剑桥雅思19Test4Passage3阅读原文翻译 The Unselfish Gene 不自私的基因
剑桥雅思19阅读第四套题目第三篇文章的主题为无私的基因。作者采用驳论的方式，先描述了自己反对的观点，即人天性自私，然后从进化心理学和如今仍然存在的原始部落的生存方式两个角度论证事实并非如此，人类的自私更有可能是最近几千年才发展出来的。整篇文章虽然有些偏抽象，但读起来还是很有意思的。下面是具体每段的翻译：
剑桥雅思19Test4Passage3阅读原文翻译
第1段：
There has long been a general assumption that human beings are essentially selfish. We’re apparently ruthless, with strong impulses to compete against each other for resources and to accumulate power and possessions. If we are kind to one another, it’s usually because we have ulterior motives. If we are good, it’s only because we have managed to control and transcend our innate selfishness and brutality.
人类天性自私，这种看法早已深入人心。我们似乎天生冷酷，总是本能地为了资源而彼此竞争，追逐权力和财富。即使我们对别人友善，也往往被认为是另有所图；如果我们表现出善良，那也只是因为压抑住了内心原本的自私和暴力冲动。
第2段：
This bleak view of human nature is closely associated with the science writer Richard Dawkins, whose 1976 book The Selfish Gene became popular because it fitted so well with – and helped to justify – the competitive and individualistic ethos that was so prevalent in late 20th-century societies. Like many others, Dawkins justifies his views with reference to the field of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology theorises that present-day human traits developed in prehistoric times, during what is termed the ‘environment of evolutionary adaptedness’.
这种对人性的灰暗理解，与科普作家理查德·道金斯密切相关。他在1976年出版的《自私的基因》一书广受欢迎，正是因为它很好地契合了20世纪末盛行的竞争意识和个人主义价值观，并在某种程度上为这些观念提供了合理性。和很多人一样，道金斯用进化心理学来支撑自己的观点。这门学科认为，现代人类的许多行为特征，其实早在远古时代就已经形成，也就是所谓“进化适应环境”时期。
第3段：
Prehistory is usually seen as a period of intense competition, when life was such a brutal battle that only those with traits such as selfishness, aggression and ruthlessness survived. And because survival depended on access to resources – such as rivers, forests and animals -there was bound to be conflict between rival groups, which led to the development of traits such as racism and warfare. This seems logical. But, in fact, the assumption on which this all rests – that prehistoric life was a desperate struggle for survival – is false.
史前时代常被描绘成一个竞争极其激烈的时期，生活如同一场残酷的生存之战，只有具备自私、好斗、冷酷等特质的人才能活下来。由于生存依赖于资源的获取，比如河流、森林和动物，彼此之间的冲突似乎不可避免，这也被认为促成了诸如种族主义和战争等特质的发展。这样的逻辑听起来似乎合理，但实际上，这一切的前提——即史前生活是一场艰难求生的斗争——并不成立。
第4段：
It’s important to remember that in the prehistoric era, the world was very sparsely populated. According to some estimates, around 15,000 years ago, the population of Europe was only 29,000, and the population of the whole world was less than half a million. Humans at that time were hunter-gatherers: people who lived by hunting wild animals and collecting wild plants. With such small population densities, it seems unlikely that prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups had to compete against each other for resources or had any need to develop ruthlessness and competitiveness, or to go to war.
我们需要意识到，在史前时代，地球上的人口极其稀少。根据一些估算，约一万五千年前，整个欧洲的人口只有大约2.9万人，而全球总人口还不到50万。当时的人类以狩猎和采集为生，也就是所谓的“狩猎采集者”。在人口密度如此之低的情况下，史前的人类群体之间几乎没有必要为了资源而彼此竞争，更谈不上发展出冷酷、好斗或发动战争的倾向。
第5段：
There is significant evidence to back this notion from contemporary hunter-gatherer groups, who live in the same way as prehistoric humans did. As the anthropologist Bruce Knauft has remarked, hunter-gatherers are characterised by ‘extreme political and sexual egalitarianism’. Knauft has observed that individuals in such groups don’t accumulate property or possessions and have an ethical obligation to share everything. They also have methods of preserving egalitarianism by ensuring that disparities of status don’t arise.
大量证据都支持这样一种观点：当代一些仍以狩猎采集为生的群体生活方式与史前人类极为相似。从他们身上，我们可以窥见早期人类社会的真实面貌。人类学家布鲁斯·克诺夫特指出，狩猎采集社会的显著特点是“高度的政治和性别平等”。他观察到，这些群体中的个体不积累财产，物品和资源必须共享，而且这种分享是一种道德义务。他们还有一套机制来维护平等，防止权力或地位差距的产生。
第6段：
The !Kung people of southern Africa, for example, swap arrows before going hunting and when an animal is killed, the acclaim does not go to the person who fired the arrow, but to the person the arrow belongs to. And if a person becomes too domineering, the other members of the group ostracise them, exiling the offender from society. Typically in such groups, men do not dictate what women do. Women in hunter-gatherer groups worldwide often benefit from a high level of autonomy, being able to select their own marriage partners, decide what work they do and work whenever they choose to. And if a marriage breaks down, they have custody rights over their children.
比如生活在非洲南部的！Kung族人，在狩猎前会交换箭矢；一旦猎物被捕获，赞誉不会归于射中猎物的人，而是属于箭的主人。如果某个人变得过于专横，其他人就会将其排斥在外，甚至驱逐出群体，以维护社会的和谐与平等。这类群体中，男性不会支配女性的行为。在世界范围内，狩猎采集社会中的女性通常享有很高的自主权。她们可以自由选择婚姻对象，自主决定从事何种劳动，何时工作。如果婚姻关系破裂，孩子的抚养权往往也由女性掌握。
第7段：
Many anthropologists believe that societies such as the !Kung were normal until a few thousand years ago, when population growth led to the development of agriculture and a settled lifestyle. In view of the above, there seems little reason to assume that traits such as racism, warfare and male domination should have been selected by evolution – as they would have been of little benefit in the prehistoric era. Individuals who behaved selfishly and ruthlessly would be less likely to survive, since they would have been ostracised from their groups.
许多人类学家认为，像！Kung族这样的社会形态在几千年前其实是非常普遍的，直到人口增长推动了农业的发展和定居生活的出现。结合前文所述，我们几乎没有理由认为种族主义、战争和男性主导等特质是通过进化被“筛选”出来的——因为在史前时期，这些特质并没有什么实际益处。那些自私、冷酷的人反而更可能被群体排斥，从而难以生存下去。
第8段：
It makes more sense, then, to see traits such as cooperation, egalitarianism, altruism and peacefulness as innate characteristics of human beings. These were the traits that were prevalent in human life for tens of thousands of years. So presumably these traits are still strong in us now.
因此，更合理的推论是：合作、平等、无私和和平才是人类与生俱来的特质。这些品质在人类历史上持续了成千上万年，是我们祖先日常生活中普遍存在的行为模式。既然如此，这些特质很可能至今仍深深根植于我们每个人的本性之中。
第9段：
But if prehistoric life wasn’t really as brutal as has often been assumed, why do modern humans behave so selfishly and ruthlessly? Perhaps these negative traits should be seen as a later development, the result of environmental and psychological factors. Research has shown repeatedly that when the natural habitats of primates such as apes and gorillas are disrupted, they tend to become more violent and hierarchical.
但如果史前生活并不像人们常说的那样残酷，那么为什么现代人却表现得如此自私和冷酷呢？或许，这些负面特质并非人类天生就有，而是后期发展出来的，是环境变化和心理因素共同作用的结果。研究一再表明，当猿类或大猩猩等灵长类动物的自然栖息地受到破坏时，它们往往会变得更加暴力，社会结构也更倾向于等级化。
第10段：
So, it could well be that the same thing has happened to us. I believe that the end of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the advent of farming was connected to a psychological change that occurred in some groups of people. There was a new sense of individuality and separateness, which led to a new selfishness, and ultimately to hierarchical societies, patriarchy and warfare. At any rate, these negative traits appear to have developed so recently that it doesn’t seem feasible to explain them in adaptive or evolutionary terms.
所以，很可能我们人类也经历了类似的过程。我认为，狩猎采集生活方式的终结和农业的兴起，伴随着某些人群心理上的转变。他们开始产生一种新的个体意识和“我与他人分离”的感觉，这种变化催生了自私的行为，进而导致等级社会、父权制和战争的出现。无论如何，这些负面特质的发展时间都非常晚近，以至于我们很难用“适应”或“进化”来解释它们的产生。
