2023年06月六级第3套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Chimpanzees (黑猩猩), human beings' closest animal relatives, share up to 98% of our genes. Yet humans and chimpanzees lead very different lives. Fewer than 300,000 wild chimpanzees live in a few forested corners of Africa today, while humans have colonized every corner of the globe. At more than 7 billion, the human population dwarfs that of nearly all other mammals—despite our physical weaknesses.

黑猩猩是人类最亲近的动物亲戚，共享我们高达98%的基因。然而，人类和黑猩猩过着截然不同的生活。如今，不到30万只野生黑猩猩生活在非洲的几个森林角落，而人类已经殖民了地球的每一个角落。人口超过70亿，人类数量使几乎所有其他哺乳动物相形见绌——尽管我们身体较弱。

What could account for our species' incredible evolutionary successes?

什么能解释我们物种令人难以置信的进化成功？

One obvious answer is our big brains. It could be that our raw intelligence gave us an unprecedented ability to think outside the box, innovating solutions to thorny problems as people migrated across the globe. But a growing number of cognitive scientists and anthropologists (人类学家) are rejecting that explanation. They think that, rather than making our living as innovators, we survive and thrive precisely because we don't think for ourselves. Instead, people cope with challenging climates and ecological contexts by carefully copying others.

一个明显的答案是我们拥有大脑。可能是我们的原始智力赋予我们前所未有的能力，能够跳出框框思考，在全球迁移过程中创新解决棘手问题。但越来越多的认知科学家和人类学家正在拒绝这种解释。他们认为，我们并非以创新为生，而是因为我们不独立思考才能生存和繁荣。相反，人们通过仔细模仿他人来应对挑战性的气候和生态环境。

In a famous study, psychologists Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten showed two groups of test subjects-children and chimpanzees-a mechanical box with a treat inside. In one condition, the box was opaque, while in the other it was transparent. The experimenters demonstrated how to open the box to retrieve the treat, but they also included the irrelevant step of tapping on the box with a stick.

在一项著名研究中，心理学家维多利亚·霍纳和安德鲁·惠顿向两组测试对象——儿童和黑猩猩——展示了一个内有奖励的机械盒子。在一个条件下，盒子是不透明的，而在另一个条件下是透明的。实验者演示了如何打开盒子取出奖励，但他们也包括了一个不相关的步骤：用棍子敲击盒子。

Oddly, the children carefully copied all the steps to open the box, even when they could see that the stick had no practical effect. That is, they copied irrationally: Instead of doing only what was necessary to get their reward, children slavishly imitated every action they'd witnessed.

奇怪的是，孩子们仔细模仿了打开盒子的所有步骤，即使他们能看到棍子没有实际作用。也就是说，他们非理性地模仿：孩子们不是只做获得奖励所必需的事情，而是盲目模仿他们目睹的每一个动作。

Of course, that study only included three- and four-year-olds. But additional research has shown that older children and adults are even more likely to mindlessly copy others' actions, and infants are less likely to over-imitate—that is, to precisely copy even impractical actions.

当然，那项研究只包括三岁和四岁的儿童。但进一步的研究表明，年龄较大的儿童和成年人更有可能盲目模仿他人的行为，而婴儿则不太可能过度模仿——即精确模仿甚至不切实际的动作。

By contrast, chimpanzees in the study only over-imitated in the opaque condition. In the transparent condition-where they saw that the stick was mechanically useless-they ignored that step entirely. Other research has since supported these findings.

相比之下，研究中的黑猩猩只在不透明条件下过度模仿。在透明条件下——他们看到棍子在机械上无用——他们完全忽略了那个步骤。其他研究随后支持了这些发现。

When it comes to copying, chimpanzees are more rational than human children or adults.

当涉及到模仿时，黑猩猩比人类儿童或成年人更理性。

Where does the seemingly irrational human preference for over-imitation come from? Anthropologist Joseph Henrich points out that people around the world rely on technologies that are often so complex that no one can learn them rationally. Instead, people must learn them step by step, trusting in the wisdom of more experienced elders and peers.

这种看似非理性的人类对过度模仿的偏好从何而来？人类学家约瑟夫·亨里奇指出，世界各地的人们依赖的技术往往如此复杂，以至于没有人能理性地学习它们。相反，人们必须逐步学习，信任更有经验的长辈和同伴的智慧。

So the next time you hear someone arguing passionately that everyone should embrace nonconformity and avoid imitating others, you might laugh a little bit. We're not chimpanzees, after all.

所以，下次当你听到有人激烈地争论每个人都应该拥抱非从众性并避免模仿他人时，你可能会笑一笑。毕竟，我们不是黑猩猩。