听力课堂TED音频栏目主要包括TED演讲的音频MP3及中英双语文稿,供各位英语爱好者学习使用。本文主要内容为演讲MP3+双语文稿:关于生态学,修女能教科学家什么,希望你会喜欢!
【演讲者及介绍】Victoria Gill
在对自然世界的迷恋驱使下,维多利亚·吉尔相信,如果我们知道我们每天接触的生物体和物质背后的故事,我们都会更幸福。
【演讲主题】关于生态学,修女能教科学家什么
What a nun can teach a scientist about ecology
【中英文字幕】
翻译者Joseph Geni 校对者Camille Martínez
00:11
OK, I would like to introduce all of you beautiful, curious-minded people to my favorite animal in the world. This is the Peter Pan of the amphibian world. It's an axolotl. It's a type of salamander, but it never fully grows up and climbs out of the water like other salamanders do. And this little guy has X-Man-style powers, right? So if it loses any limb, it can just completely regenerate. It's amazing. And, I mean, look at it -- it's got a face with a permanent smile.
我要向你们这些出色的、 充满好奇心的观众介绍 我在这个世界上最喜欢的动物。 这是两栖动物世界的彼得·潘, 一只墨西哥钝口螈。 它是蝾螈的一种, 可它不像其它蝾螈那样 会完全发育长大, 然后从水里爬上陆地。 这个小家伙有 X 战警般的力量。 如果它失去肢体, 还可以完全再生。 妙极了。 看看它吧—— 脸上带着永恒的微笑。
00:41
(Laughter)
(笑)
00:42
It's framed by feathery gills. It's just ... how could you not love that?
羽毛状的腮像个画框。 什么人会不喜欢它呢?
00:45
This particular type of axolotl, a very close relative, is known as an achoque. It is equally as cute, and it lives in just one place in a lake in the north of Mexico. It's called Lake Pátzcuaro, and as you can see, it is stunningly beautiful. But unfortunately, it's been so overfished and so badly polluted that the achoque is dying out altogether. And this is something that's a scenario that's playing out all over the world. We're living through an extinction crisis, and species are particularly vulnerable when they're evolutionarily tailored to just one little niche or maybe one lake.
这种特殊类型的 墨西哥钝口螈的近亲 叫做安氏钝口螈。 同样可爱, 它只生活在一个地方, 在墨西哥北部的一个湖中。 那个湖叫帕茨夸罗湖。 大家能看到, 这里的景色令人惊叹。 但不幸的是,它被过度捕捞, 而且污染严重, 以至于安氏钝口螈成批死亡。 这是一种正在世界范围内 蔓延的场景。 我们正处于灭绝的危机之中, 当物种进化到只适合一个 小生态环境或一个湖泊时, 它们尤其容易受到伤害。
01:23
But this is TED, right? So this is where I give you the big idea, the big solution. So how do you save one special weird species from going extinct? Well, the answer, at least my answer, isn't a grand technological intervention. It's actually really simple. It's that you find people who know all about this animal and you ask them and you listen to them and you work with them, if they're up for that.
但这里是 TED,对不对? 所以我要给出重要构想 和重要解决方案。 那么,如何避免一种特殊的、 奇特的物种灭绝呢? 答案,至少是我的答案, 不是大规模的技术干预。 它其实非常简单, 只要找到全面了解这种动物的人, 询问他们,倾听他们的意见, 如果他们愿意为此努力, 就和他们展开合作。
01:49
So I want to tell you about how I've seen that in science, and in conservation in particular, if scientists don't team up with local people who have really valuable knowledge but a practical wisdom that's not going to be published in any academic journal, they can really miss the point. Scientists and science as an enterprise can fall at the first hurdle if it rushes in knowing that it's the experts that know best. But when scientists shake off those academic constraints and really look to people who have a totally different but really important perspective on what they're trying to do, it can genuinely save the world, one wonderfully weird amphibian at a time.
我想告诉大家 针对这个问题,我在科学上, 尤其是保护方面的看法。 当地的人有宝贵的知识, 他们的实践智慧也许不会 在学术期刊上发表, 但如果科学家不与他们合作, 真的可能会错失良机。 科学家和科学作为一个事业, 如果过于急躁地认为 只有专家才能提供最权威的答案, 就会在第一个障碍上栽跟头。 但如果科学家们 摆脱学术上的限制, 真正向对自己要做的事情 有着完全不同 而又重要的观点的人们请教, 他们才能真正的拯救世界, 从每一种奇妙而怪异的 两栖动物开始。
02:27
So, in the case of the achoque, these are the people you need on your team.
对于安氏钝口螈来说, 这些人是你需要的团队。
02:31
(Laughter)
(笑)
02:32
These are the Sisters of the Immaculate Health. They are nuns who have a convent in Pátzcuaro, they live in Pátzcuaro, and they have a shared history with the achoque. And it is so mind-bogglingly wonderful that it drew me all the way there to make an audio documentary about them, and I even have the unflattering selfie to prove it. There is a room at the center of their convent, though, that looks like this. It's very strange. It's lined with all these tanks full of fresh water and hundreds of achoques. And that's because this creature, because of its regenerative abilities, it's believed has healing powers if you consume it. So the sisters actually make and sell a medicine using achoques. I bought a bottle of it. So this is it. It tastes a bit like honey, but the sisters reckon it is good for all kinds of particularly respiratory ailments. So I just want you to have a listen, if you will, to a clip of Sister Ofelia.
她们是“无瑕健康姐妹”, 也是帕茨夸罗修道院的修女, 她们居住在帕茨夸罗, 与安氏钝口螈有共同的历史。 这真是令人难以置信的奇妙, 吸引了我一路为她们 制作音频纪录, 我甚至还拥有不讨人喜欢的自拍照 来证明这一点。 在她们的修道院中心有间 像这样的房子。 它非常奇怪。 装满淡水的水箱排成排, 里面有好几百只安氏钝口螈。 正是因为这种生物 有再生的能力, 人们相信食用它们 就拥有了自愈的能力。 所以这些修女姐妹们制造并销售 用它们制作的药。 我买了一瓶。 就是这个。 味道有点像蜂蜜, 修女们认为这种药对各类疾病, 特别是呼吸道疾病都有好处。 大家愿意的话,我想让各位 听听奥菲莉亚修女的一段话。
03:32
(Audio) Sister Ofelia: (speaks in Spanish)
(音频)奥菲莉亚修女: (西班牙语)
03:34
(Audio) (Interpreter voice-over) Our convent was founded by Dominican nuns here in Pátzcuaro in 1747. Sometime after that, our sisters started to make the achoque syrup. We didn't discover the properties of the achoque. That was the original people from around here, since ancient times. But we then started to make the syrup, too. The locals knew that, and they came to offer us the animals.
(音频)(译员) 我们的修院是多米尼加修女们 于 1747 年在帕茨夸罗建立的。 在那以后的某一时间开始, 修女们开始制作钝口螈糖浆。 发现了钝口螈药用价值的并不是我们, 而是周围的本地人 在古代就发现了。 但后来我们也开始制作糖浆。 本地人了解到这些之后, 开始向我们提供这种动物。
04:00
(Audio) Victoria Gill: I see. So the achoques are part of making that syrup. What does the syrup treat, and what is it for?
(音频)维多利亚·吉尔: 我知道了。 钝口螈是糖浆的一种重要成分。 糖浆能治疗什么呢,干什么用的?
04:07
(Audio) SO: (speaks in Spanish)
(音频)奥菲莉亚: (西班牙语)
04:10
(Audio) (Interpreter voice-over) It's good for coughs, asthma, bronchitis, the lungs and back pain.
(音频)(译员) 对咳嗽、哮喘、 支气管炎、肺部和 背部疼痛有好处。
04:16
(Audio) VG: And so you've harnessed that power in a syrup, in a medicine. Can you tell me how it's made? You're shaking your head and smiling. (Laughter)
(音频)吉尔: 所以你们把糖浆的功效 用在了药物中。 能告诉我怎么制作么? 你在摇头、微笑。 (笑)
04:28
VG: Yeah, they're not up for sharing the centuries-old secret recipe.
(音频)吉尔:是的,她们不愿意 分享好几世纪传下来的秘密配方。
04:31
(Laughter)
(笑)
04:32
But the decline in the achoque actually nearly put a halt to that medicine production altogether, which is why the sisters started this. It's the world's first achoque farm. All they wanted was a healthy, sustainable population so that they could continue to make that medicine, but what they created at the same time was a captive breeding program for a critically endangered species. And fast forward a few years, and these scientists that you can see in this picture from Chester Zoo all the way over the in UK, not far from where I live, and from Michoacana University in Morelia in Mexico have persuaded the sisters -- it took years of careful diplomacy -- to join them in a research partnership. So the nuns show the biologists how you rear perfectly healthy, very robust Pátzcuaro achoques, and the scientists have put some of their funding into tanks, filters and pumps in this strange, incongruous but amazing room. This is the kind of partnership that can save a species.
但安氏钝口螈的减少 实际上让这种药物的生产几乎停顿, 这正是修女们采取措施的原因。 这是世界上第一家钝口螈饲养场。 她们需要健康、可持续的产量, 这样她们就可以 继续制造那种药物, 但她们同时也创造了 一个针对极度濒危物种的 人工繁殖计划。 几年后, 各位在这张图里看到的 科学家们来自 英国切斯特动物园, 离我住的地方很近, 以及墨西哥莫雷利亚的 米却卡纳大学, 他们用若干年精心培训的 外交手段说服了这些修女, 与她们建立了研究伙伴关系。 修女们给生物学家展示了 如何饲养出健康、健壮的 帕茨夸罗安氏钝口螈, 科学家们把他们的一部分经费 投入在了这个奇怪,不协调, 但令人惊叹的房间里的 水箱、过滤器和水泵上。 这是一种能够 挽救一个物种的合作。
05:31
But I don't think I see enough of this sort of thing, and I have been ludicrously lucky in my job. I've traveled to loads of places and just basically followed around brilliant people who are trying to use science to answer big questions and solve problems. I've hung out with scientists who have solved the mystery of the origin of the menopause by tracking killer whales off the north Pacific coast. And I've followed around scientists who've planted cameras in Antarctic penguin colonies, because they were looking to capture the impacts of climate change as it happens.
可是我觉得这样的事情还是太少, 我的工作带给了我不少好运气。 我频繁到各地出差,基本是跟随 那些试图利用科学来回答 重大问题和解决问题的 才华横溢的人们。 我曾和通过追踪 北太平洋沿岸虎鲸 发现更年期起源奥秘的 科学家们合作过。 我也曾跟随在南极企鹅领地 安装相机,想要现场了解 气候变化影响的那些科学家 到处跑。
06:03
But it's this team that really stuck with me, that really showed me the impact that these delicate but really important relationships can have. And I think the reason that it stuck with me as well is because it's not common. And one of the reasons it's not common is because our traditional approach of the hierarchical system of academic achievement doesn't exactly encourage the type of humility where scientists will look to nonscientists and really ask for their input. In fact, I think we have a bit of a tradition, especially in the West, of a kind of academically blinkered hubris that has kept science historically an enterprise for the elite. And I think although that's moved on, it continues to be its downfall on occasion.
但正是这个团队真正吸引住了我, 向我展示了 这些微妙而又非常重要的 关系所能产生的影响。 这个团队让我尤其难忘的原因 还在于它非同寻常。 而它为何与众不同, 是因为我们采用的 传统学术成就等级制方法 并不能完全鼓励科学家 向非科学家求助 这样谦虚的行为。 实际上我认为我们有某种传统, 特别是在西方, 存在一种学术上偏狭的傲慢, 这使得科学在历史上 一直是精英们的事业。 虽然我认为这种情况已有所改进, 但有时情况依然不容乐观。
06:51
So here's my example from history and my takedown of a scientific hero. Sir Ernest Shackleton and his Trans-Antarctic Expedition more than a century ago, the celebrated ill-fated adventure. On his way there, Shackleton just didn't listen to the whalers in South Georgia. They knew that region, and they told him you won't get through the ice this year. It's too widespread, it's too far north, it's too dangerous. And look what happened. I mean, granted, that great adventure, that story of heroic leadership that we still tell, where he saved every single one of his men, we wouldn't be telling that story if he'd just hightailed it for home and taken their advice. But it cost him his ship, I would imagine quite a lot of cold injuries among the team, a good few cases of PTSD and Mrs. Chippy, the ship's cat, had to be shot because the team couldn't afford any extra food as they fought to survive.
我想通过一个历史上的例子 来表达我对科学英雄的不满。 欧内斯特·沙克尔顿爵士 和他一个世纪多之前的 “穿越南极”探险队, 经历了一次著名的、 注定要失败的冒险。 在他去南极的路上, 沙克尔顿就是不听 南乔治亚岛捕鲸人的意见。 他们了解那一地区,告诉他 在当年无法穿过那片冰雪。 那年的冰雪分布太广, 一直深入到北面,太危险了。 看看发生了什么。 没错,这是一个伟大的探险, 我们还在对英雄般的领导津津乐道, 他拯救了 整个队伍中的每一个人, 如果他听从劝告把队伍撤回 就没有这个故事可讲了。 但这让他损失了船, 可以想象队伍中的很多人被冻伤, 出现了创伤后应激障碍, 不得不射杀了船上 名叫奇皮女士的猫, 因为整个探险队的生存都成问题, 提供不了多余的食物。
07:45
Now, that was all a very long time ago, but as I've prepared for this talk, I've revisited some of the stories that I have covered, where these really unusual collaborations made a real positive difference. So I spoke to former poachers whose knowledge of where they used to hunt illegally is now really important in conservation projects in those same places. And I spoke to an amazing artist whose own experience of mental health struggles has actually paved the way for him to take a role in designing and creating a new, really innovative and beautiful mental health ward in a hospital.
这件事现在看起来已经年代久远, 但我准备这个演讲的时候, 重温了一些我报道过的事情, 这些不同寻常的合作 确实产生了积极的影响。 我和从前的偷猎者谈过, 他们对以往非法偷猎地方的经验 对于同一地区的保护项目 非常重要。 我也和一位杰出的艺术家聊过, 他与自己心理健康问题斗争的经历 协助他参与了医院中一个 新的、充满创意且美观的 心理健康病房的设计和建造。
08:21
Most recently, I worked here, in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, with a team of scientists that have been working there for decades. One of their experiments growing crops in that area has now turned into this. It's Chernobyl's first vodka.
最近,我在切尔诺贝利 禁区和已经在那工作了 几十年的科学家们展开了合作。 他们的一项在该区域种植庄稼的项目 获得了这样的成果。 这是切尔诺贝利的第一批伏特加。
08:35
(Laughter)
(笑)
08:40
It's pretty good, too! I've tasted it. And this is actually, although it looks like a niche product, it's set to be the first consumer product to come out of the exclusion zone since the nuclear accident. And that's actually the result of years of conversation with local communities who still live on the periphery of that abandoned land and want to know when they can -- and if they can -- safely grow food and build businesses and rebuild their communities and their lives. This was a product of humility, of listening, and I saw that in spades when I visited Pátzcuaro.
味道相当不错!我尝过了。 这虽然看起来像是小众产品, 但实际上它是 自核事故以来第一个 走出禁区的消费产品。 这实际上是与仍然生活在 那片荒地外围的当地社区 进行多年对话的结果, 他们想知道何时——以及是否能够 ——安全地种植粮食, 建立企业并重建社区和生活。 这是一种谦虚听取 意见而得来的产品。 我在访问帕茨夸罗时 见证了这种情形。
09:14
So I watched as a decades-experienced conservation biologist called Gerardo Garcia listened and watched super carefully as a nun in a full habit and wimple and latex gloves showed him how, if you tap an achoque on the head really gently, it'll open its mouth so you can quickly get a DNA swab with a Q-tip.
我看到一位有几十年生态保护经历的 名叫赫拉尔多·加西亚的 生物学家, 认真观看并听取了 穿着整套修女服, 带着橡胶手套的修女 教他如何轻拍钝口螈的头部, 让它张开嘴巴,然后用棉签 迅速得到 DNA 拭子。
09:30
(Laughter)
(笑)
09:31
When scientists team up with, look to and defer to people who have a really valuable perspective on what they're trying to do but a totally different outlook, something really special can happen.
那些对自己的工作保有 真正有价值的观点的人, 他们的人生观可能截然不同, 当科学家们与这些人合作、 审视并尊重他们的想法, 确实会发生一些特别的事情。
09:45
Now, there is a truly global and a very, very ambitious example of this called the International Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Now, that is not a snappy title, but stick with me. This organization includes more than 130 countries, and it's aiming to do nothing less than assess the state of the natural world across our entire planet. So it recently published this global assessment on the state of nature, and that could be the foundation for an international agreement where all of those nations could sign up to finally take action to tackle the biodiversity crisis that's happening on planet Earth right now.
再讲一个真正全球性的、 雄心勃勃的例子, 叫做国际生物多样性 和生态系统服务专家组。 可能是个沉闷的题目, 但请听下去。 这个组织包括了 130 个国家, 其目标是评估整个星球上 自然界的状况。 它最近发布了有关自然状况的 全球评估报告, 这可能是一项国际协议的基础, 所有这些国家都可以签署该协议, 最终采取行动来解决地球上 目前正在发生的 生物多样性危机。
10:21
Now, I know from trying to communicate, trying to report on reports like this, on assessments like this for a broad audience, that these big international groups can seem so high-level as to be kind of out of reach and nebulous, but there's a group of human beings at the center of them, the report's authors, who have this formidable task of bringing together all of that biological and ecological information that paints a clear and accurate picture of the state of the natural world. And 10 years before this panel even set out to do that, to put that assessment together, they created what's called a "cultural concept framework." This is essentially a cultural concept translation dictionary for all of the different ways that we talk about the natural world. So it formally recognizes, for example, that "Mother Earth" and "nature" means the same thing. And what that means is that Indigenous and local knowledge can be brought into the same document and given the weight and merit that it deserves in that assessment of what state our natural environment is in. And that is absolutely critical, because an Inuit hunter might never publish in an academic journal, but I'll bet you she knows more about the changes to her home Arctic community because of climate change than a scientist who spent many years going to and from that region taking measurements. And collectively, Indigenous people are the caretakers of an estimated 25 percent of the entire global land surface, including some of the most biodiverse places on the planet. So imagine how much we're missing if we don't cross those cultural boundaries, or at least try to, when we're trying to figure out how the world works and how to protect it.
我从尝试沟通、 尝试向大范围听众报道 类似的报告和评估了解到, 这类大型国际组织 看起来非常高高在上, 似乎遥不可及、令人迷惑, 但在其中心有一群 报告的作者, 他们有着艰巨的任务,将所有 生物和生态信息汇总在一起, 从而清晰、准确地描绘 自然世界的状况。 甚至在该小组着手进行 这项工作的十年前, 为了将评估结果放在一起, 他们创建了所谓的 “文化概念框架”。 从本质上讲,这是一本 文化概念翻译词典, 适用于我们谈论自然世界的 所有不同表达方式。 例如,它正式认可, “地球母亲”和“自然”是同一个意思。 这意味着可以将土著和地方性的知识 纳入同一文档, 并赋予其对我们的自然环境 所处状态的评估应具有的 权重和价值。 这绝对至关重要, 因为一个因纽特人猎人可能永远 不会在学术期刊上发表文章, 但我敢打赌,比起一个 花了很多年往返于北极地区 进行测量的科学家, 她更了解自己的家乡 北极圈因气候变化 而发生的改变。 总的来说,土著人民是全球 约 25% 陆地表面的看护者, 包括地球上一些生物多样性 最丰富的地方。 所以想象一下,如果我们 在弄清楚世界如何运作 和如何保护它的时候, 不跨越这些文化界限, 或至少试图这样做, 我们会有多大的错失。
12:07
Every single research proposal is a new opportunity to do exactly that. So what if, every time a research project was proposed, it had to include a suggestion of a person or a group of people -- local farmers, Indigenous community leaders, nuns -- that researchers wanted to bring into the fold, invite into their team and listen to?
每一份科研基金申请书 都有这样做的新机会。 那么,如果每次 提出一个研究项目时, 都必须包括科研人员想合作的 一个人或一群人的建议, 如当地农民、土著社区领袖、修女等, 邀请他们加入研究队伍, 并听取他们的意见, 那会怎么样呢?
12:29
I just want to let Sister Ofelia give her view of why she is so particularly driven and dedicated to the survival of the achoque.
我想让奥菲莉亚修女对她为何 如此热情地致力于钝口螈的生存 提出看法。
12:40
(Audio) VG: Sister Ofelia, do you think that saving this species from extinction, is that part of your work for God?
(音频)吉尔:奥菲莉亚修女, 你认为拯救濒危物种, 是侍奉上帝工作的一部分么?
12:48
(Audio) SO: (speaks in Spanish)
(音频)奥菲莉亚: (西班牙语)
12:52
(Audio) (Interpreter voice-over) It's the responsibility of every human being not to harm those who live around us. That's all living things. We're all created not only just to survive but to be happy and to make others happy. All of us here are providing happiness by protecting this animal, and we're also making Him happy.
(音频)(译员) 每个人 都有责任不伤害 我们周围的生物。 那都是生命。 我们所有的人不是为了生存而生, 而是为幸福及令他人幸福而生。 我们这里的所有人都在保护 这种动物,让他人感到幸福, 我们让上帝也感到高兴。
13:16
(Audio) (Nuns singing)
(音频)(修女们唱歌)
13:24
VG: I feel like I should sort of slink off and let the nuns sing me out, because it sounds so lovely. But did you hear that? "We're providing happiness." Now, that's not a protocol you'd ever see outlined in any formal research project proposal --
吉尔:我感觉我应该走开了, 让修女们的歌声送我退场, 因为那太好听了。 可是大家听到了么? “我们提供快乐。” 在任何正式的研究项目申请书里, 都不会有这样的协定——
13:38
(Laughter)
(笑)
13:39
but it's the impetus behind what's become the most successful breeding program in the world of an animal that was on the very brink of being wiped out. And isn't that just wonderful?
但这正是这个濒临灭绝的动物 在世界上 最成功的繁殖计划背后的动力。 难道不是非常美妙吗?
13:51
Thank you.
谢谢。
13:52
(Applause)
(鼓掌)