SDcamps•演辩营全国英语演讲与辩论赛
What then is the work of life? What the business of great men, that pass the stage of the world in seeming triumph as these men we call heroes have done? Is it to grow great in the mouth of fame and take up so many pages in history? Alas! That is no more than making a tale for the reading of posterity till it turns into fable and romance. Is it to furnish subjects to the poe...
Well, we chose the second option, and language is the result. 我们选了第二条路，语言就是产物 Language evolved to solve the crisis of visual theft. 语言的进化解决了观察性窃取的危机 Language is a piece of social technology for enhancing the benefits of cooperation 语言是社会技术用于加强合作的益处 for reaching agreements, for striking deals and for coordinating our activities. ...
Once we have language, we can put our ideas together and cooperate to have a prosperity 一旦我们有了语言，我们可以分享想法并合作，从而创造繁荣 that we couldn't have before we acquired it. 没有语言这是无法完成的 And this is why our species has prospered around the world 这就是为什么人类在全世界繁衍发展 while the rest of the animals sit behind bars in zoos, languishing. 而...
Now the reason the chimpanzees don't do that 黑猩猩不那么做的原因 is that they lack what psychologists and anthropologists call social learning. 是它们缺乏心理学家和人类学家所谓的社会学习能力 They seem to lack the ability to learn from others by copying or imitating or simply watching. 它们似乎缺乏向别人学习的能力，通过照搬或模仿或者仅仅观察 As a result, they can't i...
Language really is the voice of our genes. 语言的确是我们基因的声音 Now having evolved language, though, we did something peculiar, even bizarre. 尽管我们有发达的语言，但我们也做了件特殊，甚至可以说是件奇怪的事 As we spread out around the world, we developed thousands of different languages. 当我们分散到全世界，我们发展出成千上万种语言 Currently, there are about seven or 8,0...
Okay, so what this tells us is that, contrary to the old adage, "monkey see, monkey do," 这与我们所知的，“有样学样”（猴子见什么学什么）的谚语完全相反 the surprise really is that all of the other animals really cannot do that — at least not very much. 令人惊讶的事实是，其他的所有动物都无法做到有样学样，至少做到很少 And even this picture has the suspicious tain...
Each of you possesses the most powerful, dangerous and subversive trait 每一个人都拥有一个最强大，危险并具有颠覆性的特性 that natural selection has ever devised. 这一特性是自然选择前所未有的设计 It's a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people's minds. 它是一个神经声频技术，用于与他人交流思想 I'm talking about your language, of course, 我说的当然...
And so some time around 200,000 years ago, our species confronted this crisis. 大约二十万年前，人类遇到了这一困境 And we really had only two options for dealing with the conflicts that visual theft would bring. 我们只有两种选择来解决观察性窃取导致的冲突 One of those options was that we could have retreated into small family groups. 一个选择是我们可以退回到小的家庭单位 Becaus...
Mark, one question. Svante found that the FOXP2 gene, which seems to be associated with language, 马克，我有个问题。斯万特发现FOXP2基因，好像它与语言有关 was also shared in the same form in Neanderthals as us. 而尼安德特人也像我们一样有此基因 Do we have any idea how we could have defeated Neanderthals if they also had language? 那么我们有没有什么办法能够打败尼安德特人，如果...
Now I can't speak for you, 虽然我不能完全代表你们 but it seems to be the case that we don't have sex with people we can't talk to. 但可以这样说，我们不会跟无法交流的人去做爱 Now we have to counter that, though, against the evidence we've heard 不过也许现在得算上这种情况，基于已有证据表明 that we might have had some rather distasteful genetic dalliances with t...
Now think of the absurdity of this situation. 现在试想下这种奇怪的状况： If 27 individuals from those 27 member states sat around table, speaking their 23 languages, 如果27个来自各个盟国的人围坐在桌边，说着23种语言 some very simple mathematics will tell you that you need an army of 253 translators to anticipate all the pairwise possibilities. 简单计算就可以知道，你需要一个25...
Our species can make stuff, 人类这一物种可以创造事物 therefore we prospered in a way that no other species has. 所以我们比任何其他物种都要繁荣先进 In fact, we can even make the "stuff of life" — 事实上我们甚至可以创造“生命本身的东西”– as I just said, all the stuff around us. 如我所说，我们周围的一切 But in fact, it turns out 实际上 that some time around...
In fact, the Tower of Babel story in the Bible is a fable and warning about the power of language. 事实上，圣经里巴别塔的故事就是关于语言能力的一个寓言和警示 According to that story, early humans developed the conceit that, by using their language to work together, 这个故事说，远古的人类变得自以为是，他们以为通过同一种语言一起合作 they could build a tower that would take the...
There are lots and lots of ways of measuring time, 在许多计量时间的方法中 but a really bizarre base 60 system 古怪的60进制制度 known as hours and minutes and seconds is nearly universal around the world. 也就是时分秒计量单位，几乎被全世界采用 There are many, many ways of imprinting CDs or DVDs, 有很多很多方法压印CD和DVD but those are all being standardized as well. 但它们也...