Trivers' Pursuit
罗伯特·特里夫斯:一生的追寻
作者:Matthew Hutson @ 2016-1-5
译者:Drunkplane(@Drunkplane-zny)
校对:慕白(@李凤阳他说)
来源:Psychology Today，
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201601/trivers-pursuit
Renegade scientist Robert Trivers is lauded as one of our greatest thinkers—despite irking academia with blunt talk and bad manners.
尽管罗伯特·特里夫斯直率的言谈和粗鲁的举止让学界恼怒,这位离经叛道的科学家仍被誉为最伟大的思想家之一｡
To call Robert Trivers an acclaimed biologist is an understatement akin to calling the late Richard Feynman a popular professor of physics. As a young man in the 1970s, Trivers gave biology a jolt, hatching idea after idea that illuminated how evolution shaped the behavior of all species, including fidelity, romantic bonds, and willingness to cooperate among humans. Today, at 72, he continues to spawn ideas. And if awards were given for such things, he certainly would be on the short list for America’s most colorful academic.
把已故的理查德·费曼称为“一位受欢迎的物理学教授”,那是低估了他,同样地,如果把罗伯特·特里夫斯称为“一位广受赞誉的生物学家”也不够恰当｡1970年代,当时不过是一个年轻人的特里夫斯就大大促进了生物学的研究,阐述了一个又一个想法,揭示了进化是如何塑造所有物种的行为,包括人类在性方面的忠贞､恋爱和合作的意愿｡今天,他72岁,新的想法仍然不断从他脑中诞生｡如果要为“想法”颁奖的话,他一定能进入“美国最有想法学者”短名单｡
He was a member of the Black Panthers and collaborated with the group’s founder. He was arrested for assault after breaking up a domestic dispute. He faced machete-wielding burglers who broke into his home and stabbed one in the neck. He was imprisoned for 10 days over a contested hotel charge. And two men once held guns to his head in a Caribbean club that doubled as a brothel.
他曾是黑豹党一员,并曾同该组织的创立者合作｡他曾因为在家庭纠纷中动手打人而被拘捕｡他曾直面挥舞着弯刀的破门而入者,并在其中一人的脖子上扎了一刀｡他曾因为一笔有争议的酒店费用而坐了十天牢｡他还曾在加勒比一个俱乐部被人用枪顶着头——那个俱乐部同时也是妓院｡
Fisticuffs aside, what propelled Trivers into the academic limelight were five papers he wrote as a young academic at Harvard—including research on
altruism,
sex differences, and parent-offspring conflict. This work won him the 2007 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Crafoord Prize in Biosciences, the Nobel for evolutionary theory. The award came with half a million dollars and a ceremony attended by the queen.
除拳脚之外,让特里夫斯在学术圈声名大噪的是他年轻时在哈佛写就的五篇论文——包括关于利他主义､性别差异和亲子冲突的研究｡这些成就为他赢得了2007年瑞典皇家科学院颁发的克拉福德生物学奖——进化理论的诺贝尔奖｡奖金为50万美元,女王亦出席了颁奖典礼｡
Steven Pinker has called him “one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought.” Yet Trivers has not led the life of your typical contemplative academic. Mental breakdowns, public feuds, and near-death experiences have peppered his
career, distracting him from his work even as they’ve nourished it.
史蒂文·平克曾称特里夫斯是“西方思想史上伟大的思想家之一”｡然而特里夫斯不是你印象中那种典型的喜欢沉思的学者｡精神崩溃､公开与人结怨和险些丧命的经历都让他的生涯显得与众不同,他的工作因此受到影响也因此获益｡
No one is quite sure what to make of him, but all agree he is both brilliant and volatile, a sort of Steve Jobs without the colossal second coming. In a new memoir,
Wild Life, he contrasts his existence with the “often solitary and intensely internal” one he sees in most scientists. “[That] kind of life,” he writes, “never appealed to me.”
没人确信该怎么评价他,但所有人都同意,他绝顶聪明,绝不安分,就像史蒂夫·乔布斯,但没有经历过乔布斯式卷土重来｡在新回忆录《狂野生活》中,他对比了自己的生活同他在大多数科学家中所看到的“往往孤寂的､极其注重内心的”的生活,“那样的生活,”他写道,“从来不曾吸引我｡”
To begin, Trivers’ revolutionary 1970s papers presented no new data. Trivers simply offered entirely novel ways of looking at what was already there, along with new avenues for moving science forward. His dissertation was so strong that when he showed up before the evaluating committee, which included such luminaries as E. O. Wilson and Ernst Mayr, they skipped the charade of making him defend it and simply offered their congratulations.
刚开始时,特里夫斯于1970年代发表的那几篇革命性论文中并没有提出新的数据｡特里夫斯仅仅提供了一种全新的视角来看待既已存在的知识,一条推动科学进步的崭新道路｡他的论证强而有力,以至当他面对评审委员会时——其中包括著名科学家爱德华·威尔逊和厄内斯特·迈尔——他们跳过了答辩环节,直接向他表示祝贺｡
Yet he published little follow-up work. A scientist can build a whole career milking a single small concept, but Trivers has been known to put forth a big new idea and then essentially drop the mic.
之后他几乎没有发表后续研究｡一名科学家可以以一个小概念为基础建构自己的全部事业,但特里夫斯通常是提出一个全新的､有爆炸力的想法后,然后就不再就此发言了｡
Trivers’ first paper, on the evolution of reciprocal altruism, described a theoretical model showing how altruism among strangers could naturally develop—people cooperate with the expectation of similar treatment from others. This model explained a wide variety of feelings and behaviors, from
friendship to moralistic aggression.
特里夫斯的第一篇论文是关于互惠利他主义(reciprocal altruism)的,论文描述了一个关于陌生人之间的利他主义是如何自然发展的理论模型——人们带着“我怎样对人,人就怎么对我”的期许相互合作｡这个模型解释了从友谊到道德侵略(moralistic aggression)等许多不同的感受和行为｡
The emotion of
gratitude, for instance, evolved to motivate us to return favors, encouraging
cooperation.
Guilt motivates us to repair relationships we’ve harmed.
Anger makes us avoid or punish those who have harmed us. And
gossip makes us mindful of our reputations. Trivers suggested that complex strategies of cheating, detecting cheating, and the false accusation of cheating (itself a form of cheating) pushed the development of
intelligence and helped increase the size of the human
brain.
举例来讲,之所以进化出“感激”这种情绪,是因为它会激励我们投桃报李,鼓励合作｡负罪感会促使我们修复受损的关系｡愤怒会让我们避开或惩罚那些伤害了我们的人｡而闲言碎语则让我们在意自己的名声｡特里夫斯认为,欺骗､发现欺骗和对欺骗的不实指控(其本身也是种欺骗)构成了复杂的策略,推动我们智力的发展并助力人类大脑尺寸的增长｡
Next, in Trivers’ second paper, he hypothesized that a single factor drives sex differences across all species. He argued that differences in parental investment—the energy and resources invested in an offspring—lead the sex that invests more (females, in most species) to focus on mate quality and the sex that invests less (males) to seek quantity.
接着,特里夫斯在他的第二篇论文中提出一个假说:一个单一因素便导致了所有物种的性别差异｡他认为亲代投资(为后代投入的能量和资源)的差别区分了“投资多的性”(对大多数物种而言是雌性)和“投资少的性”(雄性),前者关注配偶的质量而后者追求数量｡
So in humans we expect choosiness in females and aggression between males as they vie for females. The theory has tremendous explanatory power, from justifying the brightly colored feathers of male birds to illuminating why sexual
jealousy is a leading (and, until recently, legally defensible) cause of homicide—men prize their mate’s fidelity above all.
因此在人类中我们便观察到女性的挑剔和男人之间在追逐女性时所表现出的攻击性｡这个理论有力地解释了雄鸟身上鲜艳的羽毛,以及为何性嫉妒是杀人案的首要(直到现在也是法律上站得住脚的【
编注:在美国一些州,当场捉奸并杀死奸夫的丈夫往往可以愤激作为辩护理由并得以脱罪】)动机——在男人看来,伴侣的忠贞高于一切｡【
编注:此处有所夸大,亲代投资理论本身并不能单独解释性嫉妒】
In another paper, Trivers conceptualized offspring not as passive recipients of parental investment, but as independent actors, generating the theory of parent-offspring conflict. A child wants disproportionate attention and resources for him- or herself, but a parent wants to spread the goods equally between all offspring.
在另一篇论文里,特里夫斯将后代视为独立的行为主体,而不仅仅是亲代投资的被动接受者,从而引出了“亲子冲突”(parent-offspring conflict)这一理论｡子女想要为自己争取到比例过当的关注和资源,但家长则希望在后代之间平分好处｡
And so we have kids who bawl until they get what they want, siblings who maintain lifelong rivalries, and
parents who try to instill equality no matter how selfish the kids’ tendencies. It was for these three papers, plus another two, on insect colonies and on parents’ ability to vary the sex ratio of their offspring, that he won the Crafoord.
于是,子女们闹个不停直到他们得到想要的,兄弟姐妹们终其一生相互竞争,而父母们不管小孩多么自私仍坚持贯彻平等主义｡这三篇论文加上另外两篇有关昆虫巢群和亲代改变子代性别比例之能力的论文,为特里夫斯赢得了克拉福德奖｡
In each paper, he found a simple, clear idea, and took it as far as it would go, wrapping diverse and widespread phenomena together in one neat package. You might not have made the connections before, but once you see them, they’re quite clear.
在每篇论文里,他都建立一个简洁､清晰的概念,并最大限度地发展这个概念,将多种多样､涵盖广泛的各种现象融为一炉｡你也许以前并没有发现这些现象间的联系,但一旦你注意到,这些联系就显得十分清楚｡
“Trivers has answered some of the most profound questions about the human condition,” Pinker told me. “Namely, why are our relationships with other people such complicated mixtures of cooperation and conflict? He did so with a simple, though nonobvious, analysis of the patterns of overlap and nonoverlap of our long-term genetic interests.”
“特里夫斯回答了关于人类境况的一些最本质的问题,”平克对我说｡“即为什么我们同他人的关系是如此复杂,既有合作又有冲突?他以一种简明——虽然不那么一目了然——的方式分析了重叠或不重叠的基因利益,从而回答了这个问题｡”
According to David Haig, a geneticist at Harvard and a longtime friend and collaborator of Trivers, “Bob has a great ability to see questions as simple and not be distracted by details.” Richard Dawkins praises him for applying economic ideas to biology “with greater clarity of mind than any biologist since R. A. Fisher,” the knighted geneticist.
据戴维·海格——哈佛遗传学家､特里夫斯的多年好友和合作者——所言,“鲍勃【
罗伯特的昵称】有一种能力,可以单刀直入地看问题而不被细节干扰｡” 理查德·道金斯赞扬他将经济学的观点引入生物学,“思路极清晰,罗纳德·费希尔(就是后来被册封骑士的那位遗传学家)之后的生物学家难以望其项背｡”
In their own books, E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins drew heavily on Trivers’ papers, although he has not always had positive things to say about his popularizers. “Richard wrote a beautiful book,” Trivers says about
The Selfish Gene. “I was not about to take the time to do it.”
威尔逊和道金斯在自己的书中都大量引用了特里夫斯的论文,让特里夫斯的观点在学界人尽皆知,但特里夫斯本人对这两位却并不总是好言相向｡“理查德的书写得漂亮,”特里夫斯如此评价《自私的基因》,“我不会花时间去做这种事｡”
But as for Wilson and
Sociobiology, “He played the old Harvard game of becoming the father of a field by becoming the father of the name of a field.” (Wilson told me his own work on the sociobiology of insects actually influenced Trivers.)
但对威尔逊和《社会生物学》,特里夫斯说,“他为一个领域发明一个名字然后便成了该领域的开山鼻祖,这不过是老套的哈佛把戏罢了｡”(威尔逊告诉我他对昆虫的社会生物学研究成果其实影响过特里夫斯｡)
After writing papers addressing how we treat strangers, friends, lovers, parents, and children, Trivers offered a no-less-powerful theory on how we deal with ourselves. In a sentence in the foreword to Dawkins’ book, he proposed that
self-deception evolved to facilitate the deception of others. Trivers says he’d planned to flesh out the theory but didn’t get around to it because he was “
smoking too much strong herb.”
在撰写了有关我们如何对待陌生人､朋友､爱人､父母和小孩等论文之后,特里夫斯又就我们如何对待自我提出了一个同等重要的理论｡在为道金斯的新书【
编注:《自私的基因》第一版】写的序中,他提出,自我欺骗机制(self-deception)之所以进化出来,是为了方便我们欺骗他人｡特里夫斯说他本打算丰富下该理论但终未动手,因为他“抽了太多够劲的大麻｡”
Trivers also made a mark with the 2006 textbook
Genes in Conflict, for which he and Austin Burt spent 15 years integrating thousands of papers on genetic
competition within organisms. A reviewer for
NatureGenetics called it “meticulously assembled, thought-provoking, and sometimes deliciously speculative.”
特里夫斯于2006年撰写的教科书《基因冲突》让他再一次名声大噪｡为了这本书,他和奥斯汀·伯特花了15年时间,将数千篇关于有机体内基因竞争的论文进行了整合｡《自然—遗传学》的一名评审者称,这本书在整合方面不遗余力,引人思考,一些地方还包含了有趣的猜测｡
According to Trivers, “We created an entire field, the evolutionary dynamics of
within-individual genetic conflict. So first, I worked on social theory between individuals, then I dropped one level lower.” Proudly showing me its color inserts, he pointed to what appeared to be a drumstick. “Looks like a piece of chicken, right? No, it’s the only transmissible cancer known. That’s a dog dick. He punches it into a female, the cancerous tissue breaks off and starts growing inside her
pumpum.”
特里夫斯说:“我们创造了一个完整的领域:个体内部基因冲突的进化动力学｡首先,我研究关于不同个体的社会学,然后我深入到更基础的一个层次｡”特里夫斯自豪地给我展示一张彩色插图,指着上面一个像鸡腿一样的东西问我,“看起来像是鸡的一部分,对吧?但其实不是,这是唯一已知的会传播的癌症｡那是狗的屌｡他把这玩意插入母狗体内,癌症组织便分裂,然后在母狗的屄里开始生长｡”
My early emails with Trivers attested to his mercurial nature. He lavished praise for a hypothesis I’d suggested, then scolded me for failing to answer a question he’d written. After some back and forth, he agreed to an interview and last spring met me at the train station in New Brunswick—he’s currently a professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
我同特里夫斯早期往来的电子邮件见证了他善变的性格｡他曾对我提出的某项假设大加赞赏,然后又因为我答不上他提出的问题而骂我｡在几个回合后,他同意接受我的采访,并在去年春天于新泽西新不伦瑞克市的火车站与我见面——他现在已是新泽西州立罗格斯大学的一名教授｡
Wearing a wool hat with a weed leaf on it, he grumbled at my not finding the right station exit. He warmed up as we drove to his disorganized apartment—a mattress remained in the middle of the floor from a visit by his son. One wall displayed photos of his family, a former girlfriend and her family, and a lizard. We cracked open beers, and he soon offered me a puff of his joint as we got down to business.
见到他时,他戴着一顶毛线帽,上面粘着一片大麻叶子,他抱怨我没有找对车站出口｡在开车前往他的公寓的途中,我们逐渐变得热络起来｡他的公寓乱糟糟的,他儿子来看他时留下的一个床垫还躺在地板中央｡公寓的一面墙上贴满他家人的照片,包括一位前女友及其家人,还有一只蜥蜴｡我们开了啤酒,不一会当我们聊到正题时他已经开始给我递大麻烟卷了｡
The son of a diplomat, Trivers grew up in Maryland, Denmark, and Germany. At age 12, he knew he wanted to be a scientist and took a liking to astronomy, then to math. He spent two months mastering a calculus textbook and another two months mastering the next volume.
他是一名外交官的儿子,在美国马里兰州､丹麦和德国长大｡12岁时,他想成为一名科学家并先后对天文学和数学产生了兴趣｡他花了两个月时间钻研一本微积分教材,又花了两个月时间把下一本学完｡
He studied pure math as a Harvard freshman, but as a sophomore he realized it wasn’t likely to yield many applications, so he briefly looked to physical science. He didn’t have a knack for physics, however, and hadn’t learned much chemistry or biology. (His college roommates once showed him pictures of a hippo and a rhino and asked him to identify which was which. He picked wrong.)
大一时,他在哈佛学习纯数学,但到了大二他意识到这可能没有太多实际用处,于是又跑去学习物理,但只是浅尝辄止｡同样他也没有多少化学和生物学知识｡(他的大学室友曾把河马和犀牛的照片拿给他选,结果他选错了｡)
“So, I literally said, ‘Well, if it’s not truth I’m going to devote myself to, then it’s justice.’” He identified with the civil rights movement and decided to become a lawyer. Unfortunately that meant plodding through a major in U.S. history, which he found to be “an exercise in self-deception and self-glorification.”
“所以我当时曾说,‘如果我不能献身真理,那就献身正义｡’”他受民权运动的感召并决意成为一名律师｡不幸的是这意味着要修完枯燥的美国历史课程,这在他看来就是“练习自我欺骗和自我美化｡”
During his junior year at Harvard, Trivers had a mental breakdown. After five weeks of mania—little of which he remembers besides
insomnia and feelings of grandiosity—he checked himself into the hospital and stayed for 11 weeks. Doctors diagnosed him with
bipolar disorder.
特里夫斯在哈佛念大三时曾有过一次精神崩溃,在五个星期的躁狂症之后(在这其间的一切他几乎都不记得了,除了失眠和自大的感觉),他把自己送进了医院并在里面呆了11周｡医生诊断他患了躁郁症｡
When he returned to school, he thought it might be a good idea to take courses in psychology—though not abnormal psych because, as he likes to say, “I had a special advantage in it.” But he soon decided psychology in its then state was not a real science.
当他重返学校时,他认为修心理学课程可能是个不错的主意——这心理动机不算太意外——因为正如他自己喜欢说的,“这方面我有特别的优势｡”不过他很快认定当时的心理学还算不上一门真正的科学｡
The field at the time had three strands: First was work on conditioning, pioneered by Ivan Pavlov and B. F. Skinner. Skinner “was stupid enough to think you could build up a whole theory and system of logic about human psychology based entirely on learning,” Trivers says, “and specifically the kind of stimulus-response learning that’s studied in the lab.” Trivers didn’t see how, for example, the brain could pick up the complexities of language this way without some genetic scaffolding.
心理学当有三个分支:首先是对条件反射的研究,由巴甫洛夫和斯金纳开创｡斯金纳“太蠢了,以至于认为你可以仅仅通过学习便建立起一整套关于人类心理的理论和逻辑体系,”特里夫斯说,“尤其是通过那种在实验室里被当作研究对象的刺激-反应式学习｡”举个例子,特里夫斯就不认为,抛开遗传因素,大脑能够通过这种方式领会语言的复杂性｡
Then there’s
Freud, who had some keen insights into self-deception, Trivers says, “but he wedded them to a completely corrupt view of human development” characterized by the anal, oral, and Oedipal stages.“He just invents it out of whole cloth while snorting too much
cocaine.”
第二个分支便是弗洛伊德,他对自我欺骗有着某种深刻的洞见,特里夫斯说,“但他将这种洞见同一种朽烂不堪的
人类成长观嫁接到了一起”,其观点的标签便是肛欲期､口欲期和恋母期｡“他不过是在嗑了太多白粉后凭空发明了这些概念｡”
Third was social psychology, which Trivers saw as too dependent on self-reports. “You cannot build up a science based on a whole series of correlations between how people answer questionnaires,” he says. “By definition it can’t work, if only because we don’t know most of what’s causing us to do things, and second, we don’t necessarily tell the truth.” Trivers considered psychology “a joke.”
第三个分支是社会心理学,特里夫斯认为其太依赖自我报告了｡“你不能以人们如何回答问卷之间的相关性为基础,建立起一门学科｡”特里夫斯说｡“显然这不管用,首先我们大部分时候并不知道是什么让自己去做一件事,其次,我们也不一定会说实话嘛｡”特里夫斯认为心理学就是个“笑话”｡
So he stuck to justice and applied to law school. He selected the progressive law school at Yale, with Virginia as a backup, but neither accepted him, in part because of his mental
health. “But for his mental illness,” says William von Hippel, a friend and collaborator at the University of Queensland, “he would not be the famous scientist that he is. He’d be a well-to-do lawyer.”
所以他转而追求正义并申请了法学院｡他选择了耶鲁的进步主义法学院,并把弗吉尼亚法学院作为备选项,但都被拒绝了——部分因为他的心理健康状况｡“要不是他的心理疾病,”特里夫斯在昆士兰大学时的同事和朋友威廉·范希波尔说,“他不会是今天这个著名科学家｡他会是一个有钱的律师｡”
Suddenly without a clear path, Trivers heard about a job writing children’s books. He took his writing sample, an account of his breakdown, to Jerome Bruner, the Harvard psychologist running the project. “I was hired. Strange, eh?” He was assigned to write about biology, a topic he knew nothing about (hippo or rhino) and to work under the wing of the naturalist and bird expert William Drury.
突然不知通过什么方式,特里夫斯听说了一份为小孩子写书的工作｡他带上他写的样稿(讲述他自己精神崩溃的事),去见杰罗姆·布鲁纳——当时主持该项目的哈佛心理学家｡“我被雇佣了,怪不?”他被分配到博物学和鸟类学家威廉·特鲁里的麾下,题目有关生物学,一个他一无所知的主题(还记得河马和犀牛吧)｡
Together they would sit in the woods imitating bird sounds so they could watch avian courting, clashes, and cooperation. Under Drury’s tutelage, Trivers decided to become an evolutionary biologist. Upon discovering evolutionary logic, he says. “I knew I had found where I wanted to be.” He has called Drury “the man who taught me how to think.”
他俩会一起坐在树林下模仿鸟类的叫声,观察它们求偶､打架以及合作｡在特鲁里的指导下,特里夫斯决意成为一名进化生物学家｡在发现进化的逻辑之后,他说“我知道我已找到我想追求的东西｡”他称特鲁里为“那个教会我如何思考的人｡”
Trivers headed back to Harvard to earn a Ph.D. in biology, studying under Ernest Williams, a herpetologist. Trivers decided to study lizards in Jamaica and became enamored with the island—not least because he finds dark-skinned women attractive and says that at that time a white man couldn’t roam Boston with a black woman on his arm.
特里夫斯之后回到哈佛大学攻读博士学位,师从厄内斯特·威廉斯,一位爬虫学家｡特里夫斯决定去牙买加研究蜥蜴并从此爱上了这个岛国｡(其中一个重要原因是,他发现深色皮肤的女人很有吸引力,他还说,那时白人男性无法同黑人女性并肩徜徉在波士顿街头)｡
“So I always felt free down there in a way that I never felt here,” he says. He has lived in Jamaica on and off since 1968 and frequently falls into Jamaican patois, speckling his speech with its slang (
pumpum, raashuol).
“所以在那里我时常感到在这里(美国)从来没感受过的自由,”他说｡自1968年起他便时常回到牙买加居住并且经常讲牙买加方言,他的句子从此不时点缀些牙买加俚语(
pumpum屄､
raashuol屌)｡
He has many tales to tell of Jamaica. One is a memorable stickup in an East Kingston club. That story begins when he visited the establishment after a hiatus, curious to see if things had gotten as bad as he’d heard.
关于牙买加,特里夫斯有很多故事可讲｡其中之一便是在东金斯敦俱乐部里被持枪抢劫,这事可谓终身难忘｡这个故事要从他闲来无事走进这家俱乐部讲起,他是个好奇的人,想看看事情是不是真有听说的那么糟｡
When he entered, two men put guns to his head as three more gunmen stood by. They pulled the money from his pocket and pushed him against a wall next to a man bleeding from the head. When the next victim arrived, Trivers dashed out the door. After reporting the robbery to police, he learned that they and the community had sanctioned the ambush as a form of extrajudicial
punishment for the johns.
当他走进去,两个男人拿枪顶着他的头,旁边还站着三个持枪者｡他们拽出他兜里的钱,把他推到墙上,旁边就是个满头是血的人｡当下一个受害者进来时,特里夫斯夺路而逃｡在向警察报告了这起抢劫案后,他得知警察和这个社区是认可这类袭击的,并将其视作对嫖客的法外惩罚｡
But as a white man, whose death would have caused major scrutiny for the area, he was a surprise inconvenience. The robbers had let him flee. According to Trivers, one woman who saw him running down the road later said to him, “Massah, me nebber know white man could fly, until I see you go by.”
但是白人是烫手山芋,他的死会引起对这个地区的大规模监视,所以抢匪们放他跑了｡据特里夫斯回忆,一个看到他逃命的女人后来对他说,“妈呀,我原来都不知道白人还会飞,看到你我才信了｡”
Trivers also nurtured a family in Jamaica. He has two Jamaican ex-wives, five children, and eight grandchildren. One daughter is now the principal of a charter school in Harlem.
特里夫斯还在牙买加组建了一个家庭｡他有两个牙买加前妻､五个儿女和八个孙辈｡其中一个女儿现在是哈林区一所特许学校的校长｡
After finishing his Ph.D. in 1972, Trivers joined Harvard’s faculty. In 1977, he sought tenure, but the decision was pushed back three years because of his mental health issues. Instead of waiting, he decamped to the University of California at Santa Cruz with his wife and son in tow.
1972年博士毕业后,特里夫斯留在哈佛任教｡1977年,他谋求终身教职,但因为心理健康的问题连续三年被驳回｡他没有继续等待,而是带着妻子和儿子到了加州大学圣克鲁斯分校｡
In Santa Cruz, Trivers met Huey Newton, then a Ph.D. student and the
leader of the Black Panthers. They became close, and in 1979 Trivers joined the party—for which he says he’s done “an illegal thing or two.” Trivers still refers to himself as “my black ass,” which he picked up from Newton, who told him: “Bob,
everyone’s ass is black if you look closely enough.”
在圣克鲁斯,特里夫斯遇到了休伊·牛顿,一名在读博士,也是黑豹党的领导人｡两人走得很近,在1979年特里夫斯加入了这个党｡特里夫斯说他自己曾为黑豹党“干过那么一两件非法的事情｡”特里夫斯如今还以“我这个黑屁眼”自称,这是他从牛顿那学来的｡牛顿曾对他说:“鲍勃,所有人的屁眼都是黑的,如果你离近点看的话｡”
Together they wrote an article for the magazine
Science Digest about self-deception in the pilots of Air Florida Flight 90, which had crashed into the Potomac River upon takeoff in 1982, killing 78. A friend of Trivers, the Harvard butterfly expert Bob Silberglied, had died in the crash.
他俩一起在《科学文摘》上发表了一篇文章,论述1982年1月13日佛罗里达航空90次航班空难中飞行员的自我欺骗行为｡当时飞机在起飞时坠入波托马克河,共造成78人丧生,包括他的朋友､哈佛的蝴蝶专家罗伯特·希尔博格里德｡
Trivers was also drawn to the cockpit conversation replayed on TV. “You could hear the
fear and rationality of the copilot,” he says, “and the overconfidence of the pilot, who showed fear only when they were in the air and it was too late.”
特里夫斯被电视上播放的驾驶舱录音所吸引｡“听得出来,副机长怀有担忧,很理性,”他说,“而机长过于自信,他在飞机离地以后才表现出担忧,但已经太迟了｡”
In their article, they analyze the NTSB transcript line by line. The copilot repeatedly expresses concern about snow accumulating on the wings, the need for more de-icing, and what he believes are faulty instrument readings. The pilot brushes him off. Finally, 49 minutes after their last de-icing, they take off. Without sufficient velocity, they pull up, and a few seconds later they stall. The plane grazes a bridge and plunges into the Potomac.
在那篇文章中,他们逐行分析了全国运输安全委员会的报告｡副机长当时反复表达了对机翼积雪的担忧,认为需要再除除冰,还有仪器读数也不正常｡机长没理他｡最终在最后一次除冰后49分钟,他们起飞了｡在没有足够速度的情况下,他们就开始爬高,几秒钟后引擎熄火｡飞机擦过一座桥梁,一头栽进波托马克河｡
“We imagine that presenting a falsely positive front may often have been advantageous to the pilot prior to Flight 90,” Trivers and Newton wrote, “giving him the illusion that skill plus overconfidence works in all encounters.”
“我们猜想,在飞90次航班之前,对这名机长来说,虚假的积极乐观一直都是有利的,”特里夫斯和牛顿写道,“这给了他一种幻觉,似乎技术加上过度自信就能应付任何情况｡”
The two began writing a book titled
Deceit and Self-Deception, but the publishing house closed. Newton, Trivers recalls, “was a master at propagating deception, he was a master at seeing through other people’s deception, he was a master at beating people’s self-deception out of them, and like all the rest of us, he fell down when it came to his own self-deception.” In an interview with
The Black Panther newspaper, he called Newton a “heavyweight mind,” in comparison to the many “light- and middleweight minds” he found at Harvard.
两人开始写一本名为《欺骗与自我欺骗》的书,但出版社倒闭了｡牛顿“是个宣传欺骗的大师”,特里夫斯回忆道,“一个一眼洞悉别人骗术的大师,他精于把他人从自我欺骗中打回原形,然后他像其他所有人一样,当他从自己的自我欺骗中走出来时,他垮掉了｡”有一次《黑豹》报采访了他,他说牛顿是“重量级的思想者”,许多他在哈佛接触过的人相较之下只能算是“轻量级或中量级的思考者”｡
Trivers’ most detailed exploration of self-deception didn’t come until his 2011 book
The Folly of Fools, where he explains that we fool ourselves in all realms of life—when overestimating our looks or abilities, when justifying our righteousness, when defending our power or privilege, when constructing false historical narratives. It’s all part of advancing our own agendas.
直到2011年《愚人愚道》出版,特里夫斯才对自我欺骗进行了详细论述,书中他解释说我们在生活的各个领域愚弄自己——高估自己的能力和相貌､为自己的正直感找正当的理由､保卫自己的权力或特权､构建虚假的历史叙事｡这些都是为了达到自己某种目的而做的部分努力｡
“What I’ve done is found disciplines,” Trivers says. As to self-deception, “I lost a lot by being sooo slow to develop
suuch an important idea. Had I written the paper in ’78 like I was supposed to, there would have been a whole science now.”
“我做的工作是建立范式,”特里夫斯说｡对自我欺骗理论,“这个理论太太太重要了,而我太太太晚才发展出这个理论以至于我损失了太多｡我本该在1978年就写下论文,我要是那样做了,现在肯定已经发展出完整的学科了｡”
In 1994, he moved to Rutgers to be closer to his children. There, he has continued to publish on evolution and human behavior. One area of interest has been body symmetry in Jamaican children as a measure of genetic ability to withstand stressors during development. In 2005, he co-authored a paper showing that more symmetrical Jamaican
teenagers were rated better dancers. The study was featured on the cover of the prestigious journal
Nature.
1994年他前往罗格斯大学,这样可以跟他的孩子们近一些｡在那里他继续就进化和人类行为发表文章｡当时他的一个兴趣所在是身体的对称性,他将牙买加小孩身体的对称性视作一把尺子,度量在发育过程中适应压力的遗传能力｡2005年,他合作撰写的一篇论文指出,身体更为对称的牙买加青少年在舞蹈方面表现更好｡这项研究被声名卓著的《自然》杂志选作封面报道｡
Later, however, another researcher had trouble replicating the findings, and Trivers took a closer look at the data. He found irregularities and concluded that William Brown, a postdoc and the paper’s lead author, had fabricated data. Trivers sought retraction from the journal, but Brown and Lee Cronk, a fellow Rutgers professor who had worked on the paper, denied any wrongdoing or mistakes.
然而另一名研究者在之后验证这项发现的可重复性时遇到了问题,特里夫斯也仔细检查了数据｡他发现了不合常规的地方,并得出结论:论文的第一作者､博士后威廉·布朗编造了数据｡特里夫斯试图从杂志上撤回论文,但布朗和另一位罗格斯大学的同事李·克朗克却否认存在任何不端行为或错误｡
(Von Hippel said Cronk’s position is a classic case of self-deception, because a
Nature paper was more important to his résumé than it was to Trivers’.) Trivers self-published a book,
The Anatomy of a Fraud, to back up his case. Rutgers conducted its own investigation and came to the same conclusions as Trivers.
(范希波尔说克朗克的行为是自我欺骗的典型案例,因为一篇发表于《自然》的论文对他的履历的重要性要远胜于对特里夫斯履历的重要性｡)特里夫斯自己出版了一本书《解剖骗子》来支持自己的立场｡罗格斯大学展开了调查并得出了同特里夫斯一致的结论｡
In 2012, he stood in Cronk’s office and called him a “punk” for continuing to deny the allegations. Cronk claims to have felt threatened, and Trivers was banned from campus for five months. (Cronk declined to comment for this article.)
Nature finally retracted the paper in 2013, five years after the initial request. “For me to produce a fraudulent result, know about it, and not do everything to expose it and prove it is anathema to the essence of my
identity,” Trivers says.
2012年,特里夫斯跑到克朗克的办公室,为他继续否认指控而叫他“废物”｡克朗克宣称他受到威胁,于是特里夫斯被禁止出现在校园,为期五个月｡(克朗克拒绝为本文就此事发表评论｡)《自然》终于在2013年将论文撤回,距初次发表已有五年时间｡“对我来说,知道自己伪造了一个结果却不竭尽全力去揭露它,是对我人格本质的诅咒,” 特里夫斯说｡
Trivers’ latest dustup with Rutgers began at the end of 2013, when he was assigned to teach a course on human aggression and he protested that he didn’t know the material. After much back and forth, he showed up in class and told his students the backstory. The university suspended him with pay for bringing students into the dispute, then withheld his pay for three months.
特里夫斯同罗格斯大学最近的一次纷争始于2013年底,当时他被分配去教一门关于人类攻击行为的课,而他抗议自己并不熟悉这个领域｡在几轮较量后,他最后还是出现在了教室里,他告诉学生发生了什么｡大学先是以将学生卷入纷争为由让他带薪停课,之后又扣了他三个月工资｡
“I am one of
the most accomplished scientists they have ever had, period,” Trivers says in a characteristic but not inaccurate self-assessment. “Why not treat him well?” he asks. He has taken a dim view of the university and looks forward to a conscious uncoupling. “Honesty is not their strong suit,” he says. “Remember, we’re talking about New Jersey.”
“我是他们拥有过的成就最高的人之一”,他这话带着特里夫斯的风格,但这个自我评价却不能说不准确｡“怎么就不能对他(指特里夫斯自己)好点呢?”他问道｡他对罗格斯大学的前景感到悲观并主动寻求离开｡“诚实不是他们的强项,”他说,“记住,毕竟我们说的是新泽西州｡”
Trivers also had a talk at Harvard canceled once when he made a perceived threat against Alan Dershowitz in
The Wall Street Journal letters pages over their conflicting views on Israeli-Lebanese relations. He admits to writing many “strongly worded” letters to people. And he notes: “If I ask you a direct question and you don’t give me a direct answer, I will wheel on you and say, ‘Yes but what about the question I asked you?!’”
因为对以色列-黎巴嫩关系的相左认识,特里夫斯曾在《华尔街日报》的读者来信版面里猛烈抨击艾伦·德肖维茨,这让后者感觉受到了人身威胁,特里夫斯在哈佛的一次讨论会也因此取消｡他承认自己给人写过许多“措辞激烈”的信｡他还补充说:“如果我直截了当地问你一个问题,而你不直截了当地回答,那我就要穷追猛打,‘是的,可是我刚才问你的那个问题呢?!’”
When I asked Trivers how much blame he should take for the drama that surrounds him, he says, “I know I’m a hard man.” But he doesn’t see himself as violent. When he was kicked off campus for calling Cronk a punk, Rutgers sent him to a psychologist for threat evaluation.
当我问特里夫斯,对于这些围绕你的这些争议,你自己负有多少责任,他回答“我知道自己是个不好相处的人｡”但他并不认为自己暴力｡当他因为叫克朗克废物而被踢出校园时,罗格斯大学给他找了个心理学家进行威胁评估｡
“After an hour and a half, the psychologist says to me: ‘You know something, Dr. Trivers? You’re not a danger to anyone, including any of your colleagues. Your problem is you call stupid people stupid, and if they have power over you, you get blowback.’” Trivers told me this not a minute after framing an off-the-record comment with: “Please, I
will get violent if I see this in print, and I’m not joking.”
“一个半小时后,这位心理学家对我说:‘你知道吗,特里夫斯博士?对任何人你都不是一个威胁,包括你的大学同事｡你的问题是你管笨蛋叫笨蛋,如果他们能奈何得了你,你就有得好受｡”特里夫斯在告诉我这些之前没多一会儿的时候曾说过,他的某句评论可不能传出去｡他是这么说的:“拜托,我要是看见这句话印出来的话,我肯定会动手打人的,我不开玩笑｡”
But this hard man is trying to change. He relies on strategies he developed years ago for managing his emotions, including something resembling prayer. He put
religion aside at around age 13, “because math was a hell of a lot more interesting than ‘begat begatbegat.’ And there was this little contradiction between religion and 13-year-old girls.”
不过这位不好相处的人也在试着改变｡他依靠一套自己多年前开发出的办法来管理情绪,其中一种办法类似于祈祷｡他13岁时便抛弃了宗教,“因为比起什么‘以父之名’,数学要他妈有趣得多｡而且宗教这玩意还和13岁的女孩子有矛盾【
编注:这里特里夫斯大概是在吹嘘他13岁时就懂得泡妞了】｡”
Now, he wishes he hadn’t neglected it so much. He doesn’t believe in a god who listens: “How does God have any time left for my moaning and groaning? It’s insane.” Instead, it’s more a
meditation. “I pray to keep my anger under control, to be more compassionate, for
forgiveness, but I regard myself as talking to different parts of my own psyche.”
现在,他后悔自己当时如此地忽视宗教｡他并不相信有一个会倾听的神:“神怎么会有时间来听我抱怨?这太扯了｡”他的祈祷更接近冥想｡“我祈祷我的愤怒得到控制,自己更加悲悯,我祈祷得到宽恕,但我总感觉,我这是在和自己灵魂的不同部分对话｡”
Trivers sees himself doing another five to ten years of research, but he describes his current contributions as more humble. He pumps out papers on lizards and knee symmetry in runners, which he admits, were “designed to fly me to Jamaica at someone else’s expense.”
特里夫斯认为自己还能做上5到10年的研究,但他认为自己目前的贡献远不如前｡关于蜥蜴和跑步运动员膝盖的对称性,他撰写了大量论文,对此他说“用处也不过是能让我花别人的钱飞来牙买加罢了｡”
Yet one recent idea emerging from his interest in self-deception appears to have real significance: Research shows that older adults are
biased toward paying attention to and remembering the positive over the negative and that they don’t dwell in negative moods, a phenomenon called the
aging positivity effect.
然而他对自我欺骗的关注最近孕育了一个新观念,这一观念可能具有巨大的价值:研究者们发现年长些的人总是偏向关注和记忆正面的事情而忽略负面的,他们不会长时间陷在负面情绪里,这一现象被称作“衰老的正面效应”｡
There’s been no functional explanation, and it would seem that such a bias could be dangerous by blinding people to hazards. But Trivers notes that positive moods improve immune function, and older adults have a greater need for a strong immune system to fight off tumors and other ills. So maybe we’ve evolved to cheer ourselves up as we age just to boost immunity.
对这一效应现在还没有有效的解释,而这一对正面事物的偏执会让人们对危害视而不见,因而可能造成危险｡不过特里夫斯注意到,积极的情绪会增强人体的免疫机能,而年长的人需要一个强健的免疫系统来对抗肿瘤和其他疾病｡所以,也许我们就是这样进化的:越老就越充满正能量,从而提高我们的免疫力｡
He suggested the idea to von Hippel, who didn’t buy it. Why would natural selection shape old age, after we can no longer reproduce? But, Trivers argued, you can still help raise your grandchildren, who carry your genes.
他把这一理念跟范希波尔提起,但后者一开始并不买账｡自然选择为什么在我们失去生育能力后,还让我们老当益壮?但特里夫斯争辩说,在你老了之后你仍可以帮助养育孙辈,他们身上仍然携带了你的基因｡
Von Hippel ran a test that found that in older adults, a greater positivity bias correlated with stronger immune function. So they published the findings in 2014 in
Psychology & Aging. Now they’re working on a longitudinal study to see if positivity predicts later immune function.
范希波尔做了验证,发现专注正面事物的年长者确实拥有更强健的免疫功能｡于是在2014年,他俩在《心理学与衰老》上发表了这一发现｡现在他们正合作一项纵向研究,以验证积极的心态是否会带来免疫力｡
Trivers refrains from making grand predictions about the future of evolutionary theory, but he has certain interests. David Haig’s work on genetic conflict excites him, as does von Hippel’s work on aging. And he’s just applied for a yearlong fellowship at Harvard to study honor killings. “How in the world,” he wonders, “do you select for, if indeed you do, murdering your own daughter?”
特里夫斯不会预测进化理论会有如何广阔的前景,但对这一理论他颇有兴趣｡David Haig关于基因冲突的研究､范希波尔关于衰老的研究都让他兴奋｡而且他刚刚申请了哈佛为期一年的研究员职位,以研究“荣誉谋杀”现象｡“在这个世界上,人怎么会选择——如果真的是自己选择的话——亲手杀死自己的女儿呢?”特里夫斯对此感到疑惑｡
He also has a lifetime interest in homosexuality—another genetic conundrum—and plans to write a review paper. “I enjoy trying to think through those kinds of problems,” he says. “As a theoretician you’re attracted, or you ought to be, to precisely those phenomena that seem to contradict your theory, and the deeper the better.”
他对同性恋现象——另一个遗传学的谜题——也抱有持续的热情,并打算写一篇综述论文｡“我很享受思考这些问题,”他说,“作为一个建立理论的人,你被,或者说你理应被那些与你的理论相悖的现象所吸引,越是痴迷就越好｡”
Eating dinner at a Thai restaurant with Trivers, I mentioned that a colleague of his had painted him to be something of a badass. As evidence I noted the time he stabbed the home invader in the neck. “That’s a badass?” he inquired between slurps of soup. “That ain’t a badass. That’s someone protecting his f*cking life. I came an inch from being killed, man.”
和特里夫斯在一家泰国餐馆吃饭时,我提到他的一位同事曾把他描述成一个混蛋｡作为证据,我强调了那次他曾捅伤一位非法闯入者的脖子｡“那叫混蛋?”他一边喝汤一边质问,“那不叫混蛋,那他妈是保命｡我差点就被干死了,老兄!”
Fair enough. But hurting his case, he went on to describe his response to the criminals’ lenient sentences. “I chased down both of them, because I had to,” he says. “Since the police aren’t disciplining them, I will.” One morning he spotted one of the men and pulled his car over.
言之有理｡不过接下去他描述他对轻判罪犯的反应,可就要为他减分了｡“我对这俩家伙穷追不舍,因为我不得不这么做,”他说,“既然警察不去规训他们,那我来｡”一天早上,他认出了罪犯中的一个,然后停下车｡
“‘Listen,’ I say, ‘If you want to rob me, you rob me at the roadside. Don’t rob me in my own home. That’s where my children live, that’s where my guests are. I will kill you three times over. In fact...’” As he started to get out of his car, Trivers says the man ran backward. (Helpfully, Trivers boxed in boarding school at Andover; but still, during one separate altercation, he ended up with an ice pick to his hand.)
“‘听着,’我说,‘你要是想抢我,那你就在路边抢我｡别在我家抢｡那是我孩子生活的地方,是我客人到访的地儿｡你再那么干,信不信我让你死透?实际上……’”特里夫斯说,当他准备下车时,那家伙倒退着跑开了｡(特里夫斯在安多弗的寄宿学校练过拳击,不过,在另外一次争执中,他最后还是操起了碎冰椎｡)
Today, Trivers retains vitriol for those who don’t see the legitimacy in his work and the research it’s spawned. According to von Hippel, people reject
evolutionary psychology for ideological reasons. Those on the right fear that it absolves us of responsibility, while those on the left fear that accepting inherited differences hinders the goal of social equality.
今天,特里夫斯仍然对那些看不出他所做工作及其孵化出的研究的合理性的家伙们冷嘲热讽｡据范希波尔说,人们拒绝进化心理学是处于意识形态的理由｡右派担心进化心理学会解除我们身上的责任,而左派担心承认天生差异会对阻碍实现社会平等这一目标｡
Trivers says that many feminists and cultural anthropologists regard him as “the devil.” In return, he calls them “feebleminded” and “stone nuts.” More genes are expressed in the brain than in any other tissue, he notes, and to ignore the partnering of nurture with nature is “ludicrous, if you have any serious interest in reality or science.”
特里夫斯说,许多女权主义者和文化人类学家将他视为“魔鬼”｡而作为回击,他管他们叫“玻璃心”和“石化脑”｡他指出,比起其他组织,在大脑里得到表达的基因更多,忽视后天习得和先天遗传的共同作用是“可笑的,要是你对事实和科学还有一丝严肃态度的话｡”
Trivers feels grateful for everything evolutionary biology has given him. It’s taken him around the world to wild and often unwelcoming places, and it’s given him the tools to analyze what he’s seen, from lizards to lovers’ quarrels to leftist movements. “In short,” Trivers writes in his memoir, “I signed on to a system of thought that allowed me to study life and live it, sometimes very intensively.”
特里夫斯对从进化心理学那里得到的一切都心存感激｡进化心理学带他走向世界各地,去到荒僻､甚至往往不友好的地方;给他分析所见所闻的工具,从蜥蜴到情侣争吵再到左翼运动｡“一言以蔽之,”特里夫斯在回忆录里写道,“我献身于一个思想体系,它让我可以研究和体味生命,而且这一过程有时还颇为激烈｡”
（编辑：辉格@whigzhou）
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