TED英語演講：為什么說烏鴉的智商高到可怕
作為一名駭客和作家，Joshua Klein對烏鴉們的智慧感到神奇(你可曾注意過它們那小小的黑眼睛中蘊藏的智慧光芒?)。他在很長一段的業(yè)余時間里對烏鴉群的行為進行觀察后，想出了一個堪稱優(yōu)雅的機器，這或許將在人類與動物間構(gòu)建一種新的關(guān)系。下面是小編為大家收集關(guān)于TED英語演講：為什么說烏鴉的智商高到可怕，歡迎借鑒參考。
A thought experiment on the intelligence of crows
演講者：Joshua Klein
/ 中英對照演講稿 /
How many of you have seen the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Birds"? Any of you get really freaked out by that? You might want to leave now.So this is a vending machine for crows.Over the past few days, many of you have been asking, "How did you come tothis? How did you get started doing this?" It started, as with many great ideas, or many ideas you can't get rid of, anyway, at a cocktail party.
這里有多少人看過希區(qū)柯克的電影《鳥》?是不是認為那片子太過離奇了?要是那樣的話，你現(xiàn)在可以走了。(笑聲) 大家看到的是一臺專門為烏鴉設(shè)計的自動售貨機。 過去幾天，人們都在問我同樣的問題： “你怎么開始搞這玩意的?有什么吸引你的地方嗎?” 說實話，這玩意就像很多偉大的想法， 或者一些你無法在腦中驅(qū)散的想法一樣， 是從一次雞尾酒派對產(chǎn)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 ought to eradicate these things,kill them, because they're 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，我與一個朋友在一個雞尾酒派對上， 我們坐在那，他一直在抱怨烏鴉 烏鴉們把他的院子搞得一團糟。 他那時很認真的跟我說，我們得想辦法消滅這些鬼東西， 否則我們就不會有好日子過。 我跟他說，那才是壞主意呢， 咱們?yōu)楹尾挥柧毸鼈儯尀貘f幫我們?nèi)祟愖鲆稽c有意義的事情? 他丟給我一句“那不可能”。
And I'm sure I'm in good company in finding that tremendously annoying, when someone tells you it's impossible. So I spent the next 10 years reading about crows in my spare time.
我相信絕對不只我一人覺得這極度惱人——當有人告訴你“那不可能”時。于是決定用10年的時間在我的業(yè)余時間專門研究烏鴉。
And after 10 years of this, my wife said,"You've got to do this thing you've 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 we're very aware of all the species that are going extinct on the planet as a result of human habitation expansion,and no one seems to be paying attention to all the species that are actually living;they're surviving. And I'm talking specifically about synanthropic species,which have adapted specifically for human ecologies, species like rats and cockroaches and crows.
現(xiàn)在10年過去了，我妻子說， “好吧，你也該把它做出來了， 你不是一直說要給烏鴉們做一個自動售貨機么?” 于是我就把它做出來了。 但我對這個項目感興趣還有部分原因是因為 我開始注意到我們?nèi)祟愐呀?jīng)意識到 有很多物種因為人類無止盡的擴張 將會在地球上滅絕。 但貌似沒人對那些 還生存在世上的物種有所關(guān)心——它們都還真正地活著。 這里我指的是那些長期與人共處， 并適應(yīng)了人類生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的動物。 這樣的動物包括老鼠、蟑螂、烏鴉。
And as I started looking at them, I was finding that they had hyper-adapted. They'd become extremely adept at living with us. And in return, we just tried to kill them all the time.And 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 who's tried to get rid of them knows, have become really immune to the poisons that we're using.
而假如你仔細觀察的話，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)所有的這類動物都已經(jīng)對人類社會產(chǎn)生了高度的適應(yīng)性，并且隨著繼續(xù)與人生活在一起，它們的適應(yīng)性還加變得更強。但反觀人類呢，我們只是一直在不斷屠殺它們而已。為了做到這點，人類用喂養(yǎng)的方式來讓它們寄生于我們我們給了動物們適應(yīng)新環(huán)境的各種理由。比如：老鼠的生育能力變得超強。而蟑螂，逮過蟑螂的人都知道，它們已經(jīng)不在乎我們的“誘餌”了。
So I thought, let's build something that's mutually beneficial; something that we can both benefit from, and find some way to make a new relationship with these species. So I built the vending machine.
于是我想，為何不制造出一些能讓我們?nèi)祟惡瓦@些“寄生蟲”共同受益的東西呢?以此和這些動物建立一種新型的關(guān)系，一種互利的關(guān)系。從而讓人類找到一條與其共處的新路子。這就是我制作動物專用自動售貨機的理由。
But the story of the vending machine is a little more interesting if you know more about crows. It turns out, crows aren't just surviving with human beings; they're actually thriving. They're found everywhere on the planet except for the Arctic and the southern tip of South America. And in all that area, they're only rarely found breeding more than five kilometers away from human beings. So we may not think about them,but they're always around.
不過如果你多了解一下烏鴉，這個自動售貨機的故事會更有趣。烏鴉們不僅僅是在人類環(huán)境中‘生存’得不錯——事實上，他們活得還很精彩。你在地球上任何一處角落——除了兩極和南美至南端——都可以見得到烏鴉。通常它們的棲息地離人類居所不出5公里。雖然你也許不會想到這一點，可是它們確確實實一直都這么活在我們身邊。
And not surprisingly, given the human population growth, more than half of the human population is living in cities now. And out of those, nine-tenths of the human growth population is occurring in cities.We're seeing a population boom with crows. So bird counts are indicating thatwe might be seeing up to exponential growth in their numbers. So that's no great surprise.
這也不奇怪，我們的地球上人口暴漲，其中有半數(shù)以上居住在城市。除此之外，90%的人口增長就都發(fā)生在城市里——烏鴉這個種群也在經(jīng)歷同樣的發(fā)展。所以鳥類的數(shù)量在我們看來將會有一個爆炸型的增長，這并沒有什么奇怪的。
But what was really interesting to me was to find out that the birds were adapting in a pretty unusual way. And I'll give you an example of that. This is Betty. She's a New Caledonian crow. And these crows use sticks in the wild to get insects and what not out of pieces of wood.Here, she's 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 hadn't had the opportunity to do this before. You see, it wasn't working verywell. So she adapted.
但令我感到吃驚的是這些鳥兒竟然學會了通過一些奇特的方式在我們的社會里求得生存。大家看看下面的例子：它的名字是Betty，它是一只New Caledonia(北美地名)的烏鴉。在森林里，它們會用樹枝從林木里挑出蟲子和其他食物。此時它正嘗試用鐵線取出瓶子里的那塊肉。但是研究者們遇到了一個問題。他們把試驗搞砸了，因為只留下了一根線在那里。而Betty以前可沒嘗試過這樣的挑戰(zhàn)。你可以看到，它進行得并不順利。于是它想出了一個新法子。
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 her how it could happen. But she did it all on her own. So keep in mind-- she's never seen this done.
要知道，它沒有看到過別的烏鴉這么做。之前也沒有任何人或者別的烏鴉教它如何把線彎成鉤子;或者告訴過它可以通過這種方式撈肉。這完全是它自己想出來的辦法。請一定記得它以前從沒有學過的哦。就這樣。
Right. Yeah. All right.So that's the part where the researchers freak out.
對，就這樣。這才是研究人員覺得不可思議的地方。
It turns out, we've been finding more andmore that crows are really intelligent. Their brains are in the same proportionas chimpanzee brains are. There's 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. And when the fishermen move off, the crows fly down, reel up the lines, and eat the fish or the bait. It's pretty annoying for the fishermen.
我們發(fā)現(xiàn)越來越多的證據(jù)表明烏鴉的確是聰明的，它們的大腦占軀體的比例和大猩猩相當。 大家也可能聽過各種各樣的關(guān)于烏鴉的趣聞吧。 比如，在瑞典， 那里的烏鴉會趁漁人往冰隙里放釣鉤的時候守在一邊， 當漁人走了， 它們就飛過去拉起釣鉤，吃掉鉤上的魚或釣餌。 這可是搞得那里的漁人很煩惱。
On an entirely different 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 the week, whenever these particular students walked around campus, these crows would caw at them and runaround, and make their life kind of miserable.
而在華盛頓大學，那里的研究員幾年前做了一個截然不同的實驗。他們在校園里捉來一些烏鴉，在實驗室里加以標記、稱量，然后把它們放走。而隨后的那個星期，他們驚喜地發(fā)現(xiàn)，那些被放走的烏鴉在校園里一見到那些捉過它們的學生，就會沖著他們鳴叫，并在他們周圍飛來飛去，給他們的生活增添一些小煩惱。
They were significantly 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,I'm sure -- came back sometime later, and found the crows still remembered them.
但之后幾個星期還是如此，他們就不再那么驚喜了。甚至到了下個月，到了夏季學期結(jié)束，到了他們畢業(yè)離校了——我相信他們是很高興地離去的——可當他們偶爾回校來看看時，那些烏鴉還是記得他們。
So, the moral being: don't piss off crows.So 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，千萬別惹烏鴉。正是這樣的緣故，現(xiàn)在華盛頓大學做烏鴉研究的學生都帶上巨大的假發(fā)，還套上面具。
It's fairly interesting.
這真是令人啞然的一件事。
So we know these crows are really smart,but the more I dug into this, the more I found that they actually have an even more significant adaptation.
以上說的無非是要證明烏鴉是非常聰明的，但我研究得越是深入，越是覺得它們的智慧要比我們想象的高出一個層次。
Video: Crows have become highly skilled atmaking a living in these new urban environments. In this Japanese city, they have devised a way of eating a food that normally they can't 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.
視頻：在新的城市環(huán)境中，烏鴉們的謀生技能正在變得越來越嫻熟。這是一座日本城市，這里的烏鴉發(fā)明了一種吃果仁的辦法——把堅果丟到車道上。然后飛走， 等待汽車開過。 之后它們在馬路邊等待綠燈， 然后飛到馬路中央安全地銜走那顆果仁
Joshua Klein: Yeah, pretty interesting.What's significant about this isn't that crows are using cars to crack nuts. Infact, that's 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 that 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，這是不是挺有趣的?不過，有趣的倒不是借助過往車輛壓開果核的做法，事實上，烏鴉老早就學會了這門手藝了。剛才大家看到的景象發(fā)生在10年前東京市郊的一家駕駛學校附近。從那時開始， 附近的烏鴉也學會了這樣的吃堅果的方式。 如今，方圓五公里內(nèi)的烏鴉都在人行道旁守候著， 等待過往車輛為他們帶來午餐。
So they're 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,I'll tell you about a case of crow infidelity that illustrates that nicely. The point being, they've developed cultural adaptation. And as we heard yesterday,that's the Pandora's box that's getting human beings in trouble, and we're starting to see it with them. They're able to very quickly and very flexibly adapt to new challenges and new resources in their environment, which is really useful if you live in a city.
烏鴉通過互相學習，都掌握了這種技巧。烏鴉父母還教會自己的孩子這樣的技巧呢。它們向同伴學習，也向它們的敵人學習。如果我還有更多演講時間，我會告訴你們一個有關(guān)烏鴉背信的案例來更好地證明我的觀點。最關(guān)鍵的是它們學會了適應(yīng)不同的生態(tài)文化。就如昨天我們聽到的那樣，是潘多拉之盒將人類引入混亂，現(xiàn)在是開始著手解決它的時候了。他們能快速且融洽地適應(yīng)新的挑戰(zhàn)及環(huán)境中的新資源，對于城市生活來說，這可真有用。
So we know that there's lots of crows. We found out they're really smart 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 that's what we did. This is a vending machine for crows. And it uses Skinnerian training to shape their behavior over four stages. It's pretty simple.
好了，現(xiàn)在我們都知道城市里有大量的烏鴉，它們很聰明，還懂得相互間分享生存的秘訣。當我知道這一切以后，我決定要專門為它們做一臺自動售貨機。并且還做成功了。這就是烏鴉專用自動售貨機：我們用斯金納(操作性條件反射)理論，分四階段訓練法來訓練烏鴉。其實也很簡單。
Basically, what happens is that we put this out in a field or someplace where there's lots of crows. We put coins and peanuts all around the base ofthe machine. Crows eventually come by, eat the peanuts, and get used to the machine being there. Eventually, they eat all the peanuts. Then they see peanuts here on the feeder tray, and hop up and help themselves. Then they leave, the machine spits up more coins and peanuts, and life is dandy if you're a crow -- you can come back anytime and get yourself a peanut.
首先，我們把這樣的機器放到田野 或者烏鴉經(jīng)常出沒的地方。 在機器的底部放上一大堆的硬幣和花生。 烏鴉來了，吃掉機器上的花生， 并且也習慣了機器的存在。 吃光了地面的花生以后， 它們發(fā)現(xiàn)在售貨機的出貨口那里也有很多花生， 于是就跳到上面，也同樣盡享美味。 每一天，那機器上都會放滿了硬幣和花生。
So when they get really used to that, we move on to the crows coming back. Now they're used to the sound of the machine;they keep coming back and digging out peanuts from the pile of coins that'sthere. When they get really happy about this, we stymie them.
嘿，要是當那樣的一只烏鴉也不錯喲， 每天都不愁吃的。當它們都習慣這樣的生活或，我們繼續(xù)下一步我們等到烏鴉都習慣于機器的聲音，就把花生蓋在硬幣底下，它們飛過來，掀開硬幣，就能吃得到花生，它們也挺開心的。這時，我們決定給它們制造一些困難。
We move to the third stage, where we only give them a coin. Now, like most of us who have gotten used to a good thing,this really pisses them off. So they do what they do in nature when they're looking for something: sweep things out of the way with their beak. They do that here, and that knocks the coins down the slot. When that happens, they get a peanut. This goes on for some time. The crows learn that all they have to do is show up, wait for the coin to come out, put it in the slot, then get their peanut.
我們開始了第三階段的訓練。只把一枚硬幣留在機器上，此時烏鴉飛過來，看到?jīng)]有食物，自然覺得很泄氣——我們?nèi)艘惨粯勇?。所以它們出于尋找食物的本?mdash;—用它的喙在機器上掃來掃去，不經(jīng)意的把硬幣碰到硬幣口里去了，于是它獲得了一顆花生。于是它們也學會了，每次都來這里， 只要把機器上的硬幣丟到硬幣口，就能吃得到花生。
When they're good and comfortable with that, we move to the final stage, where they show up and nothing happens. Thisis where we see the difference between crows and other animals. Squirrels, for example, would show up, look for the peanut, go away. Come back, look for the peanut, go away. They do this maybe half a dozen times before they get bored,and then they go off and play in traffic.
當他們對此過程非常熟練及滿足以后，我們進入訓練的最后一個階段，它們來到機器旁邊，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)什么也沒有。注意，就是這個關(guān)鍵的地方可以看出烏鴉是多么聰明。要是一只松鼠，它來到機器旁，尋找花生，找不到，就走了隔天再來，又是沒有，又跑回去。如此反復(fù)五六次，它們也就覺得沒意思了。
Crows, on the other hand, show up and they try and figure it out. They know this machine has been messing with them through three different stages of behavior.
而烏鴉則不一樣，它們要尋找出一個究竟。通過前面三個階段，并且這樣的玩笑越開越大。
They figure there must be more to it. So they poke at it and peck at it. And eventually some crow gets a bright idea:"Hey, there's lots of coins lying around from the first stage, hops down,picks it up, drops it in the slot, and we're off to the races. That crow enjoys a temporary monopoly on peanuts, until his friends figure out how to do it, and then there we go.
它們覺得肯定還有更多方式獲得花生。它們又是用頭撞，又是用嘴咬。偶爾間有一些烏鴉想到了一個絕妙的主意：“嘿，大家還記得地面上放的那一大堆硬幣么?；蛟S有用呢?”——于是它們飛過來，銜起硬幣，扔進投幣孔。它們發(fā)現(xiàn)了怎么吃得上花生了!這樣的技巧先是為第一批到來的烏鴉所壟斷，可慢慢的別的烏鴉也學會了……故事到此為止。
So, what's significant about this to me isn't that we can train crows to pick up peanuts. Mind you, there's 216 milliondollars' worth of change lost every year, but I'm not sure I can depend on that ROI from crows.
從這個故事我們得出結(jié)論：我們可以訓練烏鴉，讓它們通過售貨機吃上花生。你知不知道，每一年都有價值2.16億的硬幣丟在大街上。
Instead, I think we should look a little bit larger. I think crows can be trained to do other things. For example, why not train them to pick up garbage after stadium events? Or find expensive components from discarded electronics? Or maybe do search and rescue? The main point of all this for me is, we can find mutually beneficial systems for these species. We can find ways to interact with these other species that doesn't involve exterminating them, but involves finding an equilibrium with them that's a useful balance.
嘿，當然，我不是想靠烏鴉來賺錢。我們的眼光可以放遠一點：我覺得我們可以訓練烏鴉來做其他事。比如，為何不可以通過訓練，讓烏鴉給體育館撿垃圾?或者讓它們幫助我們從大堆的廢棄電子元件里頭挑出有用的部件?又或者讓它們參與搜救工作?我這個演講的主要的一個觀點是我們可以尋找到一種與此類動物共存的途徑，我們能找到與其他族群共處的方式而不僅僅是滅絕它們，我們可以和它們實現(xiàn)共贏。
Thanks very much.(Applause)
非常感謝大家。 (掌聲)
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