation, and the prospects of easily achievable medical and psychiatric pharmacological interventions into behaviors (ital. added, p. 95). 如果这个“网络”型遗传学解释能对大多数行为成立，包括比蠕虫和果蝇复杂得多的生物体，比如老鼠和人，它就使以下二者变得更困难：一，任何还原论版本的遗传学解释；二，发明出针对行为的，容易实现的医药或精神病学的药物干涉的希望。 In other words, to appreciate the leap from genes to worm behaviors should put us on notice that there will be even more “barriers” in going from genes to human behaviors, disorders, and diseases. The once-intuitively plausible idea of the genome as a molecular crystal ball has come to seem quaint. 换言之，理解从基因到蠕虫行为的思维跳跃，应该让我们注意到，从基因推及人的行为、失调和疾病，存在更多的困难。把基因组当分子层面的水晶球，这一曾是直觉上可行的的理念已经变得古旧。 It is essential to recognize, however, the difference between the notion that behaviors can be reduced to the operation of genes and the idea that behaviors can be reduced. The former notion, according to Schaffner, is wildly inaccurate, but the latter is not. The fact that we can’t achieve what he calls “sweeping reductions” of the sort first fantasized about at the start of the Human Genome Project does not mean that the enterprise of reductionism is a bust. 然而，有必要认识到，行为可以被还原为基因运作的结果，与行为可以被还原，这两种想法是不同的。在Schaffner看来，前者是非常不精确的，但是后者不是。在人类基因组开始时，人类开始沉迷于Schaffner的所谓“全面还原”的愿景，我们不能达成“全面还原”的愿景这一事实并不意味着还原论的雄心只是个泡影。 It means, among other things, that we need to accept the fact that, in complex systems, we should expect what he calls “patchy” or “partial” or “creeping” reductions. Genes can help to illuminate one “patch” of the huge field or network that would in theory constitute something like a complete explanation of a behavior. 而且这意味着，我们得接受一个事实：在复杂系统中，我们应该期待他所谓的打补丁的，或部分的，或是“小步推进”的还原。基因能帮助弄清这个网络或巨大场域的一个补丁，这在理论上构成了对一种行为的完整解释的一部分。 Finding a Path Forward to Understanding Human Behavior 发现通向理解人类行为的路径 Schaffner nimbly moves from worms to human beings. What geneticists have notbeen able to discover regarding human personalities should reassure, even gladden, skeptics. Schaffner 灵活地从蠕虫跳到人类。关于人格，遗传学家一直没能发现的部分，应该会安慰和甚至鼓舞怀疑论者。 At the turn of the century, some psychologists and geneticists hypothesized that there were three domains of personality temperament — novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and reward dependence; each linked to a distinct neurotransmitter — dopamine, serotonin, and epinephrine; and thus linked to “genes for” the production and regulation of one of those neurotransmitters. 在世纪之交，一些心理学家和遗传学家假设人类气质有三个方面——猎奇性，避害性，和趋奖性；每种都和不同的神经递质相关——多巴胺，血清素，和肾上腺素；因此也和产生及管理这些神经递质的基因相关。 The idea was that specific gene variants associated with the regulation of dopamine, for example, had significant effects on novelty seeking. Again, those initial results failed to replicate. Among the reasons for those failures was the mistaken assumption that single “candidate” genes would, independent of their interaction with other genes and environmental variables, have large effects on traits as complex as personality. 这种理念认为，与管理多巴胺有关的基因的特定变异，会对猎奇性有显著影响。再一次，这些最初的结果未能被重复。单个基因会独立于其他基因和环境变量而对诸如人格这样的复杂性状产生巨大影响，这一错误的假设，算是失败的原因之一。 Combine that mistaken assumption with the all-too-human appetite of scientists, university PR departments, and journal editors for big, exciting findings, and voila: a variety of subtle statistical errors crept in. 这个错误的假设，加上科学家们的野心（这也是人之常情），大学公关部门和追求巨大且令人振奋发现的期刊编辑，于是：一系列微妙的统计学谬误渗透了进来。 Even the study of the interaction of genetic and environmental variables in the early 2000s was plagued with replication problems, perhaps due to their depending on the idea of “candidate” genes with large effects. Since then, extraordinary advances in technologies designed to compare genome sequences, combined with powerful new statistical methods, make it increasingly possible to detect genetic variants associated with tiny effects. 即使在21世纪初，对遗传和环境变量相互作用的研究也被结果不能重复这一问题所困扰，也许是因为研究者依赖“候选”基因有强大影响这一理念。此后，旨在比较基因组序列的非凡的技术进步，结合功能强大的新统计方法，使得发现与微小影响相关的遗传变异变得越来越可能。 The new, emerging picture boils down to this: common complex traits are the result of hundreds or thousands of gene variants of small effect size, which often interact with other gene variants as well as a gigantic range of environmental variables. It remains to be seen how much of practical value will result from this. 正在浮现中的新图景可以归结为：常见的复杂性状是几百或几千种效果较小的基因变异所产生的效果，并且它们通常与其他基因变异以及为数众多的环境变量相互作用。这个途径能带来多少实际价值仍有待观察。 Moreover, as Schaffner observes, it may be that huge categories like “novelty seeking” and “harm avoidance” are just too vague or indistinct to establish pathways from genes to behaviors like these. Again, to know that personality “is genetic” is massively different from knowing which genes are at work, much less how they are contributing to a given trait. 此外，Schaffner 指出，这可能是因为诸如“猎奇性”和“避害性”的宽泛类别太过含糊不清，以至于无法建立从基因到此类行为的途径。再次，要知道个性“是遗传的”和知道哪个基因在起作用是非常不同的，更不用说它们是如何导致一个特定性状的。 While Schaffner’s account of personality genetics may dishearten aficionados of genetic explanations, his account of schizophrenia should gladden them. Schizophrenia, too, is a large and heterogeneous category, but researchers have made headway in characterizing that heterogeneity — in specifying the symptoms and subtypes of schizophrenia. It’s in the context of schizophrenia that Schaffner elaborates on his conception of successfully reductionist scientific explanations. 虽然Schaffner关于个性遗传学的阐释会让遗传学解释狂人气馁，他关于精神分裂症的论述应该鼓舞他们。精神分裂症，也同样是一个宽泛且异质的类别，但研究人员在描述其异质性——即详细描述其症状和亚型——上已取得了进展。在精神分裂症问题上，Schaffner成功阐述了他的还原论者科学解释的概念。 Such explanations, whether of schizophrenia or any other disorder or behavior, will have to be “interlevel”; in other words, they will need to draw on what is known at the level of ions, molecules, cells, cell-cell circuits, and organs — and will have to tell a story about how, over time, the factors at those different levels interact with each other and their environments. 这样的解释，无论是针对精神分裂症或任何其他病症或行为，将必须是“层次间的”；换言之，他们将需要利用在离子、分子、细胞、细胞间回路和器官等各层面的知识构建一个故事——且必须解释在不同层次上的各个因素如何一直互动并和环境相互作用。 In the case of schizophrenia, this includes genes implicated in the production and regulation of specialized nerve cells, specialized parts of those nerve cells, connections among those nerve cells, and, ultimately, brain wave patterns thought to be associated with the activation of those neuronal circuits and associated with at least some features of schizophrenia. 在精神分裂症的例子中，那将包括所有涉及下列事情的基因：特化神经细胞的生成和调控、这些神经细胞的特化部位、这些神经细胞之间的连接，以及最后，被认为是和这些神经回路相关联的脑波模式，这些脑波模式也被认为至少和神经分裂症的一些特征相关联。 Need one say that the model he describes is not anywhere close to complete? (Nor is the elaboration of this model, which has recently received high-profile attention.) Rather, it offers a “creeping” reduction — incremental progress in using the tools of genetics and neuroscience to understand one patch of the massively complex phenomenon we call schizophrenia. 可以说他描述的模型离完成还差十万八千里吗？（阐述这个模型让他最近引人瞩目。）然而，这提供了一个“小步推进”的还原论解释——即在利用遗传学和神经科学方面的渐进性进展，可用来理解我们称之为精神分裂的极为复杂现象的一个方面。 Clearly, this model shouldn’t inspire euphoric expectations of imminent cures. Again, to his credit, Schaffner is adamant in stating that, “DNA sequence per se increasingly seems impoverished as a biological explainer” (p. 197). And, again, this is not to say that DNA sequence is unimportant — it’s just not important in the simple ways we once imagined, which notably still linger in the imagination. 很显然，这种模式不该激发关于治愈方案立即诞生的欣快预期。令人佩服地，Schaffner 再次坚决指出， “ 单单用DNA序列本身去解释生物学现象，似乎越来越困窘” （第197页） 。并且再次，这不是说 DNA序列是不重要的——只是不像我们曾经想象得那样，以简单的方式而显出其重要性，很明显，这些简单方式仍徘徊在想象中。 A Grownup Conception of Freedom 一个成熟的“自由”概念 So, is human behavior genetically determined? Different from what a sweeping genetic reductionist would hope, we have seen that the answer is plainly no. But nor is human behavior not determined. On the contrary, Schaffner thinks that human behavior is determined — and that it admits of reductionist explanations. Does this mean freedom is an illusion? 所以，人类行为是遗传决定的吗？不同于全面遗传学简化论者所指望的，我们已经看到答案明显是否定的。但这也不是说人类行为不是决定的。相反，Schaffner 认为人类行为是决定的——这使得还原论者的解释成为可能。这意味着自由是幻觉吗？ No, it doesn’t, even if it does mean that we have to give up conceptions of freedom of the sort that best-selling authors like Sam Harris like to set up in order to knock down. Yes, we have to give up the idea of freedom as an extra-natural capacity or force that is somehow insulated from the impact of the natural and social forces at work in the world. 不，这没有，即使这意味着我们必须放弃畅销书作家如 Sam Harris 为了作品成功而设定的那种自由概念。是的，我们必须放弃这一理念：自由某种程度上是一种能绝缘于世上自然和社会力量影响的超自然能力。 But accepting that our behaviors are determined by natural and social forces that, at least in principle, admit of explanation does not mean that we have to give up the conception of freedom that mature adults should want, or that, as Daniel Dennett puts it, “is worth having.” 但是接受我们的行为是被自然和社会决定的，或者至少在原则上承认该解释，并不意味着我们必须放弃有关心智成熟的成人应该渴望的那种——或者如 Daniel Dennett所说的，“值得拥有的”——自由的概念。 To get at what such a conception of freedom is, Schaffner introduces philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s influential distinction between first- and second-order desires. Consider, for example, an alcoholic with insight into her alcoholism. She might have a second-order desire not to drink, while also having a first-order desire to drink. 为了说清楚如此的自由概念究竟是什么，Schaffner 介绍了哲学家Harry Frankfurt所说的第一阶渴望和第二阶渴望之间的显著区别。试想，一个酗酒者很清楚的认识到她的成瘾问题。她也许有种不喝酒的二阶渴望，但同时又有想喝酒的一阶渴望。 The person who cannot bring her first-and second-order desires into alignment lacks what warrants being called free will. If, on the other hand, she can get those first- and second-order desires into alignment, and if she can, as it were, desire what she wants to desire, we can say that she is free. 这个不能把一阶和二阶渴望协调好的人缺乏确保自由意志的能力。反之，如果她能协调好一阶和二阶渴望，并且如果某种程度上她能渴望她想渴望的，我们可以说她是自由的。 The behavioral geneticist and philosopher of psychiatry, Kenneth Kendler explains how human beings can, “through their decision-making capacity, intervene in causal pathways from genes to behavior.” Kendler’s first example is alcohol dependence. We know from classical behavioral genetics studies that alcoholism “is genetic” in the real but limited sense that the genes that children inherit from parents can put them at increased risk of becoming alcoholics. 行为遗传学家和精神病哲学家 Kenneth Kendler 解释了人类如何能“通过他们的决策能力，在从基因到行为的因果性路径上进行干涉。”Kendler的第一个例子是酒精依赖。从经典的行为遗传学研究我们知道，酗酒在真实但有限的意义上是“遗传性的”，即孩子从父母那里继承的基因能增加他们成为酗酒者的风险。 We also know, however, that children of alcoholics are also at increased “risk” of becoming teetotalers — practicing complete abstinence from alcohol; Donald Trump’s response to his father’s and brother’s alcoholism is a case in point. Kendler and Schaffner both want us to notice how a grownup conception of freedom retains a place both for genes and for choice. 但我们也知道，酗酒者的孩子成为滴酒不沾者——也就是实际上完全戒绝酒精——的可能性也增加了；川普对于其父兄酗酒的回应就是一个与此有关的例子。Kendler 和Schaffner都想让我们注意到一个成人的自由概念，如何能给基因和选择都留有余地。 In other words, human decisions can be an essential factor in the multilevel causal network that gives rise to our behaviors. If we notice that genes, neurons, hormones, neighborhoods, cultures, histories — and human desires and choices — can be among the determinants of human behavior, determinism should be less anxiety-producing. 另一方面，人类决策能够成为导致我们的行为的多层次因果网络中的一个关键因素。如果我们注意到，基因，神经元，荷尔蒙，邻里，文化，历史——还有人的渴望和选择——都能算作人类行为的影响因素，决定论就应该不那么让人焦虑。 In offering his view of the sort of freedom of choice that any grownup should want, he reminds us that scientific researchers choose which level of the causal network they will study. There is nothing wrong with having a preference for a given level of analysis, but there is something wrong with forgetting that a preferred level won’t be the only one needed to make headway in the sorts of reductions that can contribute to practically useful explanations. 在阐释他关于（任何成年人都应向往的那种）选择自由的观点时，他提醒我们不要忽略科学研究者选择何种层次的因果网络来研究。对某层次的分析有偏好完全没有错，但如果想要在那种能够产生有实际用处的解释的还原工作上取得进展，忘记你所偏爱的层次不是所需的唯一条件，则是不对的。 An Anxiolytic and a Mood Stabilizer 一种抗焦虑剂和情绪稳定剂 This brings us full circle to the growing anxiety swirling around the idea of “designer babies,” and more specifically to the idea that it will be possible to use “gene editing technologies” like CRISPR-Cas9 to engineer traits like intelligence. As we begin to appreciate that such traits involve hundreds or thousands of genes interacting with each other and with the cellular, extracellular, and extraorganismic environments, then the less seriously we can take the notion that it will be possible to enhance such traits by making changes at the level of the gene. 这把我们带回到文章开头提到的那萦绕在“设计婴儿”这一概念周围的日益增长的焦虑，或者更确切地说，带回到对利用“基因编辑技术”（如CRISPR-Cas9）来对诸如智力之类的性状进行工程设计的焦虑。当我们开始注意到这些性状涉及数百个基因的互动，以及和细胞内、细胞间和生物体外环境的交互作用，那么我们就更不会认为在基因层面做改动来增强这些性状是可能的了。 Moreover, as mentioned earlier, understanding this complexity can help stabilize the mania precipitated by the Human Genome Project. Ever since its launch in 1990, we have heard ecstatic claims about the imminent arrival of medical diagnoses, treatments, and preventive interventions tailored to individual genomes. 而且，如早先提到的，理解这种复杂性可以帮助平息人类基因组计划带来的急躁冒进。早在该项目于90年代发起之际，我们已经听到欣喜若狂的宣告，即针对个人基因定制的疾病诊疗预防手段即将问世。 While it is absolutely crucial to appreciate the real and important strides in diagnosis and treatment linked to advances in understanding the genome, it is equally important to appreciate that, with few exceptions, knowledge at the level of the genome alone will likely not be able to produce as much clinically relevant information as was once promised. 当然，重视由对基因组的深入理解而带来的诊疗方面的真实且重要的进步是绝对关键的，但同样重要的是要明白，除了少数几个例外，仅靠基因组层面的知识产生相关的临床信息，很可能不如之前曾经承诺的那么多。 As we taxpayers begin to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the Human Genome Project’s offspring, The Precision Medicine Initiative, we should hold its leaders to their word when they say that they are getting the mania under control. Given how ardently some of the leaders of that initiative — not least Francis Collins — have been committed to a geneocentric approach, and given how mesmerizing and cheap gene-sequencing has become, it may take significant effort on their part to live up to their new promise of pursuing a more multilevel and, dare one say, balanced approach. Reading Schaffner’s book could strengthen their resolve to live up to that promise. 既然我们纳税人已开始把数亿美元投入人类基因组计划的续集，精准药物计划，当计划的领袖们说他们正在控制关于基因疗法的急躁冒进，我们应当让他们遵守承诺。考虑到一些项目领袖们是如此热忱，不光Francis Collins一人决心采用基因导向的方法，而且目前基因测序已变得如此便宜又吸引人，让这些领袖信守他们采用更加多层次的，当然也就是更平衡的方法的承诺也许需要更大的努力。读Schaffner的书可以加强他们实现这个承诺的决心。 Erik Parens is a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute in Garrison, New York, and is the author of Shaping Our Selves: On Technology, Flourishing, and a Habit of Thinking. Erik Parens 是Hastings中心（一个坐落于纽约州Garrison的生物伦理研究机构）的一位高级学者，他著有《塑造自我：关于技术，繁荣，和思维的习惯》。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

【2016-06-11】 @北京大学出版社 黑手党杀手喜欢装出一副若无其事的样子，出其不意地对目标发动攻击，并且大多是从背后出手，主要也是为了避免发生正面冲突。这也是为什么刽子手曾经会佩戴面罩，以及为什么蒙面者会比其他人作出更多的暴力行为。《暴力：一种微观社会学理论》书摘一 http://t.cn/R5M6G6B @黄章晋ster: 「只要能够获得情绪上的支配权，就能获得身体上的支配权。例如其中一方在对方毫无还手之力时仍然对其大打出手。一方因其心跳超过每分钟200次而动弹不得，另一方则将其心跳维持在每分钟14 @whigzhou: 年初有份对巴西街头帮派的研究据说显示了静息心率与青少年暴力之间的关系 http://t.cn/R5xquwG @whigzhou: 搜了一下，90年代已经有相关研究，见Fiona Brookman: Understanding Homicide(2005) p.65 http://t.cn/R5xqsxf @whigzhou: 所以音乐和舞蹈可能也是一种控制心率（或肾上腺素的其他负面效果）的方法 http://weibo.com/5655200015/DfcFL4iON @whigzhou: 我记得有些印第安部落有着残忍虐待俘虏并以此取乐的习惯，可能也是在训练战士克服与敌人面对面时的情绪波动。 @innesfry: 低静息心率已被证明是与反社会行为和犯罪最相关的生理特征。邮包炸弹客卡辛斯基的静息心率是54。低静息心率对反社会行为的预测能力跟SAT分数对大学GPA的预测能力差不多  

【2016-06-07】 @熊也餐厅 服务生和理发师为什么要在大街上做军事化训练要打客人吗～ @whigzhou: 短时间成批量改造行为习惯（诸如用袖子擦鼻涕，死盯着客人看，间歇性怪叫，甩着抹布跳霹雳舞）的低成本简易方法，这事情跟你的雇工来源有关系，大学生虽然工资不高，但通常不愿去海底捞打工。 @whigzhou: 理由跟在贫困地区开工厂不能为工人提供自助午餐类似，要不然下午都撑得没法干活了 @whigzhou: 职业伦理和工业文化的形成是个漫长的过程，这一点从发薪周期的演变也可看出：最早是日薪，然后周薪、月薪、年薪，在成熟工业社会，这一驯化过程由社会（通过强大的文化压力）完成，而在过渡型社会，只能由雇主自己动手 @长空博云: 服从性训练 在大街上干这个也把那些不适合的都给剔除了 这两个行业自尊心太强没法干 你说的这些个东西是上上个世纪的事儿了 @whigzhou: 上上世纪？都是我耳熟能详的事情，我有这么老吗？  

【2016-05-29】 @whigzhou: 依我的经验，当秋天气温从30度逐渐降至20度时，所穿的衣服从F30减至F20，当春天气温从10度逐渐升至20度时，所穿的衣服从S10增至S20，F20<S20，此为穿衣-气温函数之非对称性。 @whigzhou: 类似的，个人对某些商品的消费-价格函数也是非对称的，但方向相反，当初夏西瓜从5块1斤逐渐降至3块1斤时，你可能觉得，啊，好便宜，买一个，当秋天西瓜从1块1斤逐渐涨至3块一斤时，你可能觉得，啊，好贵，不吃了。  

【2015-09-29】 @tertio 大胆猜想一个：动物也有代代相传的meme @tertio: 验证方法，在某一代抚养下一代的时候给予外界干预让其养成一种行为模式，会不会看到这个模式传播到下一代？ @whigzhou: 会，但动物的可教化性比人类差太远了，教化作用通常只是表现为：在极为有限的几种可能行为模式中，激活其中特定一种 @whigzhou: 比如对特定危险源的恐惧，有研究显示，幼猴很容易从长辈的反应中学会对某些危险源（比如蛇）的恐惧，但学不会对其他的 @whigzhou: 再如日本猕猴洗土豆的故事，是meme传播的著名案例，起初研究者认为猕猴是通过观察模仿学会的，但更细致的研究发现，其实更像是因为新手被老手吸引到了恰当情境下，而一旦它进入这一情境，自己就能琢磨出该怎么做，不必模仿，所以说对待此类案例要小心，动物在特定情境下的反应模式可能很有限 @whigzhou: 另一类常被谈论的meme传播现象是鸟鸣，鸣叫风格确实可以传播（所以养鸟的人也有“学脏嘴”一说），不过这事情可供发挥的余地不大，因为鸣叫风格没有太多功能性含义 @北方小米: 这种恐惧不是先天的么？我对蛇的厌恶无以言表，而父母没有这种感觉。 @whigzhou: 对某些危险源的恐惧是先天的，有些则只是有先天基础，很容易激活，另一些则需要特殊训练（比如巴甫洛夫式训练）才学得会，对于蛇，多数灵长类都属于第一或第二类  

【2016-04-25】 @whigzhou: 1）效仿成功者是人类行动的基本策略（之一），2）成功者探测器是一种心理功能，用来帮助实施这一策略，3）地位探测器是成功者探测器的一种近似替代品，4）地位装扮是效仿成功者策略的衍生策略，5）以上是声望品（prestige product）之市场价值的基础，6）以上是价值阶梯和文化优势起作用的基础， @whigzhou: 石油财富至少影响了数亿人的地位探测器的探测结果，西方知识界的反西方倾向至少影响了数千万人受教育人口的地位探测结果和对声望品的认定，他们继而又影响了所在社会数十亿人的价值取向，结果便是价值阶梯的断裂  

Harem queens in the corporate world 职场的宫斗明星 作者：Michael O.Church @ 2015-11-01 译者：Drunkplane（@Drunkplane-zny） 校对：龙泉（@L_Stellar） 来源：Michael O. Church，https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/harem-queens-in-the-corporate-world/ I recently came across a New York Times article about shitty behaviors that our society often associates with the female gender. It’s about the stupid, catty, bitchy behavior that makes for an entertaining evening in a film like Bridesmaids, but that actually wastes an enormous amount of emotional energy and gives the female gender a bad name. The choice paragraph, in my opinion, is this one (emphasis mine): 近日偶然读到《纽约时报》上的一篇文章，讲的是我们社会常常扣到女性头上的那些烂事，那些愚蠢的、阴险的、碧池的行为。这些破事充斥着《最爆伴娘团》这样的电影。它也许能为一个无聊的夜晚带来些消遣，实则是在浪费观众的感情，还给女性加上一个坏名头。下面的选段，在我看来就是个例子（粗体是我加的）：

There are two main theories of why women are competitive in indirectly aggressive ways. Evolutionary psychology, which uses natural selection to explain our modern behaviors, says that women need to protect themselves (read: their wombs) from physical harm, so indirect aggression keeps us safe while lowering the stock of other women. 关于为何女性通过间接的攻击性方式展开竞争，有两种理论。进化心理学利用自然选择解释现代人类行为，这种理论认为，女人要保护她们自己（意思是：她们的子宫）免受物理伤害，而间接攻击性可以在削弱其他女性的同时让自己处于安全境地。 Feminist psychology chalks up this indirect aggression to internalizing the patriarchy. As Noam Shpancer writes in Psychology Today, “As women come to consider being prized by men their ultimate source of strength, worth, achievement and identity, they are compelled to battle other women for the prize.” In short: When our value is tied to the people who can impregnate us, we turn on each other. 女权心理学家把这笔账算到父权制的内化头上。正如Noam Shpancer 在《今日心理学（Psychology Today）》上写的：“当女人需要男人的奖励来获得她们终极的力量、价值、成就和身份认同时，她们就被迫同其他女人开战来争取这份奖励。”简而言之，当我们的价值与那些能让我们受孕的人绑在一起时，我们只好彼此反目。

“Indirect aggression” is the author’s more-polite term for passive aggression, and here’s what I take out of the article. I’ll withhold personal comment, so please don’t get offended just yet. From the article: “间接攻击性”只是作者对“消极攻击性”的礼貌说法。这里我摘抄了一些原文。至于我的个人看法就先忍着不说了，所以请不要觉得被冒犯。

• women, in a system where their value is attractiveness as assessed by men, work to undermine each other.
• 在一个其价值就是对男人的吸引力的体制里，女人们想方设法诋毁彼此。
• women generally prefer passive aggression over overt conflict.
• 比起公开的冲突，女人通常更倾向于消极攻击性。
• women exhibit an especial and envious hatred toward highly attractive women, that is divorced from the reality of that person.
• 女人会对富有吸引力的女人表现出强烈的嫉妒心，不管这个有吸引力的女人实际状况如何。

Is this true of “women”? Well, it’s true of some women, and not of others. 这是真的吗？也许对一些女人适用，但对其他女人则不然。 Now, I want to talk about these horrible patterns of behavior: passive-aggression, cattiness, sabotage, bitchiness. I’ve seen a lot of this stuff in my decade in the software career. And, here’s the thing… most of the worst offenders have been men. 现在我想谈谈这些可怕的行为模式：消极攻击、阴险、搞破坏、碧池作派。在从事软件行业的十年中，我目睹了太多这种破事。而且，事实上，大部分最坏的讨厌鬼都是男性。 In my personal opinion, malicious social aggressions are not especially gendered. Women may be two to three years ahead in this game during high school and college, because they’re farther along (in general) when it comes to social development, but corporate executives’ cattiness makes high-school cheerleader drama look innocent in comparison. 我个人认为恶意的社会性攻击行为并不特别与性别挂钩。在高中或大学，女人也许早两三年开始玩这些手段，毕竟女性通常成熟得更早。但是跟公司里的高管比起来，啦啦队长们的伎俩实在太过幼稚。 That humans perceive certain styles of aggression as being gendered is, however, telling. Stereotypically “male” aggression’s virtue is that it is short-lived and honest; its vice is that it’s brutal and often disproportionate (and if it leads to violence, its effects can be permanent). 不过，人们将某些特定类型的攻击性视作与性别相关，还是有些道理的。刻板印象中，“雄性”攻击行为的特点是短暂而直白；缺点是其致命性且往往不成比例（如果还导致了暴力，那效果可能是永久的）。 For a contrast, the “female” aggression has the virtue of precision, but the vice of being dishonest, long-lived, and cancerous. In reality, we observe all classes of aggression in all genders of people, so why do we have this need to create a gendered correlation? I think the answer is, and I’m going to have to define this word (lest it be useless) patriarchy. 相反，“雌性”的攻击行为有着精确的特点，但缺点是遮遮掩掩、长时间的、癌症般恶性增殖的。现实生活中，我们在所有性别中都会观察到所有类型的攻击行为，那为何我们要创造出针对性别的分类呢？我想答案就是我将不得不定义的一个词（免得它没什么用）：父权制。 What is patriarchy? I’m going to use it to mean a society in which women are largely blocked from holding official power, and in which male dominance (often backed by threat of physical harm, whether delivered personally or through a military) is the prevailing force in determining which men get power. 什么是父权制？我将用它描述这样一种社会：在这种社会中女性基本被排除在正式权力之外，男性的支配地位（往往由威胁对他人进行身体伤害来获得，不管这种威胁是由个人还是军队来表达）是无处不在的力量，决定了哪些男人可以获得权力。 A large number of men, for the record, lose in a truly patriarchal society, because the high-status men take the lion’s share of the rewards and sexual attention and the rest get very little. The extreme of patriarchy is a polygynous society in which high-status men are afforded large numbers of “wives”, most of whom experience the status of chattel slaves. 准确地说，相当大部分的男人在一个真正的父权社会里是失败的，因为上层男性像狮子一样占据大部分资源和性关注，而其他男人则所得无几。极端的父权制表现为一夫多妻的社会形态，上层男性供养得起许多“妻子”，她们中大部分的地位其实就是男人的财产。 Patriarchy is morally reprehensible and it is good that our society is beginning to reject it, but it’s important to acknowledge its probable normalcy in our evolutionary frame. Men are physically stronger than women, and humans are not naturally monogamous, and there is a general observed tendency in humans to desire to “possess” others, at least in terms of their sexuality. That this would lead to a world, speaking of most of human history, in which powerful men owning harems isn’t surprising. In that lens, it seems inevitable. 父权制在道德上是应受谴责的，好在我们的社会已经开始抵制它了，但值得声明的是，在进化的框架内父权制可能是种常态。男人的身体比女人强壮，人类也不是天生就实行一夫一妻制，而人类被证明有一种“拥有”他人的倾向，至少是在性上拥有他人。这就导致在人类历史长河中，总是出现有权势的男人拥有“后宫”。从这个角度看，这似乎不可避免。 What is this supposedly “female” pattern of “indirect” social aggression all about? Well, it’s about polygynous patriarchy. In a monogamous society, children usually inherit the social status of the parents. If it’s a monogamous patriarchy, the status of the father will be weighted more heavily. In a polygynous patriarchy, the warlord or chieftain with 20 wives might have 150 children, so having a high-status father isn’t enough to confer social status to the children, because there are just too many alpha-brats to give that status and wealth to everyone. 这些跟“女性模式”的“间接”社会性攻击行为有什么关系？这就要说到一夫多妻制的父权制社会了。在一夫一妻制的社会中，孩子们总能继承父母的社会地位。但如果是在一夫多妻制的父权制社会里，军阀或酋长可能拥有20个妻子、150个孩子，这样一来，有一个地位显赫的父亲并不足以确保孩子的社会地位，因为有太多小兔崽子可以被给予地位和财富了。 Often, the children with the best chance of inheriting the father’s wealth, status and connections are those born to the most favored wives. If a woman achieves that status, her children will be heirs, and the other womens’ children will be labelled bastards. Obviously, a woman who is in a harem has an evolutionary incentive to want to be that favored wife. 通常，最有希望继承父亲财产、地位和社会关系的小孩是那些最受宠的妻子所生。如果一个妻子取得那样的地位，她的小孩就会是继承人，而其他女人的小孩就会被贴上私生子的标签。显然，“后宫”中的女人在进化论上有动机去成为那个受宠的妻子。 Passive aggression works well for a woman in a harem who is campaigning to become queen of the harem. Let’s consider how this contest works: 消极攻击行为对一个试图称霸后宫的女人来说很适用。让我们来看看这场竞赛是如何展开的：

• fitness or “performance” or “merit” will be judged by an owner who is largely distant from the day-to-day operations (e.g. division of labor) within the harem.
• 男主人将对适应性也即“表现”或“优点”打分，而他并不了解后宫中的日常运作（比如劳动分工）。
• overt violence against a potentially superior competitor will be judged as destruction of the owner’s property, and punished. It will also fail to make the target appear less fit, from an evolutionary perspective.
• 对潜在竞争者的公开暴力会被认为是对主人财产的破坏而遭受惩罚。从进化论的角度看，这也不会减损被攻击者的适应性。
• however, emotional cruelty, abuses of power, and other “indirect” aggressions will cause a targeted competitor to become discouraged, stressed-out, or depressed, and therefore appear less healthy (that is, less fit) to the owner-husband.
• 然而，感情上的残酷、玩弄权术或其他“间接”攻击行为却能导致目标竞争者变得气馁、备受压力或抑郁，进而在男主人眼里变得更不健康（因而适应性较低）。

What is an aspiring harem queen going to do? She can’t gain her status through physical dominance, as men in such societies often did, because provable harm to other women will cause her to lose favor with the man who ultimately selects the winner. 一个野心勃勃的宫斗明星会如何行动呢？她不能像一夫多妻社会中的男人通常所做的那样，用暴力优势来获得地位，因为对其他女人公开的加害会让她失去男人的宠爱，而最终的胜者由男人决定。 Anyway, physical injury doesn’t make a woman look genetically unhealthy, and is therefore less likely to sway the opinion of the owner/husband (if we assume that he’s also acting under evolutionary imperative); while the long-term effect of emotional violence (and stress) will make the target appear sickly and suggest genetic inferiority. 总之，身体伤害不能让一个女人在遗传上看起来不健康，因而也就无法动摇男主人/丈夫的看法（假设他也遵从进化的视角行事）；而长期的情感暴力（和压力）会让目标看起来病态，暗示了其遗传劣势。 In the modern world, harems mostly don’t exist. There is some harem-queen behavior in American high schools and colleges, related to the severe desirability differential between the men and the women at that age, and the intense competition (for women trying to attract the few unusually mature men) that this creates. 在现代社会，后宫几乎不存在。在美国的高中和大学里存在一些宫斗行为，这同那个年龄段男女愿望的强烈差异有关，也同由此导致的强烈竞争（女人们试图吸引少数格外成熟的男人）有关。 18-year-old women are physically attractive to men of all ages; 18-year-old men are attractive to… no one they can legally date. So I suspect there is some incentive for harem queen behavior, given how few desirable men there are in those ghettos for adolescents that we call schools. 18岁的女人对所有年龄段的男人都有身体上的吸引力，而18岁的男人对他们能合法约会的人都……没有吸引力。所以考虑到在我们称之为学校的贫民区里很少有男人满怀野心，我怀疑这些宫斗行为有其激励因素。 Of course, the men become more desirable and mature as they grow up, and the women seem to grow out of any harem-type behavior, and given that the teenage years are a period in which everyone’s pretty fucked up, I’m going to guess that the overall behavior of women isn’t any worse than that of men. The movies give us adolescent “mean girls” for entertainment’s sake, but I don’t think that such meanness is gendered. 当然，随着年龄增长，男人会变得越来越有野心，而女人则似乎会逐渐抛弃这些宫斗行为。考虑到我们每个人的青少年时期都是一团糟，我猜总的来看女人的行为并不比男人更坏。为了娱乐性，电影总是给我们塑造出青春期的“恶毒女孩”，但我不认为这些恶毒跟性别有关。 Let’s jump away from adolescent drama (it’s not that interesting) and focus on the corporate world. The parallels are shocking. 让我们抛开这些青春期的闹剧吧（没那么有趣），看看职场，这里的勾心斗角令人震惊。

• corporate competitors strive for a “favored subordinate” status, because the odds, for a person not born into it, of joining the ownership class are only slightly better than those of a woman in the neolithic era becoming a man.
• 公司里的竞争者拼命成为“受宠的下属”，因为对一个普通职员来说，挤进老板阶级的概率，也就比新石器时代的一个女人变成男人的概率大那么一点点。
• fitness or “performance” is judged by parties who are distant from the action and oblivious to day-to-day operations and any emotional or political drama that might be going on. They are about as capable of assessing individual merit as neolithic harem-owning men were at assessing genetic health among their wives.
• 适应性或“表现”由远离公司日常运作的圈子裁决，他们不知道公司里上演的那些感情和政治戏码。他们评估个人优点的能力同新石器时代的后宫主人评估自己妻子的能力没差别。
• like attractive women in pre-monogamous societies’ harems, people who threaten to out-perform the others draw undesirable attention and adversity within the harem. They’re sometimes singled out and set up to fail.
• 就像前一夫一妻社会后宫里的有吸引力的女人一样，那些造成“力压群芳”威胁的人，会在后宫里招来他们不想要的关注和麻烦。他们有时会被孤立并注定失败。
• obvious interference with a potentially superior competitor’s performance (much less physical harm against that person) will push the perpetrator out of favor, as “The Company” will view that as damage to its own property.
• 对潜在的优胜者施以明显的干预（更不用说直接的身体伤害）会让作祟者失去宠信，因为公司会将这视作对公司财产的损害。
• non-obvious (from the owner’s perspective) interference or aggression toward a potentially superior competitor can degrade that person’s apparent performance and is therefore the weapon of choice.
• 因此对潜在优势竞争者（对公司所有者）不明显又能损害他的方式也就成了可选的武器。

Corporate executives can be understood, then, as successful harem queens. Under this lens, the entire corporate world makes sense. The CEO isn’t the alpha male, but the champion bitch. 由此，公司的高管们可以被理解为成功的宫斗之星。在这个视角下，整个职场的情况才说得通。CEO不是男主人，而是成功加冕的碧池。 So who’s the alpha male? Well, it’s arguably “The Company” or “shareholders” or rich people or “capital”. We’ve personified Mammon, and then gone a step further. We’ve created an alpha male more powerful than any actual human can be. As I’ve said before, that’s not a corporate “person” but a god. 那么谁才是“男主人”？这尚有争议，有的说是“公司”，有的说是“债权人”、富人或是“资本”。既然我们已经把钱财比作了魔鬼，不妨更进一步。我们已经创造出一个“男老大”，他比任何实实在在的人类都更有权力。正如我以前说过的，那是个神而不是企业的某人。 Worse yet, this alpha male isn’t one corporate “person”/god but the whole professional system, a supreme and supremely intangible meta-god among the myriad corrupt gods that our socioeconomic system has made. 更糟的是，这个男老大不是某个企业的人或神，而是整个职业系统，我们的社会经济体系造就的许许多多堕落之神中一个超然存在的、不可触摸的元神。 One could imagine, in a corrupt and slowly declining religious order, harem-queen behavior among the priesthood, and that’s basically what we have within the secular priesthood of corporatism. This kind of shitty behavior, clearly, was never limited to women. And now we have a society that runs on it. 你可以想象，在一个堕落的、逐渐衰败的宗教秩序下，神职人员间的宫斗伎俩，而那就是在世俗的公司主义下我们所面对的。这些破烂伎俩，显然不会仅仅局限于女人。我们现在的社会就在这个基础上运行。 Tyler Durden, in Fight Club, lamented that “We’re a generation of men raised by women”. Now, Fight Club was on to something. The male gender in the U.S. is failing and has been failing for some time. (It’s even worse in societies that are more thoroughly corporatized. Look up Japan’s salaryman culture and then read up on its hikikomori and “herbivore men”.) Tyler Durden在《搏击俱乐部》中哀叹“我们是由女人抚养长大的一代”。现在，这部电影言中了某些事实。美国的男性正在并已经衰败。（在那些公司化更彻底的社会里，情况更糟。看看日本的白领文化再研究下“蛰居族”和“食草男”吧。） There is a toxic something in many advanced societies that has been emasculating men over the past forty years. But it is not that we were “raised by women” (I’ve seen neither evidence of declining paternal involvement, nor that increasing maternal influence is detrimental) and it’s not the fault of feminism. 过去五十年，发达社会里的某种毒素一直在阉割男性，但不是所谓我们“被女人抚养长大”（我没有发现男权衰落的证据，也没有发现影响力日益增长的女权有什么坏处），也不是女权主义的错。 It’s the fault of corporatism. We’ve created a society that requires us to believe that our richest people are “alpha males”, when they are actually champion harem queens– preening private-sector social climbers. This has spawned a generation of men who are far too concerned with others’ opinions of them (and of the schools they went to, and of the jobs they held) and mostly unable to succeed on their own or think for themselves. 是社团主义的错。我们创造了一个社会，这个社会要求我们相信最富有的人就是“男老大”，而他们其实是胜出的宫斗明星——沾沾自喜的私企里的攀高枝者。这孕育出太过关心他人看法的一代（他人对自己所在学校的看法、对自己工作的看法），这代人大部分都无法靠自己取得成功或是独立思考。 One might make the counterargument that the macho-subordinate “bro” culture that is observed in some corporate environments (such as most Silicon Valley startups) is, to the contrary of my argument, excessively masculine. Actually, it’s just stupidly masculine. There’s a lot of posturing going on in it, and women are justified to find that posturing threatening, but it’s just another form of the harem-queen game. 有人可能持相反的观点，认为在一些公司环境（比如多数硅谷创业公司）里看到的职员间的“兄弟”文化很是阳刚——同我所说恰恰相反。其实，那不过是愚蠢的阳刚罢了。这里面有太多的故作姿态，而女人们理应视这姿态为一种威胁，那不过是另一种形式的后宫游戏罢了。 The difference, in the young macho-subordinate culture, is whom these wannabe harem-queen men are whoring themselves out to. In the adult corporate world, their target is the amorphous nondescript alpha-male-figure (i.e. the invisible ultra-powerful humanoid that evolves into a god) known as “capital”. 所不同的是，在这种年轻的兄弟文化中，当婊子玩手腕的是男人自己。在成年人的公司世界里，他们的目标是无形的、难以捉摸的男老大形象（比如看不见的拥有终极权力的类人的神），它更广为人知的名字是“资本”。 A seasoned corporate executive knows that his job isn’t to slut it up for a specific manager or CEO but to make himself maximally attractive to the system itself, and that system’s god persona is too aloof for it to be assigned a definite gender, so it does not suffice to appease one presumed aspect of it. Consequently, it demands an appearance that is bland, inoffensive, and neutrally toned. 一个老练的高管明白，他的工作不是为了某个特定的经理或CEO职位而变身荡妇，而是最大限度地让自己对这个系统保有吸引力；他也明白这个系统是如此的超然冷漠，它不能被安上一个性别。因而仅仅满足某个设想的要求是不够的。于是所需要的就是一种圆滑无棱角的、不具攻击性的、中性的腔调。 On the other hand, the macho-subordinate brogrammers haven’t figured out yet that they should focus on their attractiveness to a larger system rather than their immediate bosses. They’re still powdering themselves for the visual delight of, say, a 30-year-old and invariably male founder. This drives them not toward the manicured, soft-faced look of the corporate executive, but toward the absurdity of the frat boy who exhibits the worst traits of masculinity in caricature, but whose membership in such a pointless, groupthink-driven organization shows his desperate need for approval. Therefore, the macho-subordinate brogrammer culture of Silicon Valley does not refute my claim that corporate competition is a harem-queen dynamic; rather, it supports it. 另一方面，那些阳刚的程序员兄弟们还没弄明白，他们应该在意的是自己对更大系统而非顶头上司的吸引力。他们还在为了博取一个30岁老顽固投资人的欢心而涂脂抹粉。这不会让他们看起来更像美过甲的、面容姣好的公司高管，只会把他们推向古惑仔式的荒诞，让他们展示漫画中那种男子气概里最糟糕的特质，而这种哥们义气在这种无意义的、团队思维导向的公司组织里只是暴露了他们对晋升的极端渴望。因此，硅谷程序员间流行的阳刚文化并未与我的观点相悖，即，公司里的竞争其实就是宫斗戏码，相反，恰恰支持了我的观点。 Right now, the world is run mostly by cowardly, talentless, champion harem queens angling for approval from that invisible god we call “capital”. That’s unfortunate, and my view is that it has to end. In order to get this far, human society had to overcome many challenges, and it seems that the 21st century is destined to bring us more challenges (e.g. climate change, religious radicalism, economic inequality and petroleum depletion) and I don’t think that we can handle a single one of them with the business leadership that we’ve got. 如今这个世界基本上被一群懦弱平庸的宫斗明星所把持，他们费尽心思讨“资本”这个看不见的神欢心。这情况太不幸了，在我看来，必须终结。为了达到这个目的，人类社会必须克服许多挑战。21世纪似乎注定带给我们更多挑战（比如气候变化、宗教极端主义、经济不平等和石油的耗尽），而我不认为我们能在现有的商业领导下解决其中任何一个问题。 So who should be running the world? To be honest, there are some men whom I consider supremely qualified, and there are some women whom I consider supremely qualified. Gender, to me, is irrelevant. However, we need independent thinkers, and this means that the harem-queen world (for which, many of the worst offenders are men) has got to go. 那么谁应该来掌控这个世界？老实说，我认为有一些男人很有资格，一些女人也非常合格。性别，对我来说，无关紧要。我们需要独立的思考者，而这意味着后宫世界（它的许多捍卫者都是男性）必须滚蛋。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——