TED演讲之入门 宏观历史(7)
For most of that time of life on Earth, living organisms have been relatively simple — single cells.
地球的大多数时间，生物体多是以简单的单细胞存在的。
But they had great diversity, and, inside, great complexity.
但是它们是十分多样的，而且，内部结构极其复杂。
Then from about 600 to 800 million years ago, multi-celled organisms appear.
然后6亿年到8亿年之前，多细胞生物出现。
You get fungi, you get fish, you get plants, you get amphibia, you get reptiles, and then, of course, you get the dinosaurs.
你会发现菌类，鱼，植物，两栖类，爬行类，然后，当然，你会发现恐龙。
And occasionally, there are disasters. Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid landed on Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula,
接着，偶然间，发生了灾难。6500万年之前，一颗陨石撞击地球，在犹卡坦半岛附近，
creating conditions equivalent to those of a nuclear war, and the dinosaurs were wiped out.
引发的情况相当于一场核战争，恐龙就被彻底灭绝了。
Terrible news for the dinosaurs, but great news for our mammalian ancestors, who flourished in the niches left empty by the dinosaurs.
对于恐龙来说是可怕的消息。但是对于在恐龙遗留下的空旷之地蓬勃发展的哺乳类祖先来说，这是好消息。
And we human beings are part of that creative evolutionary pulse that began 65 million years ago with the landing of an asteroid.
我们人类就是这次始于6500万年前随着陨石撞击后，生物进化狂潮的一部分。
Humans appeared about 200,000 years ago. And I believe we count as a threshold in this great story. Let me explain why.
人类起源于20万年前。我相信人类发展就是宇宙进化的一个阶段。让我解释一下为什么。
We’ve seen that DNA learns in a sense, it accumulates information. But it is so slow.
我们已经看到DNA某种意义上的进化，它积累信息。但是这十分缓慢。
DNA accumulates information through random errors, some of which just happen to work.
DNA累积信息伴随着随机的差错，有些差错也可以运作。
But DNA had actually generated a faster way of learning:
但是DNA已经发展成一种更快的进化方式；
it had produced organisms with brains, and those organisms can learn in real time.
它产生了有大脑的生物，那些生物能及时的进化。
They accumulate information, they learn. The sad thing is, when they die, the information dies with them.
它们积累信息，它们进化。但是遗憾的是，当它们死亡，信息也随着它们死亡。
Now what makes humans different is human language. We are blessed with a language, a system of communication,
让人类特别的是人类的语言。我们有幸能有语言，一种交流方式，
so powerful and so precise that we can share what we’ve learned with such precision that it can accumulate in the collective memory.
如此的强大和准确，以至于我们可以准确的分享我们学到的事，它就积累成为集体记忆。
And that means it can outlast the individuals who learned that information, and it can accumulate from generation to generation.
这就意味着它能比学到信息的个体存在的更长久，而且它也能一代一代的积累。
And that’s why, as a species, we’re so creative and so powerful, and that’s why we have a history.
这就是为什么，作为一个物种，我们如此的有创造力，如此强大，这就是为什么我们有历史。
We seem to be the only species in four billion years to have this gift.
我们似乎是在40亿年中唯一的拥有这种天赋的生物。
演讲简介：
在震撼的背景插图下，大卫·克里斯汀讲述了宇宙的完整历史，从大爆炸到互联网，非常精彩的18分钟。这是“宏观的历史”：一个启发性的，广角的关注复杂性，生命和人类，不同于我们以往的浅薄的有关宇宙时间的认识。