【英文原声版44】Robert Proctor: On the Origin of Species

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Why do giraffes have long necks?

长颈鹿为什么有长脖子？

Zachary Davis: I remember first seeing an image of the tree of life in 3rd grade, in Mrs. Jones’s class. It was a giant poster on the wall, right next to the pencil sharpener. Sometimes, I would break my pencil on purpose just to have an excuse to look at the poster. I loved looking at the connections between different organisms. I could see that dogs evolved from wolves and how turtles and tortoises were related.

扎卡里·戴维斯：我还记得我第一次看到生命树的图案，是三年级时在琼斯老师的班上。那时候墙上挂着大大的生命树的海报，墙角放着一个卷笔刀。有时候我会故意把铅笔折断，就为了找机会瞅瞅海报。我喜欢看着它，研究各个生物之间的关系。我会发现狗从狼进化而来，而海龟和乌龟之间又有着千丝万缕的联系。

Zachary Davis: But as my eyes moved down the trunk of the tree, I began to see some connections that didn’t quite make sense at first. Bears share a common ancestor with the sea sponge? Seals are closely related to skunks?

扎卡里·戴维斯：不过当我看到生命树的树干时，会发现一些乍一看毫无道理的联系。熊和海绵竟然有共同的祖先？海豹和臭鼬竟然也有密切的关联？

Zachary Davis: It’s really amazing to think that over time, different organisms evolved in different ways to make up life on the planet as we know it today. But what’s even more fascinating is that this process continues. It never stops. We know about evolution and the origins of the variety of life on Earth because of the discoveries of English naturalist Charles Darwin.

扎卡里·戴维斯：几亿年来，不同的生物以不同的方式进化成了如今地球上的各种生物。一想到这点，我们就忍不住赞叹。但更叫人着迷的是，这一进化过程仍然在继续，而且永远不会停止。多亏了英国的博物学家查尔斯·达尔文，如今我们才能了解地球上各种生物的进化与起源。

Robert Proctor: Darwin is the historian of life, in a way. He finds that our essence is a “becoming” essence. I'm Robert Proctor. I'm professor of the History of Science at Stanford University, where I'm also professor, by courtesy, of Pulmonary Medicine.

罗伯特·普罗克特：在某种程度上，达尔文是生物领域的历史学家。他发现生物的发展本质就是一段进化的历程。我是罗伯特·普罗克特，是斯坦福大学的科学史教授，也兼任肺科领域的教授。

Zachary Davis: Darwin shared his theory of evolution in his 1859 book The Origin of Species.

扎卡里·戴维斯：1859年，达尔文在《物种起源》一书中介绍了自己的进化论。

Robert Proctor: It's possibly the most important book ever published. It's the book that really links human life to all of the rest of life and vice versa. It shows really for the first time that we are all bonded together, all living creatures, through a single origin that goes back, as we now know, probably about four billion years.

罗伯特·普罗克特：这差不多是有史以来最重要的书，它追溯了生命的起源，一直追溯到了约四十亿年前，将人类生命与地球上的其他生命联系起来。

Zachary Davis: Welcome to Writ Large, a podcast about how books change the world. I’m Zachary Davis. In each episode, I talk with one of the world’s leading scholars about one book that changed the course of history. For this episode, I sat down with Professor Robert Proctor to discuss Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. So, what did people believe about the natural world and its relation to human beings before Origin?

扎卡里·戴维斯：欢迎收听：100本改变你和世界的书，在这里我们为大家讲述改变世界的书籍。我是扎卡里·戴维斯。每一集，我都会和一位世界顶尖学者探讨一本影响历史进程的书。在本集，我和罗伯特·普罗克特教授一起讨论查尔斯·达尔文的《物种起源》。在这本书问世之前，人们如何看待自然界与人类之间的关系呢？

Robert Proctor: Well, of course it depends on who we're talking about. Most people don't think about these things at all. But a common view in the scientific community was that God had created species in a perfect form and that the whole idea of species having origins, prior to Darwin, was an oxymoron in the sense that we today would not say that a triangle has a history or blue has a history. Species were ideas in the mind of God that had been created and fixed in final form.

罗伯特·普罗克特：看法当然是因人而异啦。那时候大多数人压根不考虑这个问题。不过科学界普遍认为，上帝以堪称完美的方式创造了各个物种。在达尔文之前，没有人觉得物种还会有起源。他们只会觉得“物种起源”这个说法的奇怪程度，差不多类似于如今我们说三角形或者蓝颜色也有起源、也有历史。物种在他们看来是由上帝按照心中的想法创造、调整的。

Zachary Davis: This idea was called natural theology.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这种观点被称为自然神学。

Robert Proctor: Now, there were some evolutionists, notably, Lamarck, for example.

罗伯特·普罗克特：后来出现了一些进化论者，比如著名的拉马克。

Zachary Davis: French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed an early theory of evolution in the early 1800s, roughly 50 years before Darwin wrote The Origin of Species. Lamarck believed that species evolved by passing on acquired traits to their offspring. In other words, he believed acquired traits could be hereditary.

扎卡里·戴维斯：19世纪初，法国博物学家让·巴蒂斯特·拉马克提出了早期的进化论，这比达尔文撰写《物种起源》早了大约五十年。拉马克认为，生物将后天获得的性状遗传给后代，从而实现物种的进化。也就是说，他认为后天获得的性状是可以遗传的。

Zachary Davis: To illustrate his theory, he liked to use the example of giraffes. Lamarck hypothesized that as a giraffe stretches its body to reach higher leaves on the trees, its limbs and neck get longer. The giraffe then passes that longer neck on to its offspring.

扎卡里·戴维斯：他喜欢拿长颈鹿举例来解释自己的理论。拉马克推测，长颈鹿伸展身体去够树木高处的叶子，渐渐地它的四肢和脖子变长了，还将长脖子的特点遗传给了后代。

Zachary Davis: He concluded that the most complex organisms were the ones that had been around the longest, because they’d had the most time to evolve. Since he saw humans as the most complex organisms, he believed humans were one of the oldest species. Today, we know that’s not true. Humans are actually a relatively new species. Lamarck’s theories answered a very important question of the day.

扎卡里·戴维斯：于是他得出了一个结论：最复杂的生物是那些存在时间最长的生物。因为它们进化的时间最长。而他又认为人类是最复杂的生物，所以得出人类是最古老的物种之一。如今我们都知道这个结论不对，人类其实是相对较新的物种。不过拉马克的理论还是解答了那个时代关于生物进化的重要问题。

Robert Proctor: He had really proposed evolution because he was trying to get around the specter of extinction because there had been discovered these fossils of creatures that no longer exist, giant elephants in the Americas and in Siberia, the woolly mammoths, the mastodons in the Americas. These were a big puzzle. How could these elephant-like creatures exist and not exist anymore? Why did God allow these creatures to disappear? And Lamarck had a very simple solution. He said, “They really haven't disappeared. They've evolved into elephants.”

罗伯特·普罗克特：他之所以会提出进化论，是因为想解决萦绕在心头的关于物种灭绝的疑团。他发现一些化石中的物种如今已经不复存在，比如美洲和西伯利亚的巨象化石，包括美洲的猛犸象、乳齿象等。这就出现了一个大大的谜团。为什么这些像大象一样的生物曾经出现在地球上，如今却没有了？上帝为什么会让它们消失？拉马克提出了一个直截了当的答案。他说：“它们没有消失，只是进化成了大象。”

A voyage that changed Darwin’s life

一场航行，改变了达尔文的一生

Zachary Davis: Lamarck’s theory was easy to accept because it kept God in his place as the great creator of all things. But Darwin’s theory of evolution was more radical. He destabilized all earlier beliefs about life. Darwin developed his theories of life and evolution after a historic voyage circumnavigating the globe aboard the H.M.S. Beagle. Tell me about the Beagle trip.

扎卡里·戴维斯：拉马克的理论很容易被当时的人们接受，因为它没有动摇上帝作为万物创造者的地位。但达尔文的进化论则激进得多，打破了之前人们关于万物的所有观念。达尔文随贝格尔号军舰进行了一场史上有名的环球航行，在这之后他提出了自己的物种理论和进化论。您可以跟我们讲讲这场环球航行吗？

Robert Proctor: Well, Darwin comes from this liberal background. He's an amateur, meaning a lover of nature. His dad wanted him to go to medical school, and he didn't like the sight of blood, so he drops out of that. He didn't want to become a minister. He didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life. And there was this position as the companion to the captain of the Beagle, Fitzroy, someone who could dine with the captain so the captain basically wouldn't go insane on this long, long, long voyage.

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文生性自由，热爱自然。他的父亲想让他学医，但他不想看见血，于是退学了。他也不想像父亲期望的那样，成为一个牧师。那时候，他还不知道自己这辈子想做什么。后来他被推荐去贝格尔号上做菲茨罗伊舰长的同伴，陪船长吃饭聊天，好叫他在这段漫长的航行中不会疯掉。

Robert Proctor: This is one of the other famous stories about Darwin history. You ask, “Who was the naturalist aboard the Beagle?”It was, actually was not Darwin. There was an actual official naturalist named McCormick who was hired to record the nature of the Beagle. Now, luckily, he didn't like the voyage, and he dodged out after six months.

罗伯特·普罗克特：有一段关于达尔文的趣事。当问道：“谁是贝格尔号上的博物学家？”答案其实不是达尔文。军舰上原来有一位专门的博物学家负责记录贝格尔号的考察情况，这个人叫麦考密克。不过他不喜欢这次环球航行，六个月之后就退出了。

Zachary Davis: The aim of the voyage was to better understand where in the world things were.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这次航行的目的是为了更好地了解事物在世界上的地理位置。

Robert Proctor: This was an effort to draw very accurate maps by measuring longitude. This was a classic problem: how do you find out how far east or west a body of water or body of land is? And so that was really the goal of the voyage. It was not to discover evolution.

罗伯特·普罗克特：他们计划通过测量经度来绘制精准的地图。航行的目的其实是想解决一个经典问题，那就是：如何确定某块岛屿或某处水体的东西位置。发现进化论并不是航行的最初目标。

Zachary Davis: The Beagle set sail from Plymouth, England, in 1831 and returned five years later in 1836.

扎卡里·戴维斯：1831年，贝格尔号从英国普利茅斯出发，五年后，也就是1836年返回英国。

Robert Proctor: Literally they circumnavigated the globe for five years. And what Darwin saw was that the only way you could understand the distribution of life on the planet was through history. So, if you go to Cape Verde Islands, one of the first stops off Africa, he noticed that the animals on those islands were variants of the animals from the mainland. What he observed on the Galapagos is that all of the animals in the Galapagos were similar, albeit different from the animals in South America.

罗伯特·普罗克特：他们在全球环游了五年。达尔文觉得，只有透过历史，你才能了解地球上各个生命的分布情况。佛得角群岛是他们在非洲最早停留的几处地方之一，在那里达尔文发现岛上的动物都是非洲大陆上动物的变体。在加拉帕戈斯群岛，他观察到群岛上的所有动物尽管与南美的动物有所不同，但大体相似。

Robert Proctor: And so the only way to understand the island life that he was seeing was as having a historical connection to where it had come from, namely the mainland, because those are volcanic islands, and they were all occupied, inhabited, populated by migrations from the mainland 600 miles away.

罗伯特·普罗克特：想要了解这些岛屿生物，唯一的办法就是看清楚它们与来源地的生物有什么历史渊源。这些岛屿是火山岛，所以这些生物都来源于600英里之外的大陆。

Robert Proctor: And so Darwin is showing not that organisms are perfectly adapted to their environments—they are adapted, there is such a thing as adaptation—but rather that to understand the kind of life that exists anywhere, you have to understand where it came from. Cape Verde Islands, it came from Africa. Galapagos, it came from South America. And it's that understanding of what we would today call biogeography that really allows him to discover the deep historicity of life, that if you want to understand the distribution of life on the planet, you have to understand where it came from, and that's through a process of migration.

罗伯特·普罗克特：虽然说这些生物已经适应了岛屿的环境，但达尔文想要展现的并不是这一点。他想要说明的是，如果你想要了解某个地方的生物，你必须了解它们来源于哪儿。佛得角群岛的生物来源于非洲大陆；加拉帕戈斯群岛的生物来源于南美大陆。正是这种生物地理学的理解帮助他发现了生物的演化规律。所以说如果要了解地球上生物的分布，就必须了解它们源自哪里、是如何迁徙的。

Zachary Davis: This was key. Most people in the 19th century had not traveled as much as Darwin and had not witnessed such a diversity of life around the world. Most people believed what the natural theologians believed: that God had created organisms perfectly adapted to their environments. Darwin saw life in a different way. He had a historical view. He saw organisms as constantly evolving to better fit their environments.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这就是关键。19世纪大多数人不像达尔文这样环游过各地，也没有亲眼见过世界上这么多的生物。许多自然神学家认为，上帝创造了可以完美适应环境的生物。但达尔文不这么看。他采用了历史的眼光，认为生物不断进化，从而更好地适应所处的环境。

Robert Proctor: Darwin showed that organisms are derived imperfectly from their history and that it's actually the historical imperfections, the radical historicity of life that gives you the clue to it having evolved.

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文认为，生物是从不完美进化而来的，而且恰恰是这些不完美的特性、这些显著的历史痕迹让你得以发现它们在进化。

Robert Proctor: A great example is the laryngeal nerve of the giraffe. The giraffe, when it speaks or barks or whatever, the sound has to go from its larynx to its brain, right? Or brain to its larynx. That's how it works, but, and it, which is a very short distance, let's say it's eight inches, but in fact the laryngeal nerve goes all the way down the neck of the giraffe and wraps around the aorta and then comes all the way back up to the larynx.

罗伯特·普罗克特：一个典型的例子就是长颈鹿的喉返神经。长颈鹿说话或者叫的时候，声波会从喉咙传递到头部，或者大脑会将信号传递到喉部，这就是规律。这段距离很短，比方说只有八英寸，也就是二十来厘米。但长颈鹿的喉返神经沿着长颈鹿的脖子一路向下，绕过主动脉弓，再绕回到喉腔。

Robert Proctor: So, the brain and the larynx are connected by like a 20 foot nerve. That's extremely inefficient, but it can only be explained by the fact that it was a short distance when the giraffe evolved. But with that, with the lengthening of the neck, the laryngeal nerve had to go on a longer and longer and more circuitous route.

罗伯特·普罗克特：所以连接着大脑与喉部的神经长达二十英尺，也就是六米多。这样传递起来就非常低效。唯一的解释是，在进化之初长颈鹿的喉返神经没有这么长。但随着它们的脖子进化得越来越长，喉返神经绕的路也越来越长。

Robert Proctor: Now, a natural theologian would say, “Well, you know that would be a big puzzle because why wouldn't God have just drawn a straight line from the larynx to the brain?” No, you can only understand the laryngeal nerve by understanding that nature cannot go back to the drawing board. It can't recreate. It has to evolve from what already exists. And that's why I say there's a deep historicity and a deep conservatism to evolution.

罗伯特·普罗克特：自然神学家会说：“这就很叫人困惑了。上帝为什么不在脖子和头腔之间拉一根直线呢？”这么想是不对的。要知道大自然不可能推翻原有的状态、完全重建，而是只能在原有的基础上修改、进化。这就是为什么我说生物进化有着很深的历史痕迹和保守的一面。

Robert Proctor: It shows that you can only build on what you already have. This is the metaphor of the tinkerer and not the re-designer.Evolution is a kind of a “make do” philosophy. But I do like the fact that it is radically conservative in this sense, in the sense that every cell in your body traces back to an original cell that developed billions of years ago. And that's really a profound insight.

罗伯特·普罗克特：你只能在原有的基础上进化，这更像是在修修补补而非重新设计，遵循的是“修修补补将就着来”的逻辑。不过我很喜欢这样一个事实，那就是生物进化在本质上是保守的，因为你体内的每个细胞都可以追溯到数十亿年前的早期细胞。这个观点非常有洞见。

Main elements of the evolution theory

进化论的主要内容

Zachary Davis: From his observations while on the Beagle voyage, Darwin developed his theory of evolution. His theory has three main elements. The first is super fecundity, or the tendency of organisms to produce more offspring than can survive. Think of how many eggs a fish lays, or how many puppies a dog has. If every one of those offspring survived and produced the same number of offspring, the planet would be overrun with animals. But not all of the fish or puppies make it to adulthood, so only a small number of them end up reproducing.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在随贝格尔号环游观测的过程中，达尔文构建起了自己的进化论。他的理论中有三个主要内容。一是过度繁殖，也就是生物会倾向于繁殖很多后代，尽管只有一部分可以存活。设想一下一条鱼会产多少卵、或者一只狗会生下多少幼崽。如果每个后代都存活下来，并繁殖了同等数量的后代，那么地球早就不堪重负。但并不是所有鱼和幼犬都能活到成年，所以最后只有极少数会继续繁殖。

Zachary Davis: The second element is heritable variations. These are genetic variations that are passed down from parent to offspring. For example, maybe one bird hatches with more feathers than the rest, and therefore it can fly a little faster.

扎卡里·戴维斯：第二个主要内容是遗传变异。遗传变异可以从亲代传递给子代。比如，某只鸟可能生来羽毛就比别的鸟多，那么它就能飞得高一点。

Zachary Davis: The third is survival of the fittest. Some genetic variations are more suited to an environment than others, like the extra feathers that make a bird fly a little faster. The organisms most suited to their environments will have the greatest chance of survival, and a greater chance of survival means a greater chance of reproducing and a greater chance of passing down those genetic variations to their offspring. Perhaps that bird with extra feathers can avoid predators better than its siblings. It will have a greater chance of survival and thus greater chance of producing offspring.

扎卡里·戴维斯：第三个主要内容是适者生存。一些遗传变异表现出的性状比其他性状更适合周围的环境，比如多长出来的羽毛可以让鸟飞得更快。一个生物若是拥有最适合周围环境的性状，那么它存活下来的几率也最大，繁殖的几率也更大，也更有可能将这些遗传变异传递给下一代。比如，或许这只羽毛更多的鸟比其他同辈的鸟能更好地躲避捕食者，那么它活下来的几率会更大，繁殖后代的几率也会更大。

Robert Proctor: And those three elements are all you really need for his theory to work—super fecundity, heritable variation, and then struggle for existence and survival of the fittest. And if those things work, if those things are in operation, you'll get evolution.

罗伯特·普罗克特：要想阐述清楚达尔文的进化论，过度繁殖、遗传变异和适者生存这三点就必不可少。如果这三点成立，那么生物就会进化。

Zachary Davis: Because Darwin traveled from mainland to islands, he was able to compare what he saw in both locations. This was a key factor that led him to his evolutionary conclusions.

扎卡里·戴维斯：达尔文从大陆环游到小岛上，所以他能比较这两个地方的生物。这也是他能提出进化论的关键因素。

Robert Proctor: Prior to Darwin, there was not much of this comparative island biogeography. People did not understand how islands work and the life on islands. You have to discover these things and see the patterns for there even to be an equation.

罗伯特·普罗克特：在达尔文之前，人们很少比较岛屿上的地理环境与生物特性。你必须先发现这些现象，才能得出某种规律、甚至某个方程式。

Robert Proctor: And I think it is this engineering model that was an obstruction, this idea that God has made a perfect world, God has made animals perfectly adapted to their environments, so there's really no question of historicity that arrives. Well, of course, the beaks of finches will be, you know, if they're eating nuts, they need to be strong, you know?

罗伯特·普罗克特：我认为上帝创造万物的观点阻碍了人们看清生物进化本质。自然神学认为，上帝创造了一个完美的世界，让世间万物都可以完美地适应所处的环境，所以人们也就不会觉得历史上生物是会进化的。然而实际上，比方说，雀类如果要啄开坚果的话，它们的喙需要变得非常结实。

Robert Proctor: The other great accomplishment of Darwin is his theory of sexual selection. So, there really are two types of selection. There's natural selection through struggle, but there's also competition for mates. Prior to Darwin, the view was that the peacock's tail is for our amusement. A lot of the pre-Darwinian world is about how nature pleases us, it's been designed to please us. Darwin abandons all of that.

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文的另一个伟大成就是他的性选择理论。物种进化过程中有两类选择：一种是在生存斗争中出现的自然选择，二是在竞争交配机会时出现的性选择。在达尔文之前，人们认为孔雀的漂亮尾巴是为了取悦人类的。那时候人们往往觉得大自然这么设计都是为了取悦我们。但达尔文不这么想。

Robert Proctor: And he says, “The peacock's tail is a puzzle because”—and this had actually been recognized, actually, by the natural theologians—they realized that if you have a big, showy tail, you are much more likely to be eaten. So, what was the perfection of the peacock's tail? It was to please us. It was ornaments, much like flowers, flowers of the bird world, these beautiful creatures. Well, Darwin says, “No, that's not true. The animals are not trying to please us. They don't care about us at all. What they are doing is the male peacocks are displaying themselves to say, ‘Here I am, you know, accept me as a mate.’”

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文觉得孔雀的漂亮尾巴让人很困惑。其实自然神学家也意识到了这一点。他们发现，孔雀长着又大又招摇的尾巴，那么它们被吃掉的可能性岂不是更大？这么说的话，孔雀尾巴又完美在哪儿？嗯，这么设计一定是为了取悦我们人类，就像漂亮的花一样，起着装饰作用。然而达尔文说：“大错特错。它们不是为了取悦我们，它们根本就不在乎我们。这么做是因为雄孔雀在向雌孔雀求偶。”

Zachary Davis: Darwin realized that a lot of the beauty found in nature was a result of sexual selection, the aesthetic attraction between animals.

扎卡里·戴维斯：达尔文意识到自然生物的许多美学特征都是性选择的结果，因为美同样可以加深动物在种群中的吸引力。

Robert Proctor: And that this explains a lot of sexual dimorphism in the animal world, especially in birds where it's, in a way, most prominent because the males typically need to attract females, and so they do that with the showy plumage. So, his theory of sexual selection, that the aesthetics of the bird world and of many other parts of the world as well are really to be explained by competition for mates. So, natural selection, sexual selection, those are his two explanations for the beauty of the biodiversity around us.

罗伯特·普罗克特：这就解释了动物世界中许多性别二态性的现象。性别二态性在鸟类中最为突出，因为雄鸟往往需要用艳丽的羽毛来吸引雌鸟。鸟类和其他生物之所以有这些美丽的特征，是因为它们需要借此来争夺伴侣。自然选择和性选择理论揭示了我们周围生物多样性的美妙之处。

Zachary Davis: Darwin didn’t publish The Origin of Species right away. When he first returned to the UK after his time at sea, he wrote about his experiences in a book called The Voyage of the Beagle.

扎卡里·戴维斯：达尔文没有立刻出版《物种起源》。海上环游后他回到英国，写了一本《贝格尔号航行日记》，讲述了自己的环游经历。

Robert Proctor: Most of his early reputation was from his diary of The Voyage of the Beagle, where he introduced people to the strange habits and wonders of the natural world. Darwin is wondering at life and is amazed by it. The bioluminescence of the water, these fantastic birds he's discovering. So, he is very much in the kind of sacred, worshipping aspect from the point of view of affect. He's marveling at the tangled bank of nature, the beauty, the wonder, the sublime beauty of nature, which in a way really comes to be his God. In a sense, much of what he does is exchange the handiwork of nature for the handiwork of God, and that's actually one of the reasons his theory was so successful.

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文早年的大部分名气都源于这本书。在书中，他介绍了自然界生物的奇特习性与各种奇观。他为自然万物所惊叹，记叙着观察到的发光的海洋生物和奇特的鸟类。他怀着神圣且崇敬的心情，惊叹着错综复杂的自然界，折服于它的绝伦之美。这才是达尔文心目中的“上帝”。从某种程度上看，达尔文做的，是证明上帝的鬼斧神工是自然的功劳。而这就是他的理论如此成功的原因之一。

Robert Proctor: But he doesn't reveal his hand in The Voyage of the Beagle. He waits until The Origin. And there's been a lot of puzzlement about why he waited so long to reveal his theory of evolution because he'd actually developed it in the 1830s while he was still in his 20s and doesn't reveal it until 1859.

罗伯特·普罗克特：但在《贝格尔号航行日记》中，他没有提到进化论。直到《物种起源》出版后，他的理论才问世。这点很让人困惑，因为其实在19世纪30年代，也就是二十多岁的时候，他已经研究出了进化论。但直到1859年他才公布这一理论。

Zachary Davis: Could you tell us about the circumstances of finally publishing?

扎卡里·戴维斯：您可以谈谈《物种起源》最终出版的情况吗？

Robert Proctor: So, he's working on his theory. He sketches it out already in the 1830s. He leaves an instruction that on his death, this—first a 42-page manuscript and then a longer version—that should be published. So, he knows that he's landed on something important, but he's afraid to publish. He knows this is, he's starting to realize the religious potential of this, meaning that this could really deal a fatal blow to a lot of fundamental theological ideas. So, he's definitely worried about that.

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文一直在研究自己的理论。19世纪30年代的时候，他搭建起了框架，吩咐别人在他死后出版理论的手稿。手稿最初只有四十二页，后来又扩充了很多。他知道自己涉入了一个重要的领域，但他不敢发表，因为他知道这对宗教来说意味着什么——很多基本的神学思想都会遭到重创。对此，达尔文肯定非常担心。

Robert Proctor: And he delays and delays. And then finally, this young upstart, a guy named Russel Wallace, he comes along and comes up with the same theory. And Darwin is shocked and disappointed that he may be scooped. But together they do a presentation at the Linnean Society in 1858 announcing this new theory, which Wallace has discovered through his voyages in Indonesia, interestingly, this same kind of biogeographical exploration.

罗伯特·普罗克特：他不断地拖着。后来，一个叫拉塞尔·华莱士的后起之秀提出了同样的理论。达尔文很震惊、也很失望，因为他本可以抢先发表自己的理论。于是1858年，林奈学会宣读了两人关于进化论的论文。华莱士的这一理论是在印尼一带进行生物考察时提出的。有意思的是，这场考察和达尔文之前经历的性质差不多。

Robert Proctor: They present together, and interestingly, at the time, it fell flat because this is just a scientific presentation. So, it's really often in retrospect that things assume importance, and this is a great example of that. So, Darwin goes ahead and rushes a publication of a shorter version of his long manuscript. And our Origin of Species is really a shortened version of what was a much, much larger manuscript.

罗伯特·普罗克特：他们的论文被同时宣读，整个过程非常顺利，因为这仅仅是科学成果的展示。如果说有什么事情回过头才被人发现很重要，那么进化论的公布算是其中之一。达尔文继续他的工作，急忙压缩了长版的手稿，并交付出版。所以《物种起源》其实是从一份很长的手稿精简而来。

Zachary Davis: So, what happens when it's published? Who first reads it, and what are some of the first reactions?

扎卡里·戴维斯：那么，出版时的情况如何？谁最先读了它，反响如何？

Robert Proctor: Well, Darwin already had this good reputation, right? And they didn't expect it to be a huge success. They only printed something like twelve hundred copies for the first run, and those were sold out instantly.

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文当时已经声名在外。但出版商还是没料到书会这么成功。他们第一轮只印了大概一千两百册。这些书很快就就被一抢而空。

Being accused after teaching the evolution theory in class

在课堂上教了进化论，结果被告了

Zachary Davis: But this wasn’t the whole public. Darwin’s theory was met with some hostility, especially from the creationist community who believe the universe and all organisms were a result of divine creation, not evolution.

扎卡里·戴维斯：但并不是所有人都欢迎这本书。达尔文的理论还是遭到了一些人的反对，特别是那些神创论者。他们坚决认为，宇宙中的所有生物都是由上帝创造的，而不是进化来的。

Robert Proctor: There was hostility in different quarters, especially when fundamentalism got going in the Americas. One of the interesting outcomes was a perception that evolution might be implying race mixing. So, if you look at the Scopes trial, for example, which is one of the tests of whether evolution could be taught in the schools and in the 1920s in Appalachia, a lot of the hostility to evolution was the idea that humans evolving from apes would be basically race mixing. It would mean that blacks and whites at some point had sexual relations. And so there's a lot of hostility coming from different quarters. But, by and large, it's fair to say that within the scientific community, it's accepted pretty, pretty quickly.

罗伯特·普罗克特：很多地方的人们都对达尔文的理论抱有敌意。当原教旨主义在美洲盛行的时候，反对进化论的声音尤其激烈。一个有意思的观点是，有人觉得进化论可能意味着种族混合。此外还出现了20世纪20年代有名的“猿猴诉讼案”。案件的争执点在于阿巴拉契亚地区的课堂上是否可以教学生进化论。你会发现，案件中许多进化论的反对者认为，如果承认人从猿猴进化而来，那就会出现种族混合，那就意味着白人和黑人也可以通婚。所以很多地方的人都反对进化论。不过在科学界，进化论总体上还是得到了广泛的认可。

Zachary Davis: One of the key reasons his theory found traction was that in the years leading up to its publication, other scientists were making significant progress in the fields of geology and paleontology. Advances in these fields were showing signs that the Earth was much older than suggested in Genesis, the biblical creation story that implies the Earth is 6,000 years old.

扎卡里·戴维斯：达尔文的理论之所以引发关注，一个重要原因是在《物种起源》发表的几年前，其他科学家在地质学和古生物学领域取得了重大进展。这些进展表明，尽管《圣经·创世纪》中暗示地球有六千年的历史，但实际上地球比这还要古老得多。

Zachary Davis: One of the best early estimates for a more scientific dating of the earth came from the British mathematician Lord Kelvin. Kelvin hypothesized that the Earth was roughly 20 million years old based on the temperature of its core. Although it wasn’t possible to prove, this soon became the accepted theory.

扎卡里·戴维斯：不少人都更精确地计算了地球的年龄，英国数学家开尔文勋爵便是其中之一。他根据地温梯度推测出地球大约有两千万年的历史。尽管这个结论没法佐证，但很快便被人们所接受。

Zachary Davis: But this estimate was a problem for Darwin. He didn’t believe 20 million years was enough time for his theory of evolution to work. He thought the earth required more time to produce the enormous variation of plants and animals.

扎卡里·戴维斯：但这个结论对达尔文来说却是个问题。他不相信两千万年生物就可以进化成今天的模样。他认为地球需要更多时间来让动植物进行遗传变异。

Zachary Davis: As a solution, Darwin began to adopt some of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s ideas of inheritance of acquired characteristics. Think back to that giraffe. Lamarck thought that the giraffes had long necks because all throughout their lives they were stretching to reach higher and higher leaves. Lamarck believed these characteristics to be heritable, or transmissible to offspring.

扎卡里·戴维斯：为了解决这个问题，达尔文开始借鉴让·巴蒂斯特·拉马克的获得性遗传理论。回顾一下咱们之前提到的长颈鹿。拉马克认为长颈鹿的脖子很长，是因为它们一生中都在伸展脖子往越来越高的地方够树叶。他认为这些性状可以遗传给后代。

Zachary Davis: This process is so much faster than the slower, random variation-based theory that Darwin believed in more fully. But 20 million years just wasn’t enough time for the variation theory to work, so, out of necessity, he entertained Lamarck’s theory of heritable traits.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这个过程比达尔文之前认为的缓慢、随机的变异过程要快得多。既然两千万年对遗传变异理论来说太短了，那么为了完善自己的理论，达尔文便接受了拉马克的获得性遗传理论。

Robert Proctor: It's not really fully disproven until Weismann in the 1880s in Germany, and what he shows is, he cut off the—it's a morbid experiment—but he cut off the tails of mice and bred them. And no matter how many generations he would cut off the tails, all of their offspring would have tails. So, in fact, you cannot inherit things you've acquired in your lifetime, and... but that was actually after Darwin died.

罗伯特·普罗克特：直到19世纪80年代，获得性遗传理论才被推翻。那一年德国动物学家魏斯曼做了小鼠割尾实验：他割掉了小鼠的尾巴，让它们继续繁殖。可是不论他割掉了多少代的尾巴，下一代的小鼠仍然长着尾巴。于是他得出，后天获得的性状无法遗传给下一代。当然，这已经是达尔文去世之后的事情了。

Zachary Davis: It wasn’t until the 1920s that we discovered the Earth is much older than Lord Kelvin suggested. Thanks to radiocarbon dating, scientists have found rocks and minerals on Earth that are at least 4.5 billion years old.

扎卡里·戴维斯：一直到20世纪20年代，我们才发现地球的年龄比开尔文勋爵推算的要大得多。通过放射性碳定年法，科学家在地球上发现了有着至少45亿年历史的岩石和矿物。

Zachary Davis: Where does the idea of random variation come up? Uh, of mutation? Because to me the natural assumption would be you pass on a perfect copy of the parents. So, where does variation come from?

扎卡里·戴维斯：那么随机变异、或者说突变的观点又从何而来呢？在我看来，我们都会自然而然地假设人们会完美地遗传他们的父母，那为什么会发生突变呢？

Robert Proctor: Darwin was very close to pigeon breeding. He actually bred pigeons himself, chicken breeding. He was a member of breeding societies. Breeders knew, were very familiar with the fact that heredity is never perfect. It's a common sense. We know it's true with children even in our own species, right? There is variation. It's almost common sense. All that what was required was that it be heritable.

罗伯特·普罗克特：达尔文对鸽子的繁殖非常了解。他自己就繁育过鸽子和鸡，还是育种协会的会员。饲养员都知道，遗传永远都不会是完美的。即便在人类世界也是如此，生育出的孩子也会发生突变，这几乎是一条常识。只要基因是可以遗传的，那么就有可能发生突变。

Robert Proctor: The older notion was that whatever variation there is accidental or trivial and that there's a kind of a reinforcing trend that, well, yeah, you might have, you know, one leg shorter than the other, but that's a kind of a problem or a deviation or maybe something from your environment, and it would be corrected in the next generation. What Darwin shows is that, that variation knows no limit.

罗伯特·普罗克特：之前人们认为，无论什么突变都是偶然的、微不足道的。这种观点还愈发被人们所相信，甚至有人觉得假如有人一条腿比另一条腿长，那么这或许是突变，也有可能是受周围环境的影响，下一代人的腿长又会恢复一致。但达尔文认为，这种突变可以一代代地遗传。

Zachary Davis: Before Darwin, the world was seen as generally stable. Variation was viewed as a fluke, accident, or a mistake and didn’t mean much. Darwin’s theory of evolution showed that with each new generation, there is slight variation, and if those variations are advantageous and hereditary, then the organism will have a better chance of survival which would mean a greater chance of reproducing and passing those genes on.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在达尔文之前，人们觉得世界基本上很稳定。任何突变都会被视作偶发的意外或小错误，没有多大意义。但达尔文的进化论表明，如果每一代人都会出现微小的变异，且这些变异是有利的、可以一代代遗传，那么这些后代的存活、繁衍的几率会更大，传递这些基因的概率也会更大。

Zachary Davis: Take polar bears for example. Before there were all-white polar bears in the arctic, the bears were brown. Somewhere down the line, a brown bear gave birth to an all-white bear. This was a variation. This bear blended into its surroundings of snow and ice much better than all of its brown neighbors.

扎卡里·戴维斯：以北极熊为例。很久之前，北极还没有白熊，所有的熊都是棕色的。但在某一代发生了基因突变，一只白熊出生了。这只熊可以躲藏在冰天雪地中，比其他棕熊能更好地掩饰自我。

Zachary Davis: This genetic variation camouflaged the bear and therefore it had more success sneaking up on its prey than the brown bears. This was an advantageous, hereditary variation that it passed down to its offspring. These all-white bears were more successful hunters than the brown bears and eventually became the dominant bear in that part of the world.

扎卡里·戴维斯：基因突变让这只熊穿上了“隐身衣”。比起棕熊，他在雪地中更容易捕猎成功。这种有利的、可遗传的突变会一直传递给后代。这些白熊比棕熊捕猎更成功，最终这片地区渐渐被白熊占据。

Robert Proctor: Variation, when it's heritable, can keep you driven into something new. And Darwin realized that often it was by isolation that variation was allowed to go crazy, right? And it's actually true that on these small islands, if you have a small population, whatever flukes happen can get magnified.

罗伯特·普罗克特：突变可以遗传的话，物种就会慢慢进化。达尔文还发现，剧烈的突变往往发生在某个与外部隔绝的环境中。比如在一些与大陆隔绝的小岛上，如果物种总量非常少，那么任何突变都迅速传递、渐渐蔓延到整个族群。

Being widely used and even abused

被广泛运用，甚至滥用

Zachary Davis: Okay, so he publishes this book and it's believed by the scientists that this is, in fact, true. Take us now down the story of how it starts to influence popular culture, popular beliefs, religious beliefs, you know, really starts to change the world just through these theories and ideas.

扎卡里·戴维斯：达尔文出版了《物种起源》，科学界也接受了他的理论。那么进化论是如何影响大众文化和大众的宗教信仰呢？它如何真正改变了这个世界？

Robert Proctor: Well, yeah, The Origin of Species certainly accelerates secular trends. There had been atheists, of course, before Darwin. It fits with a kind of progressivism of the era, with the kind of hubris and arrogance almost of the British Empire. People start comparing different civilizations to where they are on the scale of social evolution. So, the whole field of anthropology has given a huge boost through evolution, and people start ranking cultures by savagery, barbarism, and civilization. You get efforts to say that social progress is inevitable.

罗伯特·普罗克特：虽然说在达尔文之前就有无神论者，但《物种起源》肯定加快了世俗化的趋势。这本书契合了那个时代的进步主义思想，但也契合了当时大英帝国的傲慢心态。人们开始比较各种文明在社会演进过程中所处的阶段。进化论极大地推动了人类学的发展，人们开始按照蒙昧、野蛮、文明三个阶段划分各个文化，还会说社会进步是不可避免的。

Robert Proctor: So, it would be hard to name a theory more used and abused than Darwin's theory. Racial theorists use it for equalitarian and inegalitarian purposes. The racists say, “Look, though, those are the lower races, they've not yet evolved up to our level.”, you know. “The, certain races are closer to apes,” you know and so forth.

罗伯特·普罗克特：没有哪个理论像达尔文的进化论这样，被广泛运用甚至滥用。种族主义理论家用它来为种族不平等正名。他们说：“那些是低等种族，他们还没有发展到我们这个程度。”或是说：“某些种族更接近于猿猴。”如此种种。

Robert Proctor: So, there's a lot of that. But there's also the people on the other side pointing out that there's a common bond to, not only all of life, but all of humans, and that humans are, we're netted together, we're bonded together. Darwin is really the first to recognize that all humans evolved in Africa, that we're all Africans.So the Out of Africa Theory, which is now accepted, is really championed first by Darwin. Humans probably evolved where the primates are most diverse, and that's Africa.

罗伯特·普罗克特：这样的言论还有很多。但与之相对的，也有人从进化论中得出，所有生命息息相关，所有人类也息息相关。达尔文第一个认识到所有人类都由非洲地区的祖先进化而来，都起源于非洲。所以如今我们公认的非洲起源说，它的第一个提出者便是达尔文。智人可能在灵长类动物最多样化的地方进化而来，这个地方便是非洲。

Robert Proctor: Now, a lot of people saw this as a threat, talking about the animality of man, that we are just animals. This has been one of the problems, uh, creationists oppose. So, if creationists were opposed to Darwin in the ‘20s because they were worried about race mixing, after World War II, a lot of creationists in America are worried that if you believe in evolution, then this would support abortion, this would support equality of the races, or men and women, or it would it would imply that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, that we are just animals. So, the kind of animalization of humanity was one of the big threats of Darwin's theory. That's been one right up through the present.

罗伯特·普罗克特：许多人觉得这个观点很危险，竟然把人和动物相提并论。神创论者也反对这一观点。20世纪20年代，他们反对的原因是担心种族混合；到了二战后，美国一些神创论者反对它，是因为觉得：如果你相信进化论，相信人类由动物进化而来，那么你就会支持堕胎、支持种族平等和性别平等，还会觉得同性恋无可厚非。将人类动物化便是达尔文的理论所面临的一大诘责，时至今日仍旧如此。

Zachary Davis: Part of the reason Darwin’s theory of evolution is so important is that it gave profound insight into the story of how every human, every form of life came to be. This is something that we all have equal stake in.

扎卡里·戴维斯：达尔文的进化论之所以如此重要，部分原因是因为它探究了每个人类、每种生命是如何形成的。这是平等地发生在所有生物中的事情。

Robert Proctor: It's really the, in a sense, the ultimate explanation of our identity. If, you know, if history is that which makes us possible, that which makes us real, this is the explanation of our biological history. It's how we came to be. It's the bond that links all animals and all plants to ourselves.

罗伯特·普罗克特：从某种意义上讲，这是对我们身份特征的终极解读。如果说历史可以解释我们如何成为如今的模样，那么进化论便为我们的生物学史提供了一个答案，解释了人类如何变成现在的样子。这个答案将我们人类和所有动植物联系在了一起。

Zachary Davis: So, in the same way that we argue over history, we argue over what the meaning of Darwin's theories are because it's ultimately an expression of our own identity.

扎卡里·戴维斯：我们会对历史进行辩论，同样地我们也会围绕着达尔文理论的意义展开辩论，因为它是对我们身份特征的终极解读。

Robert Proctor: Yeah, I think it is. Of course, one of the more diabolical aspects of how his theory was interpreted was that we should take the reins of evolution and manipulate it, and that's what gives rise to eugenics. It gives rise to racial hygiene in the Nazi period, that if we are just biological creatures and, and we are full of imperfections, why not make sure that the strong survive? And so take the weak and kill them.

罗伯特·普罗克特：没错，我也这么认为。但对于进化论也有非常不好的解读，比如有人提出要控制人类进化的方向，后来这种观点发展成了优生学。在纳粹时期甚至还出现了种族清洗的观点。这些人认为既然人类不过是充满缺陷的生物，那么为何不让强者生存，让弱者灭绝呢？

Robert Proctor: This was one of the big themes that led to the Holocaust, to the mass sterilization. This idea that we should create an art, we should become the guiders of evolution. Why leave it to random variation and selective retention when we can harness these reins of evolution and manipulate it for our own ends? And that becomes something very dangerous as well.

罗伯特·普罗克特：这种观点引发了种族大屠杀和大规模绝育。这些人觉得我们应当掌握自然的艺术，控制着人类进化的方向。他们认为不应该让人类基因随机拓展多样性、随机遗传，应当把进化牢牢掌控在自己手中。这样的观点最终酿成了无数灾难。

Zachary Davis: But it also became something beneficial. In April of 2003, scientists completed the Human Genome Project, the first mapping of the human genome. This project gave humans the ability to create a complete genetic blueprint for building a human being. This blueprint helps scientists and doctors treat diseases and understand the health needs of individuals. The future of human evolution, like the future of any organism’s evolution, is uncertain. But as long as a species exists, it will continue to evolve.

扎卡里·戴维斯：但有时候，与基因相关的举措也会对人类有益。2003年4月，科学家完成了人类基因组计划，首次绘制出了人类基因组图谱，让人们彻底了解人类是由哪些基因组构成的。这张图谱可以帮助科学家和医生治疗疾病、了解患者的健康需求。我们不知道未来物种会如何进化，同样地我们也不知道人类会如何进化。但只要一个物种仍然存在，它就会一直进化。

Robert Proctor: There will not be people like we have in a million years, right? And there were not people like we have ten million years ago, you know? Our ancestors ten million years ago were furry little creatures, probably a couple of feet long. And, you know, there's this whole question, you know, when did we become “human” ? It is not a finished form. We don't say, “When did cockroaches become fully cockroach? And when did horses become fully horse?” because we live only in a slice of time. And the same is as true of humans as of horses or cockroaches. We are becoming, and we are changing all the time. And, and that is an important thing to realize as well.

罗伯特·普罗克特：未来人类不会像一百万年前、或是一千万年前那样。一千万年前，人类的祖先还是毛茸茸的小动物，可能只有几英尺高。有人会问，人类什么时候变成了真正的人类？这个问题的答案永远都不固定。我们不会问，蟑螂什么时候变成了真正的蟑螂，马什么时候变成了真正的马。我们生活的年代相较于整个地球的年龄来说只是须臾一瞬，不论是对于人、还是对于蟑螂或马来说都是如此。我们一直在不断进化，这是我们需要明白的一点。

Zachary Davis: By rewriting the tale of our origins, Darwin made us humble. He took humans off of our divine throne and connected us to the rest of the animal kingdom. He showed us our branch on the great tree of life, where we’ve come from, and where we might be headed.

扎卡里·戴维斯：达尔文重新书写了人类起源的故事，教会了我们谦虚。他将人类从神坛上拽下来，将我们与其他动物联系在一起。他展示了人类位于生命树的哪条枝干上，告诉我们人类从何而来，又可能去往何处。

Robert Proctor: He's really a historian of life and is part of this broader movement to study the history of all things, that you can't understand anything apart from its history. History is our essence. And life is no exception.

罗伯特·普罗克特：他确实是生物领域的历史学家，参与研究了世间万物的历史。不了解物种的历史，你就无法真正理解这个物种。历史呈现着物种的本质，对世间万物来说都是如此。

Zachary Davis: Writ Large is a production of Ximalaya. Writ Large is produced by Galen Beebe, Jack Pombriant and me, Zachary Davis, with help from Liza French, Ariel Liu, Wendy Wu, and Monica Zhang. Our theme song is by Ian Coss. Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe today in the Ximalaya app. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

扎卡里·戴维斯：本节目由喜马拉雅独家制作播出。感谢您的收听，我们下期再见！