英语演讲稿乌鸦的智商到底有多高中英文对照Word下载.docx

1、 过去几天，人们都在问我同样的问题： “你怎么开始搞这玩意的?有什么吸引你的地方吗?” 说实话，这玩意就像很多伟大的想法， 或者一些你无法在脑中驱散的想法一样， 是从一次鸡尾酒派对产生的。About 10 years ago, I was at a cocktail party with a friend of mine. We were sitting there, and he was complaining about the crows that were all over his yard and making a big mess. And he was telling me we

2、 ought to eradicate these things,kill them, because theyre making a mess. I said that was stupid, maybe we should just train them to do something useful. And he said that was impossible.大概十年前，我与一个朋友在一个鸡尾酒派对上， 我们坐在那，他一直在抱怨乌鸦，乌鸦们把他的院子搞得一团糟。 他那时很认真的跟我说，我们得想办法消灭这些鬼东西， 否则我们就不会有好日子过。 我跟他说，那才是坏主意呢， 咱们为何不训练

3、它们，让乌鸦帮我们人类做一点有意义的事情? 他丢给我一句“那不可能”。And Im sure Im in good company in finding that tremendously annoying, when someone tells you its impossible. So I spent the next 10 years reading about crows in my spare time.我相信绝对不只我一人觉得这极度恼人当有人告诉你“那不可能”时。于是决定用10年的时间在我的业余时间专门研究乌鸦。And after 10 years of this, my wif

4、e said,”Youve got to do this thing youve been talking about, and build the vending machine.” So I did. But part of the reason I found this interesting is, I started noticing that were very aware of all the species that are going extinct on the planet as a result of human habitation expansion,and no

5、one seems to be paying attention to all the species that are actually living;theyre surviving. And Im talking specifically about synanthropic species,which have adapted specifically for human ecologies, species like rats and cockroaches and crows.现在10年过去了，我妻子说，“好吧，你也该把它做出来了， 你不是一直说要给乌鸦们做一个自动售货机么?” 于

6、是我就把它做出来了。 但我对这个项目感兴趣还有部分原因是因为 我开始注意到我们人类已经意识到 有很多物种因为人类无止尽的扩张 将会在地球上灭绝。 但貌似没人对那些 还生存在世上的物种有所关心它们都还真正地活着。 这里我指的是那些长期与人共处， 并适应了人类生态系统的动物。 这样的动物包括老鼠、蟑螂、乌鸦。And as I started looking at them, I was finding that they had hyper-adapted. Theyd become extremely adept at living with us. And in return, we just

7、 tried to kill them all the in doing so, we were breeding them for parasitism. We were giving them all sorts of reasons to adapt new ways. So, for example, rats are incredibly responsive breeders. And cockroaches, as anyone whos tried to get rid of them knows, have become really immune to the poison

8、s that were using.而假如你仔细观察的话，你会发现所有的这类动物都已经对人类社会产生了高度的适应性，并且随着继续与人生活在一起，它们的适应性还加变得更强。但反观人类呢，我们只是一直在不断屠杀它们而已。为了做到这点，人类用喂养的方式来让它们寄生于我们我们给了动物们适应新环境的各种理由。比如：老鼠的生育能力变得超强。而蟑螂，逮过蟑螂的人都知道，它们已经不在乎我们的“诱饵”了。So I thought, lets build something thats mutually beneficial; something that we can both benefit from, an

9、d find some way to make a new relationship with these species. So I built the vending machine.于是我想，为何不制造出一些能让我们人类和这些“寄生虫”共同受益的东西呢?以此和这些动物建立一种新型的关系，一种互利的关系。从而让人类找到一条与其共处的新路子。这就是我制作动物专用自动售货机的理由。But the story of the vending machine is a little more interesting if you know more about crows. It turns out

10、, crows arent just surviving with human beings; theyre actually thriving. Theyre found everywhere on the planet except for the Arctic and the southern tip of South America. And in all that area, theyre only rarely found breeding more than five kilometers away from human beings. So we may not think a

11、bout them,but theyre always around.不过如果你多了解一下乌鸦，这个自动售货机的故事会更有趣。乌鸦们不仅仅是在人类环境中生存得不错事实上，他们活得还很精彩。你在地球上任何一处角落除了两极和南美至南端都可以见得到乌鸦。通常它们的栖息地离人类居所不出5公里。虽然你也许不会想到这一点，可是它们确确实实一直都这么活在我们身边。And not surprisingly, given the human population growth, more than half of the human population is living in cities now. And

12、 out of those, nine-tenths of the human growth population is occurring in re seeing a population boom with crows. So bird counts are indicating thatwe might be seeing up to exponential growth in their numbers. So thats no great surprise.这也不奇怪，我们的地球上人口暴涨，其中有半数以上居住在城市。除此之外，90%的人口增长就都发生在城市里乌鸦这个种群也在经历同样

13、的发展。所以鸟类的数量在我们看来将会有一个爆炸型的增长，这并没有什么奇怪的。But what was really interesting to me was to find out that the birds were adapting in a pretty unusual way. And Ill give you an example of that. This is Betty. Shes a New Caledonian crow. And these crows use sticks in the wild to get insects and what not out of

14、pieces of , shes trying to get a piece of meat out of a tube. But the researchers had a problem. They messed up and left just a stick of wire in there. And she hadnt had the opportunity to do this before. You see, it wasnt working verywell. So she adapted.但令我感到吃惊的是这些鸟儿竟然学会了通过一些奇特的方式在我们的社会里求得生存。大家看看下

15、面的例子：它的名字是Betty，它是一只New Caledonia（北美地名）的乌鸦。在森林里，它们会用树枝从林木里挑出虫子和其他食物。此时它正尝试用铁线取出瓶子里的那块肉。但是研究者们遇到了一个问题。他们把试验搞砸了，因为只留下了一根线在那里。而Betty以前可没尝试过这样的挑战。你可以看到，它进行得并不顺利。于是它想出了一个新法子。Now, this is completely unprompted; she had never seen this done before. No one taught her to bend this into a hook or had shown he

16、r how it could happen. But she did it all on her own. So keep in mind- shes never seen this done.要知道，它没有看到过别的乌鸦这么做。之前也没有任何人或者别的乌鸦教它如何把线弯成钩子;或者告诉过它可以通过这种方式捞肉。这完全是它自己想出来的办法。请一定记得它以前从没有学过的哦。就这样。Right. Yeah. All thats the part where the researchers freak out.对，就这样。这才是研究人员觉得不可思议的地方。It turns out, weve bee

17、n finding more andmore that crows are really intelligent. Their brains are in the same proportionas chimpanzee brains are. Theres all kinds of anecdotes for the different kinds of intelligence they have. For example, in Sweden, crows will wait for fishermen to drop lines through holes in the ice. An

18、d when the fishermen move off, the crows fly down, reel up the lines, and eat the fish or the bait. Its pretty annoying for the fishermen.我们发现越来越多的证据表明乌鸦的确是聪明的，它们的大脑占躯体的比例和大猩猩相当。 大家也可能听过各种各样的关于乌鸦的趣闻吧。 比如，在瑞典， 那里的乌鸦会趁渔人往冰隙里放钓钩的时候守在一边， 当渔人走了， 它们就飞过去拉起钓钩，吃掉钩上的鱼或钓饵。 这可是搞得那里的渔人很烦恼。On an entirely differen

19、t tack, at University of Washington a few years ago, they were doing an experiment where they captured some crows on campus. Some students went out, netted some crows,brought them in, weighed and measured them, and let them back out again. And they were entertained to discover that for the rest of t

20、he week, whenever these particular students walked around campus, these crows would caw at them and runaround, and make their life kind of miserable.而在华盛顿大学，那里的研究员几年前做了一个截然不同的实验。他们在校园里捉来一些乌鸦，在实验室里加以标记、称量，然后把它们放走。而随后的那个星期，他们惊喜地发现，那些被放走的乌鸦在校园里一见到那些捉过它们的学生，就会冲着他们鸣叫，并在他们周围飞来飞去，给他们的生活增添一些小烦恼。They were si

21、gnificantly less entertained when this went on for the next week. And the next month. And after summer break. Until they finally graduated and left campus, and - glad to get away,Im sure - came back sometime later, and found the crows still remembered them.但之后几个星期还是如此，他们就不再那么惊喜了。甚至到了下个月，到了夏季学期结束，到了他

22、们毕业离校了我相信他们是很高兴地离去的可当他们偶尔回校来看看时，那些乌鸦还是记得他们。So, the moral being: dont piss off now, students at the University of Washington that are studying these crows,do so with a giant wig and a big mask.所以大家看到了吧，千万别惹乌鸦。正是这样的缘故，现在华盛顿大学做乌鸦研究的学生都带上巨大的假发，还套上面具。Its fairly interesting.这真是令人哑然的一件事。So we know these cr

23、ows are really smart,but the more I dug into this, the more I found that they actually have an even more significant adaptation.以上说的无非是要证明乌鸦是非常聪明的，但我研究得越是深入，越是觉得它们的智慧要比我们想象的高出一个层次。Video: Crows have become highly skilled atmaking a living in these new urban environments. In this Japanese city, they h

24、ave devised a way of eating a food that normally they cant manage: drop it among the traffic. The problem now is collecting the bits, without getting runover. Wait for the light to stop the traffic. Then, collect your cracked nut insafety.视频：在新的城市环境中，乌鸦们的谋生技能正在变得越来越娴熟。这是一座日本城市，这里的乌鸦发明了一种吃果仁的办法把坚果丢到车

25、道上。然后飞走， 等待汽车开过。 之后它们在马路边等待绿灯， 然后飞到马路中央安全地衔走那颗果仁。Joshua Klein: Yeah, pretty s significant about this isnt that crows are using cars to crack nuts. Infact, thats old hat for crows. This happened about 10 years ago in a placecalled Sendai City, at a driving school in the suburbs of Tokyo. And since th

26、at time, all the crows in the neighborhood are picking up this behavior. Now everycrow within five kilometers is standing by a sidewalk, waiting to collect its lunch.JoshuaKlein: 看看，这是不是挺有趣的?不过，有趣的倒不是借助过往车辆压开果核的做法，事实上，乌鸦老早就学会了这门手艺了。刚才大家看到的景象发生在10年前东京市郊的一家驾驶学校附近。从那时开始， 附近的乌鸦也学会了这样的吃坚果的方式。 如今，方圆五公里内的乌

27、鸦都在人行道旁守候着， 等待过往车辆为他们带来午餐。So theyre learning from each other. And research bears this out. Parents seem to be teaching their young. They learn from their peers, they learn from their enemies. If I have a little extra time,Ill tell you about a case of crow infidelity that illustrates that nicely. The

28、 point being, theyve developed cultural adaptation. And as we heard yesterday,thats the Pandoras box thats getting human beings in trouble, and were starting to see it with them. Theyre able to very quickly and very flexibly adapt to new challenges and new resources in their environment, which is re

29、ally useful if you live in a city.乌鸦通过互相学习，都掌握了这种技巧。乌鸦父母还教会自己的孩子这样的技巧呢。它们向同伴学习，也向它们的敌人学习。如果我还有更多演讲时间，我会告诉你们一个有关乌鸦背信的案例来更好地证明我的观点。最关键的是它们学会了适应不同的生态文化。就如昨天我们听到的那样，是潘多拉之盒将人类引入混乱，现在是开始着手解决它的时候了。他们能快速且融洽地适应新的挑战及环境中的新资源，对于城市生活来说，这可真有用。So we know that theres lots of crows. We found out theyre really smart

30、and they can teach each other. When all this became clear, I realized the only obvious thing to do is build a vending machine. So thats what we did. This is a vending machine for crows. And it uses Skinnerian training to shape their behavior over four stages. Its pretty simple.好了，现在我们都知道城市里有大量的乌鸦，它们很聪明，还懂得相互间分享生存的秘诀。当我知道这一切以后，我决定要专门为它们做一台自动售货机。并且还做成功了。这就是乌鸦专用自动售货机：我们用斯金纳（操作性条件反射）理论，分四阶段训练法来训练乌鸦。其实也很简单。Basically, what happens is that we put this out in a field or someplace where theres lots of crows. We put coins and peanu