人類智力
2023復習正是強化復習階段，在考研英語中占了40分，所以考研英語閱讀是英語科目中重要的一項。名師老師曾建議過考研生需要堅持每天泛讀10-15分鐘的英文原刊。強烈推薦了雜志《經濟學人》.雜志中的文章也是考研英語的主要材料來源.希望考研考生認真閱讀，快速提高考研英語閱讀水平。 Human intelligence 人類智力 Cleverer still 還是更聰明 Geniuses are getting brighter. 天才越來越聰明。 And at genius levels of IQ, girls are not as far behind boys as they used to be 而在智商達到天才水平的人數上，女孩不再和從前一樣遠遠落在男孩后面。 SCIENCE has few more controversial topics than human intelligencein particular,whether variations in it are a result of nature or nurture, and especially whether suchvariations differ between the sexes. 在科學領域，沒有什么話題比人類智力這一話題更有爭議了，而智力的差異是天賦使然還是后天培養造成的?以及這種差異是否與性別相關? The mines in this field can blow up anentire career, as Larry Summers found out in 2005 when he spoke of the hypothesis thatthe mathematical aptitude needed for physics and engineering, as well as for maths itself, isinnately rarer in women than in men. 這兩個問題尤為如此。拉里薩默斯在2005年發現，這塊領域上的地雷足以毀掉整個一個人職業生涯，他當時談到一個假設，物理學，工程學還有數學本身都需要一定的數學天分，而女性的數學天分天生就比不上男性。 He resigned as president of Harvard University shortly afterwards. 此后不久，他便辭去了哈佛大學校長的職務。 It is bold, therefore, of Jonathan Wai, Martha Putallaz and Matthew Makel, of DukeUniversity in North Carolina, to enter the fray with a paper that addresses both questions. 因此，杜克大學的喬納森維，馬薩普塔拉茲和馬修馬可的作為可謂大膽，他們發表了一篇論文，對上面兩個問題均有所論述，使他們加入了這場爭論。 In this paper, just published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, they describehow they sifted through nearly three decades of standardised tests administered to Americanhigh-school students to see what had been happening to the country s brightest sparks. 該論文剛剛發表在《心理科學最新動向》上，描述了他們如何對近三十年來美國高中學生參加的標準化考試結果進行篩選，以獲知在美國最聰明的天才們身上發生了什么。 They draw two conclusions. One is that a phenomenon called the Flynn effect applies inparticular to the brightest of the bright. 他們得出兩個結論。一個結論是被稱為弗林效應的現象對天才當中最聰明的那些尤為適用。 The other is that part, but not all, of the historic difference between the brainiest men andwomen has vanished. 另一個結論是最聰明的男性和女性人數之間的歷史差距只是縮小了一段，而非完全消失。 The three researchers drew their data from Duke University s Talent IdentificationProgramme, TIP, which is designed to ferret out especially clever candidates early on: all theparticipants had scored in the top 5% of ability when confronted with exams designed formuch older students. 這三名研究人員的數據來自杜克大學的人才識別工程，該工程旨在提前搜尋出特別聰明的應試者：所有的參與者的考試成績均排前5%，而這些考試都是針對年齡比他們大得多的學生的。 TIP, in turn, draws on three national exams: SAT, EXPLORE and ACT. 轉過來，TIP的數據又源于三個全國性考試：SAT，EXPLORE及ACT。 Altogether, Dr Wai, Dr Putallaz and Dr Makel looked at data from 1.7m children. 維博士，普塔拉茲博士和馬可博士一起查看了170萬兒童的數據。 Those data spanned the years between 1981 and 2010. 這些數據介于1981年到2010年之間。 In the general population boys are well known to do a bit better than girls in maths. 在普通人群中，普遍認為男孩的數學要比女孩好一點。 Girls, in turn, edge out boys on tests of verbal reasoning. 而反過來，女孩在文字推理的測試上比男孩略勝一籌。 The result is similar overall IQ scores. 在智商上的比較結果也大體類似。 Among the best young mathematical brains, however, that equality does not pertain. 然而，這些最聰明的年輕數學天才里并無平等可言。 Here, boys do a lot better at maths than girlsbut less better than they used to, as theresearchers discovered. 研究人員發現，在這里面，男孩在數學上要比女孩好得多，但差距要比以前小一些。 In the early 1980s, the ratio of males to females in the top 0.01% of maths scores in SAT, theScholastic Aptitude Test, was around 13 to 1. 在上世紀80年代早期，學術能力評估測試的數學成績前0.01%的人數中，男女比例約為13比1。 By the early 1990s it had fallen to four to one. 到了上世紀90年代早期，這一比例降到4比1。 After this, however, it remained obstinately unaltered. 然而此后該數字便停滯不前了。 The other two tests, both of which post-date the period in which the SAT shows those hugechanges, indicate less lopsided sex ratios of between two and three to one. 在SAT出現上述巨大變化的時期之后，另外兩個考試的男女比例均在3比1到2比1之間，性別傾向性更低。 But neither shows girls making much recent progress towards equality. 但兩個都未顯示出女孩最近向平等邁出多大步伐。 Nurturing talent 培養天資 This study is not perfect. Its most interesting result rests on data from just one of the threesets of exams it looked at and its sample sizes are, necessarily, small. 以上研究并不完美。他們查看了三個考試的數據，但其最引人關注的結果所依賴的數據僅來自中一個考試，樣本規模肯定不夠大。 But it chimes with the findings of a much older investigation, carried out in 1983 by a group ofresearchers at Johns Hopkins University, which also discovered a male-to-female sex ratio of13:1 among the most able young mathematicians. 但其結論與很早之前的一份調查結果一致，該調查是由約翰霍普金斯的一組研究人員在1983年進行的，發現在最有天賦的年輕數學家里，男女比例也是13比1。 Why a dramatic rise in the aptitude of America s brightest young female mathematiciansshould then be followed by two decades of stagnation is not obvious, and, not beingexperts in mine-clearance, the researchers offer no hypothesis. 美國最聰明的年輕女數學家的天資為何在飛速提升后，又經歷了20年的停滯期，答案并未交代清楚，研究人員也并非掃雷專家，沒有提出任何假說。 It is clear that the rise itself must be nurture of some sortpossibly a change in teachers attitudes towards girls who are interested in mathsbut the subsequent stasis could haveeither explanation. 很明顯，這種提升本身肯定是某種后天培養造成的 可能是教師對待對數學感興趣的女孩態度上的轉變但是隨后的停滯用天賦與后天培養都能解釋。 A line of reasoning in favour of nature is that put forward by Simon Baron-Cohen, apsychologist at Cambridge University. 劍橋大學的心理學家西蒙?拜倫-科恩提出了一條的推論，支持天賦論。 This connects the extreme systematising patterns of thought which make a goodmathematician with the preponderance of men among those with Asperger s syndrome, aform of autism that does not harm a person s general intelligence. 這條推論將極高系統化思維模式與艾斯伯格綜合癥患者中男性占多數兩者聯系起來。 But the disparity could equally well be the result of some as-yet-unelucidated differencebetween the ways girls and boys are brought up. 而在撫養女孩和男孩的過程中一些至今仍無法言表的差別同樣可能造成這種數量上的不同。 The nature of the beast 野獸的本性 That such unelucidated environmental influences can have real effects on IQ is eloquentlyillustrated by the Flynn effect. 弗林效應有力的闡明了這種無法言表的環境影響對智商是有實際影響的。 This phenomenon, brought to the world s attention in the 1980s by James Flynn of theUniversity of Otago, in New Zealand, is that average IQs around the world have been rising atthe rate of 0.3 points a year for the past eight decades. 上世紀八十年代，新西蘭奧塔哥大學的詹姆斯福林讓這一現象受到了全世界的關注，這一現象是：在過去的八十年里，世界的平均智商每年增加0.3。 Using the TIP data, Dr Wai and his colleagues showed that this is as true of the brightestyoungsters in American society as it is of lesser mortals, suggesting that even they can havetheir abilities boosted by whatever is causing the Flynn effect. 通過TIP數據，維博士及其同事指出，弗林效應適用于差一點的普通人，也同樣適用于美國社會中最聰明的年輕人，他們實際上也會受到造成弗林效應的因素的影響，水平得到提升。 Once again, the changes seem to be mainly in mathematics. 又一次，這些變化似乎主要體現在數學上。 Scores in the brightest children s verbal-reasoning and reading abilities demonstrate noclear trend, but all three national tests show sustained improvements in their mathematicalability over the past three decades. 最聰明的孩子的文字推理和閱讀能力的成績并未出現一個明顯的趨勢，但是在過去的三十年里，他們的數學能力在三個全國性考試中都顯示出持續的進步。 No one knows what causes the Flynn effect. 沒人知道是什么造成了弗林效應。 Theories range from better nutrition, via a more stimulating general environment, tothe phasing out of lead in petrol and paint. 關于弗林效應誘因的理論有許多，從更好的營養，到更具刺激性的總體環境，再到汽油和涂料中逐步停止鉛的使用。 What is clear is that it cannot be a change in gene-given ability, which is what most peoplemean by nature in this debate, because too few generations have passed for naturalselection to have had any meaningful impact. 但可以明確的是，這不會是一種基因賦予的能力上的變化，這種能力也就是這場爭論中大多數人所指的天賦，因為沒有哪代人在經過自然選擇后，天賦受到什么具有實際意義的影響。 詞語解釋 1.in particular 尤其， 特別 Progress is needed in three areas in particular. 尤其需要在三個方面取得進展。 Unemployment in particular has risen less thanonce seemed likely. 特別是失業率的增速似乎可能有所放緩。 2.speak of 說起 The lyrics and imagery speak of over-fishing, deforestation, and smog. 歌詞和比喻談到了過度捕撈、濫伐樹木和煙霧。 Some israeli politicians speak of another objective: to show ordinary palestinians that hamasis the obstacle to peace and prosperity. 有些以色列政客說到了另一個目標：向普通巴勒斯坦人證明哈馬斯是和平與繁榮的障礙。 3.as well as 既又除之外 That implies criticism as well as support. 這句話暗示著夫妻間的相互支持以及相互批評。 We continue to service customers as well as advertisers. 我們將繼續向客戶和廣告商提供服務。 4.in turn 依次; 輪流地 Let us consider each of these points in turn. 那就讓我們依次分析一下這幾點。 This in turn pushed share prices higher. 這轉而推動股價進一步走高。
2023復習正是強化復習階段，在考研英語中占了40分，所以考研英語閱讀是英語科目中重要的一項。名師老師曾建議過考研生需要堅持每天泛讀10-15分鐘的英文原刊。強烈推薦了雜志《經濟學人》.雜志中的文章也是考研英語的主要材料來源.希望考研考生認真閱讀，快速提高考研英語閱讀水平。 Human intelligence 人類智力 Cleverer still 還是更聰明 Geniuses are getting brighter. 天才越來越聰明。 And at genius levels of IQ, girls are not as far behind boys as they used to be 而在智商達到天才水平的人數上，女孩不再和從前一樣遠遠落在男孩后面。 SCIENCE has few more controversial topics than human intelligencein particular,whether variations in it are a result of nature or nurture, and especially whether suchvariations differ between the sexes. 在科學領域，沒有什么話題比人類智力這一話題更有爭議了，而智力的差異是天賦使然還是后天培養造成的?以及這種差異是否與性別相關? The mines in this field can blow up anentire career, as Larry Summers found out in 2005 when he spoke of the hypothesis thatthe mathematical aptitude needed for physics and engineering, as well as for maths itself, isinnately rarer in women than in men. 這兩個問題尤為如此。拉里薩默斯在2005年發現，這塊領域上的地雷足以毀掉整個一個人職業生涯，他當時談到一個假設，物理學，工程學還有數學本身都需要一定的數學天分，而女性的數學天分天生就比不上男性。 He resigned as president of Harvard University shortly afterwards. 此后不久，他便辭去了哈佛大學校長的職務。 It is bold, therefore, of Jonathan Wai, Martha Putallaz and Matthew Makel, of DukeUniversity in North Carolina, to enter the fray with a paper that addresses both questions. 因此，杜克大學的喬納森維，馬薩普塔拉茲和馬修馬可的作為可謂大膽，他們發表了一篇論文，對上面兩個問題均有所論述，使他們加入了這場爭論。 In this paper, just published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, they describehow they sifted through nearly three decades of standardised tests administered to Americanhigh-school students to see what had been happening to the country s brightest sparks. 該論文剛剛發表在《心理科學最新動向》上，描述了他們如何對近三十年來美國高中學生參加的標準化考試結果進行篩選，以獲知在美國最聰明的天才們身上發生了什么。 They draw two conclusions. One is that a phenomenon called the Flynn effect applies inparticular to the brightest of the bright. 他們得出兩個結論。一個結論是被稱為弗林效應的現象對天才當中最聰明的那些尤為適用。 The other is that part, but not all, of the historic difference between the brainiest men andwomen has vanished. 另一個結論是最聰明的男性和女性人數之間的歷史差距只是縮小了一段，而非完全消失。 The three researchers drew their data from Duke University s Talent IdentificationProgramme, TIP, which is designed to ferret out especially clever candidates early on: all theparticipants had scored in the top 5% of ability when confronted with exams designed formuch older students. 這三名研究人員的數據來自杜克大學的人才識別工程，該工程旨在提前搜尋出特別聰明的應試者：所有的參與者的考試成績均排前5%，而這些考試都是針對年齡比他們大得多的學生的。 TIP, in turn, draws on three national exams: SAT, EXPLORE and ACT. 轉過來，TIP的數據又源于三個全國性考試：SAT，EXPLORE及ACT。 Altogether, Dr Wai, Dr Putallaz and Dr Makel looked at data from 1.7m children. 維博士，普塔拉茲博士和馬可博士一起查看了170萬兒童的數據。 Those data spanned the years between 1981 and 2010. 這些數據介于1981年到2010年之間。 In the general population boys are well known to do a bit better than girls in maths. 在普通人群中，普遍認為男孩的數學要比女孩好一點。 Girls, in turn, edge out boys on tests of verbal reasoning. 而反過來，女孩在文字推理的測試上比男孩略勝一籌。 The result is similar overall IQ scores. 在智商上的比較結果也大體類似。 Among the best young mathematical brains, however, that equality does not pertain. 然而，這些最聰明的年輕數學天才里并無平等可言。 Here, boys do a lot better at maths than girlsbut less better than they used to, as theresearchers discovered. 研究人員發現，在這里面，男孩在數學上要比女孩好得多，但差距要比以前小一些。 In the early 1980s, the ratio of males to females in the top 0.01% of maths scores in SAT, theScholastic Aptitude Test, was around 13 to 1. 在上世紀80年代早期，學術能力評估測試的數學成績前0.01%的人數中，男女比例約為13比1。 By the early 1990s it had fallen to four to one. 到了上世紀90年代早期，這一比例降到4比1。 After this, however, it remained obstinately unaltered. 然而此后該數字便停滯不前了。 The other two tests, both of which post-date the period in which the SAT shows those hugechanges, indicate less lopsided sex ratios of between two and three to one. 在SAT出現上述巨大變化的時期之后，另外兩個考試的男女比例均在3比1到2比1之間，性別傾向性更低。 But neither shows girls making much recent progress towards equality. 但兩個都未顯示出女孩最近向平等邁出多大步伐。 Nurturing talent 培養天資 This study is not perfect. Its most interesting result rests on data from just one of the threesets of exams it looked at and its sample sizes are, necessarily, small. 以上研究并不完美。他們查看了三個考試的數據，但其最引人關注的結果所依賴的數據僅來自中一個考試，樣本規模肯定不夠大。 But it chimes with the findings of a much older investigation, carried out in 1983 by a group ofresearchers at Johns Hopkins University, which also discovered a male-to-female sex ratio of13:1 among the most able young mathematicians. 但其結論與很早之前的一份調查結果一致，該調查是由約翰霍普金斯的一組研究人員在1983年進行的，發現在最有天賦的年輕數學家里，男女比例也是13比1。 Why a dramatic rise in the aptitude of America s brightest young female mathematiciansshould then be followed by two decades of stagnation is not obvious, and, not beingexperts in mine-clearance, the researchers offer no hypothesis. 美國最聰明的年輕女數學家的天資為何在飛速提升后，又經歷了20年的停滯期，答案并未交代清楚，研究人員也并非掃雷專家，沒有提出任何假說。 It is clear that the rise itself must be nurture of some sortpossibly a change in teachers attitudes towards girls who are interested in mathsbut the subsequent stasis could haveeither explanation. 很明顯，這種提升本身肯定是某種后天培養造成的 可能是教師對待對數學感興趣的女孩態度上的轉變但是隨后的停滯用天賦與后天培養都能解釋。 A line of reasoning in favour of nature is that put forward by Simon Baron-Cohen, apsychologist at Cambridge University. 劍橋大學的心理學家西蒙?拜倫-科恩提出了一條的推論，支持天賦論。 This connects the extreme systematising patterns of thought which make a goodmathematician with the preponderance of men among those with Asperger s syndrome, aform of autism that does not harm a person s general intelligence. 這條推論將極高系統化思維模式與艾斯伯格綜合癥患者中男性占多數兩者聯系起來。 But the disparity could equally well be the result of some as-yet-unelucidated differencebetween the ways girls and boys are brought up. 而在撫養女孩和男孩的過程中一些至今仍無法言表的差別同樣可能造成這種數量上的不同。 The nature of the beast 野獸的本性 That such unelucidated environmental influences can have real effects on IQ is eloquentlyillustrated by the Flynn effect. 弗林效應有力的闡明了這種無法言表的環境影響對智商是有實際影響的。 This phenomenon, brought to the world s attention in the 1980s by James Flynn of theUniversity of Otago, in New Zealand, is that average IQs around the world have been rising atthe rate of 0.3 points a year for the past eight decades. 上世紀八十年代，新西蘭奧塔哥大學的詹姆斯福林讓這一現象受到了全世界的關注，這一現象是：在過去的八十年里，世界的平均智商每年增加0.3。 Using the TIP data, Dr Wai and his colleagues showed that this is as true of the brightestyoungsters in American society as it is of lesser mortals, suggesting that even they can havetheir abilities boosted by whatever is causing the Flynn effect. 通過TIP數據，維博士及其同事指出，弗林效應適用于差一點的普通人，也同樣適用于美國社會中最聰明的年輕人，他們實際上也會受到造成弗林效應的因素的影響，水平得到提升。 Once again, the changes seem to be mainly in mathematics. 又一次，這些變化似乎主要體現在數學上。 Scores in the brightest children s verbal-reasoning and reading abilities demonstrate noclear trend, but all three national tests show sustained improvements in their mathematicalability over the past three decades. 最聰明的孩子的文字推理和閱讀能力的成績并未出現一個明顯的趨勢，但是在過去的三十年里，他們的數學能力在三個全國性考試中都顯示出持續的進步。 No one knows what causes the Flynn effect. 沒人知道是什么造成了弗林效應。 Theories range from better nutrition, via a more stimulating general environment, tothe phasing out of lead in petrol and paint. 關于弗林效應誘因的理論有許多，從更好的營養，到更具刺激性的總體環境，再到汽油和涂料中逐步停止鉛的使用。 What is clear is that it cannot be a change in gene-given ability, which is what most peoplemean by nature in this debate, because too few generations have passed for naturalselection to have had any meaningful impact. 但可以明確的是，這不會是一種基因賦予的能力上的變化，這種能力也就是這場爭論中大多數人所指的天賦，因為沒有哪代人在經過自然選擇后，天賦受到什么具有實際意義的影響。 詞語解釋 1.in particular 尤其， 特別 Progress is needed in three areas in particular. 尤其需要在三個方面取得進展。 Unemployment in particular has risen less thanonce seemed likely. 特別是失業率的增速似乎可能有所放緩。 2.speak of 說起 The lyrics and imagery speak of over-fishing, deforestation, and smog. 歌詞和比喻談到了過度捕撈、濫伐樹木和煙霧。 Some israeli politicians speak of another objective: to show ordinary palestinians that hamasis the obstacle to peace and prosperity. 有些以色列政客說到了另一個目標：向普通巴勒斯坦人證明哈馬斯是和平與繁榮的障礙。 3.as well as 既又除之外 That implies criticism as well as support. 這句話暗示著夫妻間的相互支持以及相互批評。 We continue to service customers as well as advertisers. 我們將繼續向客戶和廣告商提供服務。 4.in turn 依次; 輪流地 Let us consider each of these points in turn. 那就讓我們依次分析一下這幾點。 This in turn pushed share prices higher. 這轉而推動股價進一步走高。
