For the past few years, I've been spending my summers in the marine biological laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And there, what I've been doing is essentially renting a boat. What I would like to do is ask you to come on a boat ride with me tonight.
在過去幾年, 我的夏天都在馬薩諸塞州 伍茲霍爾區的 海洋生態研究室度過。 我在那裡租了一條船, 我想邀請各位 今晚和我一起去乘船。
So, we ride off from Eel Pond into Vineyard Sound, right off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, equipped with a drone to identify potential spots from which to peer into the Atlantic. Earlier, I was going to say into the depths of the Atlantic, but we don't have to go too deep to reach the unknown. Here, barely two miles away from what is arguably the greatest marine biology lab in the world, we lower a simple plankton net into the water and bring up to the surface things that humanity rarely pays any attention to, and oftentimes has never seen before.
我們從鰻池出發,前往葡萄園海灣, 地點就在瑪莎葡萄園旁的海岸, 我們裝置了一台無人機 用來觀察大西洋中潛在的地點。 之前,我會說要進入 大西洋的深處才找的到, 但是我們不需要到那麽深的地方 就能發現未知的生物。 就在這裡, 離可以說是世界上最棒的海洋生物 實驗室僅僅兩英里處的地方。 我們放下一張 簡易的浮游生物採集網, 然後再把它拉上來, 如此就可以找到這些 人類很少會注意到的生物, 而且常常是從來沒有見過的生物。
Here's one of the organisms that we caught in our net. This is a jellyfish. But look closely, and living inside of this animal is another organism that is very likely entirely new to science. A complete new species. Or how about this other transparent beauty with a beating heart, asexually growing on top of its head, progeny that will move on to reproduce sexually. Let me say that again: this animal is growing asexually on top of its head, progeny that is going to reproduce sexually in the next generation. A weird jellyfish? Not quite. This is an ascidian. This is a group of animals that now we know we share extensive genomic ancestry with, and it is perhaps the closest invertebrate species to our own. Meet your cousin, Thalia democratica.
這是其中一個 我們用網捕捉到的生物。 牠是一隻水母。 但仔細看, 居住在這隻動物體內的 是另一個有機體。 對科學界來說很可能 是一個全新的物種。 或是再來看看這隻透明、 有著一顆跳動心臟的美麗生物, 牠可以在自己的頭部頂端 進行無性繁殖, 但牠的後代卻可以進行有性繁殖。 請讓我再重複一次: 這種動物可以在頭部頂端 進行無性繁殖, 而牠的子代將成為有性繁殖的後代。 很怪的水母,是吧? 不完全是。 這是海鞘。 這一群生物 我們現在知道牠們和我們 有著大量共同的基因體, 牠們也許是目前與我們 最近親的無脊椎動物。 見見你的表親, 雙尾薩利亞。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I'm pretty sure you didn't save a spot at your last family reunion for Thalia, but let me tell you, these animals are profoundly related to us in ways that we're just beginning to understand. So, next time you hear anybody derisively telling you that this type of research is a simple fishing expedition, I hope that you'll remember the trip that we just took.
我很確定各位 在最近的一次家族聚會 沒有留一個座位給牠, 但我告訴各位, 這些動物和我們息息相關, 我們才剛開始明白這層關係。 所以,下次你聽到任何人 嘲笑地告訴你, 這類的研究不過是一種 簡單的捕撈旅程, 我希望各位能記住 我們剛剛所體驗的歷程。
Today, many of the biological sciences only see value in studying deeper what we already know -- in mapping already-discovered continents. But some of us are much more interested in the unknown. We want to discover completely new continents, and gaze at magnificent vistas of ignorance. We crave the experience of being completely baffled by something we've never seen before. And yes, I agree there's a lot of little ego satisfaction in being able to say, "Hey, I was the first one to discover that." But this is not a self-aggrandizing enterprise, because in this type of discovery research, if you don't feel like a complete idiot most of the time, you're just not sciencing hard enough.
如今,許多生物方面的研究 只著重在我們已知的事物上, 模仿繪製已發現的舊大陸。 但是我們之中的一些人 對於未知的事物更感興趣。 我們想要探索全新的大陸 並聚焦未知世界的華麗遠景。 我們渴望擁有 被前所未見的事物所迷惑的體驗。 是的,我承認, 能夠說出這句話真的會滿爽的: 「嘿,我是第一個發現的。」 但這領域沒那麼好混, 因為在這類探索性研究中, 如果你沒有經常 覺得自己是個大笨蛋的話, 你還不夠科學狂熱。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So every summer I bring onto the deck of this little boat of ours more and more things that we know very little about. I would like tonight to tell you a story about life that rarely gets told in an environment like this. From the vantage point of our 21st-century biological laboratories, we have begun to illuminate many mysteries of life with knowledge. We sense that after centuries of scientific research, we're beginning to make significant inroads into understanding some of the most fundamental principles of life.
每年夏天,我都會給這艘小船的甲板 帶來愈來愈多 我們幾乎一無所知的東西。 今晚我想告訴各位 一個有關生命的故事, 一個極少會在這樣場合中 提起的故事。 21 世紀生物實驗室的 有利之處就是, 我們開始運用知識 點亮許多神秘的生命。 我們感覺到, 在做了幾個世紀的科學研究後, 我們開始對一些 生命最基本原則的理解 有了重大進展。
Our collective optimism is reflected by the growth of biotechnology across the globe, striving to utilize scientific knowledge to cure human diseases. Things like cancer, aging, degenerative diseases; these are but some of the undesirables we wish to tame. I often wonder: Why is it that we are having so much trouble trying to solve the problem of cancer? Is it that we're trying to solve the problem of cancer, and not trying to understand life?
全球生物技術的增長 反映出我們這個領域 全體欣欣向榮的現象。 大家致力於利用科學知識 來治療人類的疾病。 像癌症、衰老、退化性疾病; 這些都是我們不想要、 希望能克服的疾病。 我經常在想: 為什麽我們在嘗試治療癌症的過程中 會遇到這麼多麻煩? 會不會是因為我們只想 解決癌症的問題, 卻不願意嘗試了解生命的奧義呢?
Life on this planet shares a common origin, and I can summarize 3.5 billion years of the history of life on this planet in a single slide. What you see here are representatives of all known species in our planet. In this immensity of life and biodiversity, we occupy a rather unremarkable position.
這個星球上的生命有共同的起源, 而我可以在一張投影片上 總結出這個星球上 35 億年的生命歷史。 各位現在看到的是 我們星球上所有已知物種的代表。 在這廣大的生命和生物多樣性之中, 我們人類只占據了一個 不那麽明顯的位置。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Homo sapiens. The last of our kind. And though I don't really want to disparage at all the accomplishments of our species, as much as we wish it to be so and often pretend that it is, we are not the measure of all things. We are, however, the measurers of many things. We relentlessly quantify, analyze and compare, and some of this is absolutely invaluable and indeed necessary.
智人。 最新的人類物種。 雖然我不是真的想要輕視 我們人類物種的成就, 即使人類希望可以佔據所有的成就 並經常自以為是, 我們仍然不是所有事情的衡量標準, 但我們是許多事情的衡量者。 我們不屈不撓地量化、 分析、和比較, 這當中有些的確是無價且必要的。
But this emphasis today on forcing biological research to specialize and to produce practical outcomes is actually restricting our ability to interrogate life to unacceptably narrow confines and unsatisfying depths. We are measuring an astonishingly narrow sliver of life, and hoping that those numbers will save all of our lives. How narrow do you ask? Well, let me give you a number. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently estimated that about 95 percent of our oceans remain unexplored. Now let that sink in for a second. 95 percent of our oceans remain unexplored. I think it's very safe to say that we don't even know how much about life we do not know.
但如今,這樣強調生物研究專精化 及要有實際成果產出的這種方式, 實際上會限制我們審視生命的能力, 並限制我們在狹隘的範圍 做著深度不夠的研究。 人類現在研究的生物 只佔地球生命中的一小部分, 卻冀望這樣狹隘的數量 將來可以拯救我們的生命。 你問我,有多狹隘? 讓我給各位一個數字。 國家海洋和大氣管理局最近估計 我們大約還有 95% 的 海洋尚未探索。 讓我們沉思一下, 還有 95% 的海洋尚未探索。 幾乎可以這麼說, 我們甚至對未知生命的數量 根本也一無所知。
So, it's not surprising that every week in my field we begin to see the addition of more and more new species to this amazing tree of life. This one for example -- discovered earlier this summer, new to science, and now occupying its lonely branch in our family tree. What is even more tragic is that we know about a bunch of other species of animals out there, but their biology remains sorely under-studied.
所以,不必感到驚訝,因為每個禮拜 這個領域都有新的物種, 增加到這棵令人驚嘆的生命之樹上。 舉個例子, 今年初夏才發現的, 這個科學界的新物種, 現在佔據了我們 生命之樹的一個分支。 可惜的是, 我們知道那麼多的物種, 但我們對牠們生物學方面的了解 卻只停留在研究階段。
I'm sure some of you have heard about the fact that a starfish can actually regenerate its arm after it's lost. But some of you might not know that the arm itself can actually regenerate a complete starfish. And there are animals out there that do truly astounding things. I'm almost willing to bet that many of you have never heard of the flatworm, Schmidtea mediterranea. This little guy right here does things that essentially just blow my mind. You can grab one of these animals and cut it into 18 different fragments, and each and every one of those fragments will go on to regenerate a complete animal in under two weeks. 18 heads, 18 bodies, 18 mysteries. For the past decade and a half or so, I've been trying to figure out how these little dudes do what they do, and how they pull this magic trick off. But like all good magicians, they're not really releasing their secrets readily to me.
我確定各位都有聽過一個事實, 海星可以在失去觸手之後再長出來。 但是你們或許不知道 一隻觸手也可以重新長出 一隻完整的海星。 還有許多動物 可以完成更多令人驚訝的事。 我甚至願意打賭 你們大概從未 聽過淡水渦蟲這種扁蟲。 這隻小傢伙 可以做出我完全無法想像的事。 你可以挑一隻來並把牠切成十八段, 而每一段都能生成 另一個完整的生物。 只要兩個禮拜的時間。 18 個頭、18 個身體、18 個秘密。 在過去 15 年以來, 我一直在努力搞清楚 這些小傢伙是如何做到的, 牠們是如何變出這個魔術的。 但就像所有的優秀魔術師一樣, 他們不會把秘密全告訴你。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So here we are, after 20 years of essentially studying these animals, genome mapping, chin scratching, and thousands of amputations and thousands of regenerations, we still don't fully understand how these animals do what they do. Each planarian an ocean unto itself, full of unknowns.
所以, 在對這些生物 做了 20 年基礎研究後, 我們繪製了無數的基因圖、 抓了無數次的下巴思索、 經過了數千次的切割、 數千次的再生後, 我們還是不能完全明白 這些動物是如何做到的。 每一支渦蟲本身, 都是一個充滿著未知的大海。
One of the common characteristics of all of these animals I've been talking to you about is that they did not appear to have received the memo that they need to behave according to the rules that we have derived from a handful of randomly selected animals that currently populate the vast majority of biomedical laboratories across the world. Meet our Nobel Prize winners. Seven species, essentially, that have produced for us the brunt of our understanding of biological behavior today. This little guy right here -- three Nobel Prizes in 12 years. And yet, after all the attention they have garnered, and all the knowledge they have generated, as well as the lion's share of the funding, here we are standing [before] the same litany of intractable problems and many new challenges. And that's because, unfortunately, these seven animals essentially correspond to 0.0009 percent of all of the species that inhabit the planet.
我對你們提到的這些動物 牠們有一個共同的特性, 就是牠們的行為 並不符合實驗室 備忘錄上記載的規律, 也就是我們隨機篩選出來的生物, 佔據在世界各地 生物醫學實驗室裡的行為備忘錄。 見見我們的諾貝爾得獎者們, 基本上,就這七個物種 衝擊了我們當今對於 生物行為的基本理解。 這個小傢伙── 在 12 年內拿到三次諾貝爾獎。 然而,在牠們獲得所有的關注 並產出很多知識後, 並獲得超大量的研究資金, 大家仍要面對冗長難對付的問題 以及新的挑戰。 那是因為很不幸, 這七種物種基本上只佔了 我們星球上所有物種的 百分之 0.0009。
So I'm beginning to suspect that our specialization is beginning to impede our progress at best, and at worst, is leading us astray. That's because life on this planet and its history is the history of rule breakers. Life started on the face of this planet as single-cell organisms, swimming for millions of years in the ocean, until one of those creatures decided, "I'm going to do things differently today; today I would like to invent something called multicellularity, and I'm going to do this." And I'm sure it wasn't a popular decision at the time --
所以我開始懷疑 雖然我們的專精化有好的一面, 但也阻礙了我們的進步, 最糟糕的就是會令我們迷失方向。 那是因為這個星球的生命和歷史 就是一段規則破壞者的歷史。 地球的生命起源於單細胞生物, 牠們在海洋中暢游了數百萬年, 直到其中一個生物決定, 「我今天要做一些不一樣的事; 今天我要發明 一種叫做多細胞的東西, 而且我一定會做得到。」 我很確定這樣的決定 當時不是很受歡迎——
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
but somehow, it managed to do it. And then, multicellular organisms began to populate all these ancestral oceans, and they thrived. And we have them here today. Land masses began to emerge from the surface of the oceans, and another creature thought, "Hey, that looks like a really nice piece of real estate. I'd like to move there." "Are you crazy? You're going to desiccate out there. Nothing can live out of water." But life found a way, and there are organisms now that live on land. Once on land, they may have looked up into the sky and said, "It would be nice to go to the clouds, I'm going to fly." "You can't break the law of gravity, there's no way you can fly." And yet, nature has invented -- multiple and independent times -- ways to fly.
但無論如何,牠成功了。 然後,多細胞有機體開始 在海洋中繁殖, 並且興旺起來。 所以我們今天才有機會討論討牠們。 之後土地開始出現, 從海洋表面冒出, 然後另一個生物在想, 「嘿,這塊地看起來不錯。 我想搬到那裡。」 「你瘋了嗎? 在那裡你會渴死的, 任何東西沒有水都活不了的。」 但生命自己會找出路, 然後就有了現在生活在 陸地上的生物。 一旦到了陸地, 牠們可能會望著天空說: 「如果能在天空飛就好了, 我想要飛。」 「你不可能打破地心引力的定律, 你根本不可能飛。」 然而,大自然的力量已經創造出 各式各樣不同的 飛行方式。
I love to study these animals that break the rules, because every time they break a rule, they invent something new that made it possible for us to be able to be here today. These animals did not get the memo. They break the rules. So if we're going to study animals that break the rules, shouldn't how we study them also break the rules?
我特別喜歡研究這些 打破規則的動物, 因為每次牠們打破一個規則, 牠們就發明了新的東西, 很有可能就是這些因素 造就了今日的我們。 這些動物沒有備忘錄, 牠們直接打破規則。 所以,如果我們要研究 打破規則的動物, 我們研究的方法不應該也打破嗎?
I think we need to renew our spirit of exploration. Rather than bring nature into our laboratories and interrogate it there, we need to bring our science into the majestic laboratory that is nature, and there, with our modern technological armamentarium, interrogate every new form of life we find, and any new biological attribute that we may find. We actually need to bring all of our intelligence to becoming stupid again -- clueless [before] the immensity of the unknown. Because after all, science is not really about knowledge. Science is about ignorance. That's what we do.
我認為我們需要 更新我們的探險精神。 比起把自然搬回我們的實驗室 在那裏做研究, 我們更應該把我們的研究 放回大自然,這個最宏偉的實驗室, 在那裏,運用我們的現代科學設備, 仔細研究每一種 我們發現的新形式生命、 每一種我們新發現的生物屬性, 我們真的要把我們的智慧打掉重練, 再變笨一次, 在未知的生物前虛心求教。 因為畢竟, 科學講究的不僅是知識, 更強調的是我們未知的領域。 這才是我們要做的。
Once, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea ..." As a scientist and a teacher, I like to paraphrase this to read that we scientists need to teach our students to long for the endless immensity of the sea that is our ignorance. We Homo sapiens are the only species we know of that is driven to scientific inquiry. We, like all other species on this planet, are inextricably woven into the history of life on this planet. And I think I'm a little wrong when I say that life is a mystery, because I think that life is actually an open secret that has been beckoning our species for millennia to understand it.
安托萬.聖埃克蘇佩里 (小王子作者)曾寫道, 「如果你要造一艘船, 不是讓人們去收集木材, 也不要分配任務和工作給他們, 而是引發他們 對無盡大海的渴望……」 作為一個科學家和老師, 我想把這句話解讀成這樣: 我們科學家需要教導學生 去追尋那無窮無盡的大海, 那裡才是我們無知的領域。 我們智人是地球上唯一一個 已知會追尋科學知識的物種。 我們就像這顆星球上其他物種一樣, 密不可分地編織著 這顆星球上生命的歷史。 當我說生命是一個謎,我有點錯了, 因為我認為生命其實是一個 眾人皆知的秘密, 幾千年來,一直在召喚 我們的物種去了解它。
So I ask you: Aren't we the best chance that life has to know itself? And if so, what the heck are we waiting for?
所以我呼籲各位: 我們現在不正是處於 了解生命的最佳機會點上嗎? 如果是, 我們還在等什麼?
Thank you.
謝謝各位!
(Applause)
(掌聲)