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TED英文演讲稿3篇

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TED,是美国的一家私有非盈利机构,该机构以它组织的TED大会著称,而TED演讲集涉及范围广泛,主要有科技、娱乐、设计、商业以及科学。TED英文演讲稿有哪些?本站小编为大家整理了TED英文演讲稿3篇,欢迎大家阅读。

TED英文演讲稿3篇
  TED英文演讲稿篇1

What fear can teach us

恐惧可以教会我们什么

One day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of Chile, in one of the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean, 20 American sailors watched their ship flood with seawater.

1819年的某一天, 在距离智利海岸3000英里的地方, 有一个太平洋上的最偏远的水域, 20名美国船员目睹了他们的船只进水的场面。

They'd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic hole in the ship's hull. As their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the men huddled together in three small whaleboats.

他们和一头抹香鲸相撞,给船体撞了 一个毁灭性的大洞。 当船在巨浪中开始沉没时, 人们在三条救生小艇中抱作一团。

These men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest scrap of land. In their small boats, they carried only rudimentary navigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water.

这些人在离家10000万英里的地方, 离最近的陆地也超过1000英里。 在他们的小艇中,他们只带了 落后的导航设备 和有限的食物和饮水。

These were the men of the whaleship Essex, whose story would later inspire parts of "Moby Dick."

他们就是捕鲸船ESSEX上的人们, 后来的他们的故事成为《白鲸记》的一部分。

Even in today's world, their situation would be really dire, but think about how much worse it would have been then.

即使在当今的世界,碰上这种情况也够杯具的,更不用说在当时的情况有多糟糕。

No one on land had any idea that anything had gone wrong. No search party was coming to look for these men. So most of us have never experienced a situation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves, but we all know what it's like to be afraid.

岸上的人根本就还没意识到出了什么问题。 没有任何人来搜寻他们。 我们当中大部分人没有经历过 这些船员所处的可怕情景, 但我们都知道害怕是什么感觉。

We know how fear feels, but I'm not sure we spend enough time thinking about what our fears mean.

我们知道恐惧的感觉, 但是我不能肯定我们会花很多时间想过 我们的恐惧到底意味着什么。

As we grow up, we're often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates.

我们长大以后,我们总是会被鼓励把恐惧 视为软弱,需要像乳牙或轮滑鞋一样 扔掉的幼稚的东西。

And I think it's no accident that we think this way. Neuroscientists have actually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists.

我想意外事故并非我们所想的那样。 神经系统科学家已经知道人类 生来就是乐观主义者。

So maybe that's why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and of itself. "Don't worry," we like to say to one another. "Don't panic." In English, fear is something we conquer. It's something we fight.

这也许就是为什么我们认为有时候恐惧, 本身就是一种危险或带来危险。 “不要愁。”我们总是对别人说。“不要慌”。 英语中,恐惧是我们需要征服的东西。 是我们必须对抗的东西,是我们必须克服的东西。

It's something we overcome. But what if we looked at fear in a fresh way? What if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something that can be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?

但是我们如果换个视角看恐惧会如何呢? 如果我们把恐惧当做是想象力的一个惊人成果, 是和我们讲故事一样 精妙而有见地的东西,又会如何呢?

It's easiest to see this link between fear and the imagination in young children, whose fears are often extraordinarily vivid.

在小孩子当中,我们最容易看到恐惧与想象之间的联系, 他们的恐惧经常是超级生动的。

When I was a child, I lived in California, which is, you know, mostly a very nice place to live, but for me as a child, California could also be a little scary.

我小时候住在加利福尼亚, 你们都知道,是非常适合居住的位置, 但是对一个小孩来说,加利福尼亚也会有点吓人。

I remember how frightening it was to see the chandelier that hung above our dining table swing back and forth during every minor earthquake, and I sometimes couldn't sleep at night, terrified that the Big One might strike while we were sleeping.

我记得每次小地震的时候 当我看到我们餐桌上的吊灯 晃来晃去的时候是多么的吓人, 我经常会彻夜难眠,担心大地震 会在我们睡觉的时候突然袭来。

And what we say about kids who have fears like that is that they have a vivid imagination. But at a certain point, most of us learn to leave these kinds of visions behind and grow up.

我们说小孩子感受到这种恐惧 是因为他们有生动的想象力。 但是在某个时候,我们大多数学会了 抛弃这种想法而变得成熟。

We learn that there are no monsters hiding under the bed, and not every earthquake brings buildings down. But maybe it's no coincidence that some of our most creative minds fail to leave these kinds of fears behind as adults.

我们都知道床下没有魔鬼, 也不是每个地震都会震垮房子。但是我们当中最有想象力的人们 并没有因为成年而抛弃这种恐惧,这也许并不是巧合。

The same incredible imaginations that produced "The Origin of Species," "Jane Eyre" and "The Remembrance of Things Past," also generated intense worries that haunted the adult lives of Charles Darwin, Charlotte BrontĂŤ and Marcel Proust. So the question is, what can the rest of us learn about fear from visionaries and young children?

同样不可思议的想象力创造了《物种起源》, 《简·爱》和《追忆似水年华》, 也就是这种与生俱来的深深的担忧一直缠绕着成年的 查尔斯·达尔文, 夏洛特·勃朗特和马塞尔·普罗斯特。 问题就来了, 我们其他人如何能从这些 梦想家和小孩子身上学会恐惧?

Well let's return to the year 1819 for a moment, to the situation facing the crew of the whaleship Essex. Let's take a look at the fears that their imaginations were generating as they drifted in the middle of the Pacific.

让我们暂时回到1819年, 回到ESSEX捕鲸船的水手们面对的情况。 让我们看看他们漂流在太平洋中央时 他们的想象力给他们带来的恐惧感觉。

Twenty-four hours had now passed since the capsizing of the ship. The time had come for the men to make a plan, but they had very few options.

船倾覆后已经过了24个小时。 这时人们制定了一个计划, 但是其实他们没什么太多的选择。

In his fascinating account of the disaster, Nathaniel Philbrick wrote that these men were just about as far from land as it was possible to be anywhere on Earth.

在纳撒尼尔·菲尔布里克(Nathaniel Philbrick)描述这场灾难的 动人文章中,他写到“这些人离陆地如此之远, 似乎永远都不可能到达地球上的任何一块陆地。”

The men knew that the nearest islands they could reach were the Marquesas Islands, 1,200 miles away. But they'd heard some frightening rumors.

这些人知道离他们最近的岛 是1200英里以外的马克萨斯群岛(Marquesas Islands)。 但是他们听到了让人恐怖的谣言。

They'd been told that these islands, and several others nearby, were populated by cannibals. So the men pictured coming ashore only to be murdered and eaten for dinner. Another possible destination was Hawaii, but given the season, the captain was afraid they'd be struck by severe storms.

他们听说这些群岛, 以及附近的一些岛屿上都住着食人族。 所以他们脑中都是上岸以后就会被杀掉 被人当做盘中餐的画面。 另一个可行的目的地是夏威夷, 但是船长担心 他们会被困在风暴当中。

Now the last option was the longest, and the most difficult: to sail 1,500 miles due south in hopes of reaching a certain band of winds that could eventually push them toward the coast of South America.

所以最后的选择是到最远,也是最艰险的地方: 往南走1500英里希望某股风 能最终把他们 吹到南美洲的海岸。

But they knew that the sheer length of this journey would stretch their supplies of food and water. To be eaten by cannibals, to be battered by storms, to starve to death before reaching land.

但是他们知道这个行程中一旦偏航 将会耗尽他们食物和饮水的供给。 被食人族吃掉,被风暴掀翻, 在登陆前饿死。

These were the fears that danced in the imaginations of these poor men, and as it turned out, the fear they chose to listen to would govern whether they lived or died.

这就是萦绕在这群可怜的人想象中的恐惧, 事实证明,他们选择听从的恐惧 将决定他们的生死。

Now we might just as easily call these fears by a different name. What if instead of calling them fears, we called them stories?

也许我们可以很容易的用别的名称来称呼这些恐惧。 我们不称之为恐惧, 而是称它们为故事如何?

Because that's really what fear is, if you think about it. It's a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. And fears and storytelling have the same components.

如果你仔细想想,这是恐惧真正的意义。 这是一种与生俱来的, 无意识的讲故事的能力。 恐惧和讲故事有着同样的构成。

They have the same architecture. Like all stories, fears have characters. In our fears, the characters are us. Fears also have plots. They have beginnings and middles and ends. You board the plane.

他们有同样的结构。 如同所有的故事,恐惧中有角色。 在恐惧中,角色就是我们自己。 恐惧也有情节。他们有开头,有中间,有结尾。 你登上飞机。

The plane takes off. The engine fails. Our fears also tend to contain imagery that can be every bit as vivid as what you might find in the pages of a novel. Picture a cannibal, human teeth sinking into human skin, human flesh roasting over a fire.

飞机起飞。结果引擎故障。 我们的恐惧会包括各种生动的想象, 不比你看到的任何一个小说逊色。 想象食人族,人类牙齿 咬在人类皮肤上, 人肉在火上烤。

Fears also have suspense. If I've done my job as a storyteller today, you should be wondering what happened to the men of the whaleship Essex. Our fears provoke in us a very similar form of suspense.

恐惧中也有悬念。 如果我今天像讲故事一样,留个悬念不说了, 你们也许会很想知道 ESSEX捕鲸船上,人们到底怎么样了。 我们的恐惧用悬念一样的方式刺激我们。

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

就像一个很好的故事,我们的恐惧也如同一部好的文学作品一样, 将我们的注意力集中在对我们生命至关重要的问题上: 后来发生了什么?

In other words, our fears make us think about the future. And humans, by the way, are the only creatures capable of thinking about the future in this way, of projecting ourselves forward in time, and this mental time travel is just one more thing that fears have in common with storytelling.

换而言之,我们的恐惧让我们想到未来。 另外,人来是唯一有能力 通过这种方式想到未来的生物, 就是预测时间推移后我们的状况, 这种精神上的时间旅行是恐惧 与讲故事的另一个共同点。

As a writer, I can tell you that a big part of writing fiction is learning to predict how one event in a story will affect all the other events, and fear works in that same way.

我是一个作家,我要告诉你们写小说一个很重要的部分 就是学会预测故事中一件 事情如何影响另一件事情, 恐惧也是同样这么做的。

In fear, just like in fiction, one thing always leads to another. When I was writing my first novel, "The Age Of Miracles," I spent months trying to figure out what would happen if the rotation of the Earth suddenly began to slow down. What would happen to our days?

恐惧中,如同小说一样,一件事情总是导致另一件事情。 我写我的第一部小说《奇迹时代》的时候, 我花了数月的时间想象如果地球旋转突然变慢了之后 会发生什么。 我们的一天变得如何?

What would happen to our crops? What would happen to our minds? And then it was only later that I realized how very similar these questions were to the ones I used to ask myself as a child frightened in the night.

我们身体会怎样? 我们的思想会有什么变化? 也就是在那之后,我意识到 我过去总是问自己的那些些问题 和孩子们在夜里害怕是多么的相像。

If an earthquake strikes tonight, I used to worry, what will happen to our house? What will happen to my family? And the answer to those questions always took the form of a story.

要是在过去,如果今晚发生地震,我会很担心, 我的房子会怎么样啊?家里人会怎样啊? 这类问题的答案通常都会和故事一样。

So if we think of our fears as more than just fears but as stories, we should think of ourselves as the authors of those stories. But just as importantly, we need to think of ourselves as the readers of our fears, and how we choose to read our fears can have a profound effect on our lives.

所以我们认为我们的恐惧不仅仅是恐惧 还是故事,我们应该把自己当作 这些故事的作者。 但是同样重要的是,我们需要想象我们自己 是我们恐惧的解读者,我们选择如何 去解读这些恐惧会对我们的生活产生深远的影响。

Now, some of us naturally read our fears more closely than others. I read about a study recently of successful entrepreneurs, and the author found that these people shared a habit that he called "productive paranoia," which meant that these people, instead of dismissing their fears, these people read them closely, they studied them, and then they translated that fear into preparation and action.

现在,我们中有些人比其他人更自然的解读自己的恐惧。 最近我看过一个关于成功的企业家的研究, 作者发现这些人都有个习惯 叫做“未雨绸缪“, 意思是,这些人,不回避自己的恐惧, 而是认真解读并研究恐惧, 然后把恐惧转换成准备和行动。

So that way, if their worst fears came true, their businesses were ready.

这样,如果最坏的事情发生了, 他们的企业也有所准备。

And sometimes, of course, our worst fears do come true. That's one of the things that is so extraordinary about fear. Once in a while, our fears can predict the future.

当然,很多时候,最坏的事情确实发生了。 这是恐惧非凡的一面。 曾几何时,我们的恐惧预测将来。

But we can't possibly prepare for all of the fears that our imaginations concoct. So how can we tell the difference between the fears worth listening to and all the others? I think the end of the story of the whaleship Essex offers an illuminating, if tragic, example.

但是我们不可能为我们想象力构建的所有 恐惧来做准备。 所以,如何区分值得听从的恐惧 和不值得的呢? 我想捕鲸船ESSEX的故事结局 提供了一个有启发性,同时又悲惨的例子。

After much deliberation, the men finally made a decision. Terrified of cannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on the longer and much more difficult route to South America.

经过数次权衡,他们最终做出了决定。 由于害怕食人族,他们决定放弃最近的群岛 而是开始更长 更艰难的南美洲之旅。

After more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knew they might, and they were still quite far from land. When the last of the survivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the men were left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form of cannibalism.

在海上呆了两个多月后,他们 的食物如预料之中消耗殆尽, 而且他们仍然离陆地那么远。 当最后的幸存者最终被过往船只救起时, 只有一小半的人还活着, 实际上他们中的一些人自己变成了食人族。

Herman Melville, who used this story as research for "Moby Dick," wrote years later, and from dry land, quote, "All the sufferings of these miserable men of the Essex might in all human probability have been avoided had they, immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight for Tahiti.

赫尔曼·梅尔维尔(Herman Melville)将这个故事作为 《白鲸记》的素材,在数年后写到: ESSEX船上遇难者的悲惨结局 或许是可以通过人为的努力避免的, 如果他们当机立断地离开沉船, 直奔塔西提群岛。

But," as Melville put it, "they dreaded cannibals." So the question is, why did these men dread cannibals so much more than the extreme likelihood of starvation?

“但是”,梅尔维尔说道:“他们害怕食人族” 问题是,为什么这些人对于食人族的恐惧 超过了更有可能的饥饿威胁呢?

Why were they swayed by one story so much more than the other? Looked at from this angle, theirs becomes a story about reading. The novelist Vladimir Nabokov said that the best reader has a combination of two very different temperaments, the artistic and the scientific.

为什么他们会被一个故事 影响如此之大呢? 从另一个角度来看, 这是一个关于解读的故事。 小说家弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫(Vladimir Nabokov)说 最好的读者能把两种截然不同的性格结合起来, 一个是艺术气质,一个是科学精神。

A good reader has an artist's passion, a willingness to get caught up in the story, but just as importantly, the readers also needs the coolness of judgment of a scientist, which acts to temper and complicate the reader's intuitive reactions to the story. As we've seen, the men of the Essex had no trouble with the artistic part.

好的读者有艺术家的热情, 愿意融入故事当中, 但是同样重要的是,这些读者还要 有科学家的冷静判断, 这能帮助他们稳定情绪并分析 其对故事的直觉反应。 我们可以看出来,ESSEX上的人在艺术部分一点问题都没有。

They dreamed up a variety of horrifying scenarios. The problem was that they listened to the wrong story. Of all the narratives their fears wrote, they responded only to the most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest for their imaginations to picture: cannibals.

他们梦想到一系列恐怖的场景。 问题在于他们听从了一个错误的故事。 所有他们恐惧中 他们只对其中最耸人听闻,最生动的故事, 也是他们想象中最早出现的场景: 食人族。

But perhaps if they'd been able to read their fears more like a scientist, with more coolness of judgment, they would have listened instead to the less violent but the more likely tale, the story of starvation, and headed for Tahiti, just as Melville's sad commentary suggests.

也许,如果他们能像科学家那样 稍微冷静一点解读这个故事, 如果他们能听从不太惊悚但是更可能发生的 半路饿死的故事,他们可能就会直奔塔西提群岛, 如梅尔维尔充满惋惜的评论所建议的那样。

And maybe if we all tried to read our fears, we too would be less often swayed by the most salacious among them.

也许如果我们都试着解读自己的恐惧, 我们就能少被 其中的一些幻象所迷惑。

Maybe then we'd spend less time worrying about serial killers and plane crashes, and more time concerned with the subtler and slower disasters we face: the silent buildup of plaque in our arteries, the gradual changes in our climate.

我们也就能少花一点时间在 为系列杀手或者飞机失事方面的担忧, 而是更多的关心那些悄然而至 的灾难: 动脉血小板的逐渐堆积, 气候的逐渐变迁。

Just as the most nuanced stories in literature are often the richest, so too might our subtlest fears be the truest. Read in the right way, our fears are an amazing gift of the imagination, a kind of everyday clairvoyance, a way of glimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to influence how that future will play out.

如同文学中最精妙的故事通常是最丰富的故事, 我们最细微的恐惧才是最真实的恐惧。 用正确的方法的解读,我们的恐惧就是我们想象力 赐给我们的礼物,借此一双慧眼, 让我们能管窥未来 甚至影响未来。

Properly read, our fears can offer us something as precious as our favorite works of literature: a little wisdom, a bit of insight and a version of that most elusive thing -- the truth. Thank you.

如果能得到正确的解读,我们的恐惧能 和我们最喜欢的文学作品一样给我们珍贵的东西: 一点点智慧,一点点洞悉 以及对最玄妙东西—— 真相的诠释。 谢谢。

(Applause)

(掌声)

  TED英文演讲稿篇2

犯错的价值

每个人都会避免犯错,但或许避免犯错本身就是一种错误?请看以下这篇“犯错家“凯瑟琳舒尔茨告诉我们,或许我们不只该承认错误,更应该大力拥抱人性中“我错故我在“的本质。

So it's 1995, I'm in college, and a friend and I go on a road trip from Providence, Rhode Island to Portland, Oregon.

当时是95年 我在上大学 我和一个朋友开车去玩 从罗得岛的普罗旺斯区出发 到奥勒冈州的波特兰市

And you know, we're young and unemployed, so we do the whole thing on back roads through state parks and national forests -- basically the longest route we can possibly take.

我们年轻、无业 ,于是整个旅程都在乡间小道 经过州立公园 和国家保护森林 我们尽可能绕着最长的路径

And somewhere in the middle of South Dakota, I turn to my friend and I ask her a question that's been bothering me for 2,000 miles.

在南达科塔州之中某处 我转向我的朋友 问她一个 两千英里路途上 一直烦恼我的问题

"What's up with the Chinese character I keep seeing by the side of the road?"

"路边那个一直出现的中文字到底是什么?"

My friend looks at me totally blankly.

我的朋友露出疑惑的神情

There's actually a gentleman in the front row who's doing a perfect imitation of her look.

正如现在坐在第一排的这三位男士 所露出的神情一样

(Laughter) And I'm like, "You know, all the signs we keep seeing with the Chinese character on them."

(笑声) 我说"你知道的 我们一直看到的那个路牌 写着中文的那个啊"

She just stares at me for a few moments, and then she cracks up, because she figures out what I'm talking about.

她瞪着我的脸一阵子 突然笑开了 因为她总算知道我所指为何

And what I'm talking about is this.

我说的是这个

(Laughter) Right, the famous Chinese character for picnic area.

(笑声) 没错,这就是代表野餐区的那个中文字

(Laughter) I've spent the last five years of my life thinking about situations exactly like this -- why we sometimes misunderstand the signs around us,

(笑声) 过去的五年 我一直在思考 刚刚我所描述的状况 为什么我们会对身边的征兆 产生误解

and how we behave when that happens, and what all of this can tell us about human nature.

当误解发生时我们作何反应 以及这一切所告诉我们的人性

In other words, as you heard Chris say, I've spent the last five years thinking about being wrong.

换句话说,就像 Chris 刚才说的 过去五年的时间 我都在思考错误的价值

This might strike you as a strange career move, but it actually has one great advantage: no job competition.

你可能觉得这是个奇异的专业 但有一项好处是不容置疑的: 没有竞争者。

(Laughter) In fact, most of us do everything we can to avoid thinking about being wrong, or at least to avoid thinking about the possibility that we ourselves are wrong.

(笑声) 事实上,我们大部分的人 都尽力不思考错误的价值 或至少避免想到我们有可能犯错。

We get it in the abstract.

我们都知道这个模糊的概念。

We all know everybody in this room makes mistakes.

我们都知道这里的每个人都曾经犯错

The human species, in general, is fallible -- okay fine.

人类本来就会犯错 - 没问题

But when it comes down to me right now, to all the beliefs I hold, here in the present tense, suddenly all of this abstract appreciation of fallibility  goes out the window -- and I can't actually think of anything I'm wrong about.

一旦这个想法临到我们自身 我们现在所有的 所有的信念 对人类可能犯错的抽象概念随即被我们抛弃 我无法想到我有哪里出错

And the thing is, the present tense is where we live.

但是,我们活在现在

We go to meetings in the present tense; we go on family vacations in the present tense; we go to the polls and vote in the present tense.

我们开会,去家庭旅游 去投票 全都是现在式

So effectively, we all kind of wind up traveling through life, trapped in this little bubble of feeling very right about everything.

我们就像现在一个小泡泡里 经历人生 感觉自己总是对的

I think this is a problem.

我认为这是个问题

I think it's a problem for each of us as individuals, in our personal and professional lives, and I think it's a problem for all of us collectively as a culture.

我认为这是每个人私人生活 和职业生活中的问题 我认为我们身为群体,这也造成了文化问题

So what I want to do today is, first of all, talk about why we get stuck inside this feeling of being right.

于是,我今天想做的是 先谈谈为甚么我们会 陷在这种自以为是的心态中

And second, why it's such a problem.

第二是为甚么这是个问题

And finally, I want to convince you that it is possible to step outside of that feeling, and that, if you can do so, it is the single greatest

最后我想说服大家 克服这种感觉 是可能的 而且一旦你做到了 这将成为你道德上

moral, intellectual and creative leap you can make.

智性上和创意上最大的进步

So why do we get stuck in this feeling of being right?

为甚么我们会陷在 这种自以为是的心态中?

One reason actually has to do with a feeling of being wrong.

事实上这和犯错的感觉有关

So let me ask you guys something -- or actually, let me ask you guys something, because you're right here: How does it feel -- emotionally --

我想问问你们 让我问问台上的你们 当你意识到自己犯错了

how does it feel to be wrong?

你感觉如何?

Dreadful. Thumbs down.

糟透了。很差劲。

Embarrassing. Okay, wonderful, good.

难堪。很好,是的。

Dreadful, thumbs down, embarrassing -- thank you, these are great answers, but they're answers to a different question.

很糟糕,很差劲,很难堪。 谢谢你们提供这些答案 但这些答案没有回答我的问题

You guys are answering the question: How does it feel to realize you're wrong?

你们回答的问题是: 当你意识到你犯错的时候,你的感觉如何?

(Laughter) Realizing you're wrong can feel like all of that and a lot of other things, right?

(笑声) 意识到你犯错了就会有刚刚所说的这些感觉,不是吗?

I mean it can be devastating, it can be revelatory, it can actually be quite funny, like my stupid Chinese character mistake.

令人沮丧,暴露了一些真实 有时候甚至有些好笑 像我误以为路牌是中文字

But just being wrong doesn't feel like anything.

但犯错本身 事实上毫无感觉

I'll give you an analogy.

让我给你一个例子

Do you remember that Loony Tunes cartoon where there's this pathetic coyote who's always chasing and never catching a roadrunner?

你记得卡通里 那个总是在追逐 却从未抓到猎物的土狼吗?

In pretty much every episode of this cartoon, there's a moment where the coyote is chasing the roadrunner and the roadrunner runs off a cliff,

几乎在每一集里 牠的猎物 - 一只走鹃鸟 都会跳下悬崖

which is fine, he's a bird, he can fly.

反正牠是鸟,牠可以飞

But the thing is, the coyote runs off the cliff right after him.

但土狼也会跟着牠一起跳崖

And what's funny -- at least if you're six years old -- is that the coyote's totally fine too.

那很好笑 如果你是个六岁儿童 土狼也很好

He just keeps running -- right up until the moment that he looks down and realizes that he's in mid-air.

牠就这么继续跑 直到牠往下看 发现自己漫步在空中

That's when he falls.

这时候他才会往下掉

When we're wrong about something -- not when we realize it, but before that -- we're like that coyote after he's gone off the cliff and before he looks down.

在我们犯错时 在我们意识到我们犯错时 我们就像那只土狼 还没意识到自己奔出悬崖

You know, we're already wrong, we're already in trouble, but we feel like we're on solid ground.

我们已经错了 已经惹上麻烦了 但仍然感觉像走在地上

So I should actually correct something I said a moment ago.

我应该改变我之前的说法

It does feel like something to be wrong; it feels like being right.

犯错的感觉就和 正确的感觉一样

(Laughter) So this is one reason, a structural reason, why we get stuck inside this feeling of rightness.

(笑声) 事实上我们这种自以为对的感受 是有构造性的原因的

I call this error blindness.

我称之为错误盲点

Most of the time, we don't have any kind of internal cue to let us know that we're wrong about something, until it's too late.

大部份的时间里 我们身体里没有任何机制 提醒我们错了 直到木已成舟

But there's a second reason that we get stuck inside this feeling as well -- and this one is cultural.

但还有第二个理由 文化性的理由

Think back for a moment to elementary school.

回想小学时代

You're sitting there in class, and your teacher is handing back quiz papers, and one of them looks like this.

你坐在课堂里 你的老师发回小考考卷 像这样的小考考卷

This is not mine, by the way.

虽然这张不是我的

(Laughter) So there you are in grade school, and you know exactly what to think about the kid who got this paper.

(笑声) 你从小学时代 就知道该对拿这张考卷的同学 下甚么评语

It's the dumb kid, the troublemaker, the one who never does his homework.

笨蛋,捣蛋鬼 从不做功课的坏学生

So by the time you are nine years old, you've already learned, first of all, that people who get stuff wrong are lazy, irresponsible dimwits --

你不过才九岁 你已经懂得,首先 那些犯错的人 都是懒惰、不负责任的傻瓜

and second of all, that the way to succeed in life is to never make any mistakes.

第二 想要在人生中成功 就不要犯错

We learn these really bad lessons really well.

我们很早就得到这些错误讯息

And a lot of us -- and I suspect, especially a lot of us in this room -- deal with them by just becoming perfect little A students,

而我们 尤其是这个大厅里的许多人 都因此成为好学生 拿全A

perfectionists, over-achievers.

完美主义、永不满意

Right, Mr. CFO, astrophysicist, ultra-marathoner?

不是吗? 财务长、天体物理学家、超级马拉松先生们?

(Laughter) You're all CFO, astrophysicists, ultra-marathoners, it turns out.

(笑声) 结果是你们全成了财务长、天体物理学家、跑超级马拉松

Okay, so fine.

那很好

Except that then we freak out at the possibility that we've gotten something wrong.

但一旦我们发现有可能犯错 就开始手足无措

Because according to this, getting something wrong means there's something wrong with us.

因为依照规定 犯错 代表我们一定也有甚么不对劲

So we just insist that we're right, because it makes us feel smart and responsible and virtuous and safe.

于是我们坚持己见 因为那让我们感觉聪明、得体 安全和可靠

So let me tell you a story.

让我告诉你们一个故事

A couple of years ago, a woman comes into Beth Israel Deaconess medical center for a surgery.

几年前 一个女人到 Beth Israel Deaconess 诊所做手术

Beth Israel's in Boston.

Beth Israel 在波士顿

It's the teaching hospital for Harvard -- one of the best hospitals in the country.

是哈佛大学的教学附属医院 全国数一数二的医疗中心

So this woman comes in and she's taken into the operating room.

这个女人被送进开刀房

She's anesthetized, the surgeon does his thing -- stitches her back up, sends her out to the recovery room.

麻醉,外科医生做完手术 缝合,将她送进恢复室

Everything seems to have gone fine.

一切看上去都很好

And she wakes up, and she looks down at herself, and she says, "Why is the wrong side of my body in bandages?"

她醒来,往自己身上一看 说“为甚么我的左腿绑着绷带?”

Well the wrong side of her body is in bandages because the surgeon has performed a major operation on her left leg instead of her right one.

她应该接受治疗的是右腿 但为他做手术的外科医生 却把刀开在左腿

When the vice president for health care quality at Beth Israel spoke about this incident, he said something very interesting.

当副院长出来为医院的医疗质量 和这次意外做出解释时 他说了句很有趣的话

He said, "For whatever reason, the surgeon simply felt that he was on the correct side of the patient."

他说“无论如何 这位外科医生感觉 他开下的刀是在正确的一侧”

(Laughter) The point of this story is that trusting too much in the feeling of being on the correct side of anything can be very dangerous.

(笑声) 故事的重点是 相信自己的判断力 相信自己站在对的一边 是非常危险的

This internal sense of rightness that we all experience so often is not a reliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world.

我们心中时常感觉到的 理直气壮的感觉 在真实世界中 并不是个可靠的向导。

And when we act like it is, and we stop entertaining the possibility that we could be wrong, well that's when we end up doing things

当我们依此行事 不再思考我们是否犯错 我们就有可能

dumping 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, or torpedoing the global economy.

把两百湾加仑的石油倒进墨西哥湾 或是颠覆世界经济

So this is a huge practical problem.

这是个很实际的问题

But it's also a huge social problem.

这也是个很大的社会问题

Think for a moment about what it means to feel right.

“感觉对”究竟是什么意思

It means that you think that your beliefs just perfectly reflect reality.

这代表着你认为你的信念 和真实是一致的

And when you feel that way, you've got a problem to solve, which is, how are you going to explain all of those people who disagree with you?

当你有这种感觉的时候 你的问题就大了 因为如果你是对的 为甚么还有人和你持不同意见?

It turns out, most of us explain those people the same way, by resorting to a series of unfortunate assumptions.

于是我们往往用同一种 思考方式去解释这些异议

The first thing we usually do when someone disagrees with us is we just assume they're ignorant.

第一是当他人不同意我们的说法 我们便觉得他们无知

They don't have access to the same information that we do, and when we generously share that information with them, they're going to see the light and come on over to our team.

他们不像我们懂得这么多 当我们慷慨地和他们分享我们的知识 他们便会理解,并加入我们的行列

When that doesn't work, when it turns out those people have all the same facts that we do and they still disagree with us, then we move on to a second assumption,

如果不是这样 如果这些人和我们获得的信息一样多 却仍然不认同我们 我们便有了下一个定论

which is that they're idiots.

那就是他们是白痴

(Laughter) They have all the right pieces of the puzzle, and they are too moronic to put them together correctly.

(笑声) 他们已经有了所有的信息 却笨到无法拼凑出正确的图像

And when that doesn't work, when it turns out that people who disagree with us have all the same facts we do and are actually pretty smart,

一旦第二个定论也不成立 当这些反对我们的人 和我们有一样的信息 又聪明

then we move on to a third assumption: they know the truth, and they are deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes.

我们便有了第三个结论 他们知道事实是甚么 但却为了自己的好处 故意曲解真实。

So this is a catastrophe.

这真是个大灾难

This attachment to our own rightness keeps us from preventing mistakes when we absolutely need to and causes us to treat each other terribly.

我们的自以为是 让我们在最需要的时候 无法预防犯错 更让我们互相仇视

to me, what's most baffling and most tragic about this is that it misses the whole point of being human.

对我来说 最大的悲剧是 它让我们错失了身为人的珍贵意义

It's like we want to imagine that our minds are just these perfectly translucent windows and we just gaze out of them and describe the world as it unfolds.

那就像是想象 我们的心灵之窗完全透明 我们向外观看 描述在我们之前展开的世界

And we want everybody else to gaze out of the same window and see the exact same thing.

我们想要每个人和我们有一样的窗子 对世界做出一样的观察

That is not true, and if it were, life would be incredibly boring.

那不是真的 如果是,人生将会多么无聊

The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see the world as it is.

心灵的神奇之处 不在你懂得这个世界是甚么样子

It's that you can see the world as it isn't.

而是去理解那些你不懂的地方

We can remember the past, and we can think about the future, and we can imagine what it's like to be some other person in some other place.

我们记得过去 思考未来 我们想象 自己成为他人,在他方

And we all do this a little differently, which is why we can all look up at the same night sky and see this and also this and also this.

我们的想象都有些不同 于是当我们抬头看同一个夜空 我们看到这个 这个 和这个

And yeah, it is also why we get things wrong.

这也是我们搞错事情的原因

1,200 years before Descartes said his famous thing about "I think therefore I am,"

在笛卡儿说出那句有名的”我思故我在“ 的一千两百年前

this guy, St. Augustine, sat down and wrote "Fallor ergo sum" -- "I err therefore I am."

圣奥古斯丁,坐下来 写下"Fallor ergo sum" "我错故我在"

Augustine understood that our capacity to screw up, it's not some kind of embarrassing defect in the human system, something we can eradicate or overcome.

奥古斯丁懂得 我们犯错的能力 这并不是人性中 一个令人难堪的缺陷 不是我们可以克服或消灭的

It's totally fundamental to who we are.

这是我们的本质

Because, unlike God, we don't really know what's going on out there.

因为我们不是上帝 我们不知道我们之外究竟发生了甚么

And unlike all of the other animals, we are obsessed with trying to figure it out.

而不同于其它动物的是 我们都疯狂地想找出解答

To me, this obsession is the source and root of all of our productivity and creativity.

对我来说 这种寻找的冲动 就是我们生产力和创造力的来源

Last year, for various reasons, I found myself listening to a lot of episodes of the Public Radio show This American Life.

因为一些缘故 去年我在广播上 听了很多集的"我们的美国人生"

And so I'm listening and I'm listening, and at some point, I start feeling like all the stories are about being wrong.

我听着听着 突然发现 这些故事全和犯错有关

And my first thought was, "I've lost it.

我的第一个念头是 “我完了

I've become the crazy wrongness lady.

我写书写疯了

I just imagined it everywhere,"

四处都看到有关犯错的幻觉”

which has happened.

说真的是这样

But a couple of months later, I actually had a chance to interview Ira Glass, who's the host of the show.

但几个月后 我访问了那个广播节目的主持人 Ira Glass

And I mentioned this to him, and he was like, "No actually, that's true.

我向他提到这件事 他回答我“事实上

In fact," he says, "as a staff, we joke that every single episode of our show has the same crypto-theme.

你是对的”他说 “我们这些工作人员总是 开玩笑说每集节目之中的 秘密主题都是一样的

And the crypto-theme is: 'I thought this one thing was going to happen and something else happened instead.' And thing is," says Ira Glass, "we need this.

这个秘密主题就是 "我以为这件事会这样发生 结果其它事情发生了" 他说"但是,这就是我们需要的

We need these moments of surprise and reversal and wrongness to make these stories work."

我们需要这些意外 这些颠倒和错误 这些故事才能成立。"

And for the rest of us, audience members, as listeners, as readers, we eat this stuff up.

而我们身为观众 听众、读者 我们吸收这些故事

We love things like plot twists and red herrings and surprise endings.

我们喜欢故事转折 令人惊讶的结局

When it comes to our stories, we love being wrong.

我们喜欢在故事里 看到犯错

But, you know, our stories are like this because our lives are like this.

但,故事会这样写 是因为人生就是这样

We think this one thing is going to happen and something else happens instead.

我们以为某些事情会这样发生 发生的却是其它事

George Bush thought he was going to invade Iraq, find a bunch of weapons of mass destruction, liberate the people and bring democracy to the Middle East.

小布什以为他入侵伊拉克 会找到大规模毁灭性武器 解放中东百姓,为他们带来民主自由

And something else happened instead.

但却不是这样

And Hosni Mubarak thought he was going to be dictator of Egypt for the rest of his life, until he got too old or too sick and could pass the reigns of power onto his son.

穆巴拉克以为 他到死都会是埃及的独裁者 一直到他年老或卧病 再把他的权力交给下一代

And something else happened instead.

但却不是这样

And maybe you thought you were going to grow up and marry your high school sweetheart and move back to your home town and raise a bunch of kids together.

或许你想过 你会长大、嫁给你的初恋情人 搬回老家,生一群孩子

And something else happened instead.

但却不是这样

And I have to tell you that I thought I was writing an incredibly nerdy book about a subject everybody hates for an audience that would never materialize.

我必须说 我以为我写的是一本很冷僻的书 有关一个人人讨厌的主题 为一些从不存在的读者

And something else happened instead.

但却不是这样

(Laughter) I mean, this is life.

(笑声) 我们的人生

For good and for ill, we generate these incredible stories about the world around us, and then the world turns around and astonishes us.

无论好坏 我们创造了啦 那包围我们的世界 而世界转过头来,令我们大吃一惊

No offense, but this entire conference is an unbelievable monument to our capacity to get stuff wrong.

说真的,这整个会议 充斥着这样难以置信的时刻 我们一次又一次地意识到自己的错误

We just spent and entire week talking about innovations and advancements and improvements, but you know why we need all of those innovations

我们花了整整一周 讨论创新,进步 和改善 你知道我们为甚么需要这些创新

and advancements and improvements?

进步和改善吗?

Because half the stuff that's the most mind-boggling and world altering -- TED 1998 -- eh.

因为其中有一半 来自最应该改变世界的 98年的TED 呃

(Laughter) Didn't really work out that way, did it.

(笑声) 真是出人意料之外啊,不是吗

(Laughter) Where's my jet pack, Chris?

(笑声) 我的逃生火箭在哪,Chris?

(Laughter) (Applause) So here we are again.

(笑声) (掌声) 于是我们又在这里

And that's how it goes.

事情就是这样

We come up with another idea.

我们重新想出其它点子

We tell another story.

我们有了新的故事

We hold another conference.

我们开了另一个会议

The theme of this one, as you guys have now heard seven million times, is the rediscovery of wonder.

这次的主题是 如果你还没有听到耳朵出油的话 是重新找到想象的力量

And to me, if you really want to rediscover wonder, you need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other

对我来说 如果你真的想重新找到想象的力量 你需要离开 那个小小的、自我感觉良好的小圈圈 看看彼此

and look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say, "Wow, I don't know.

看看宇宙的 广大无垠 复杂神秘 然后真正地说 “哇,我不知道

Maybe I'm wrong."

或许我错了。”

Thank you.

谢谢各位

(Applause) Thank you guys.

(掌声) 谢谢

  TED英文演讲稿篇3

On what we think we know?

我们以为自己知道的

I'm going to try and explain why it is that perhaps we don't understand as much as we think we do. I'd like to begin with four questions. This is not some sort of cultural thing for the time of year. That's an in-joke, by the way.

我会试着解释为何 我们知道的东西很可能并没有我们自以为知道的多 我想从四个问题开始,不是那种今年流行的文化问题 对了,刚刚那句是个圈内笑话

But these four questions, actually, are ones that people who even know quite a lot about science find quite hard. And they're questions that I've asked of science television producers, of audiences of science educators -- so that's science teachers -- and also of seven-year-olds, and I find that the seven-year-olds do marginally better than the other audiences, which is somewhat surprising.

不过这四个问题,事实上 即使是很懂科学的人也会觉得很难应答 我拿这些问题去问科学节目制片人 问那些有科学教育背景的观众 也问教科学的老师还有七岁孩童 我发现七岁孩童答得比其他人好 这是有些令人惊讶

So the first question, and you might want to write this down, either on a bit of paper, physically, or a virtual piece of paper in your head. And, for viewers at home, you can try this as well.

第一个问题,我建议你把问题记下来 抄在纸上,或想像中的纸上 坐在电脑前的你也可以试著作答.

A little seed weighs next to nothing and a tree weighs a lot, right? I think we agree on that. Where does the tree get the stuff that makes up this chair, right? Where does all this stuff come from?

种籽很轻,而大树很重,是吗?我想我们都同意吧,大树用来制成椅子的东西是从哪来的? 对吧?这些东西都是怎么来的?

(Knocks)

(敲椅声)

And your next question is, can you light a little torch-bulb with a battery, a bulb and one piece of wire? And would you be able to, kind of, draw a -- you don't have to draw the diagram, but would you be able to draw the diagram, if you had to do it? Or would you just say, that's actually not possible?

问题二,你能否点亮一个小灯泡 只用1个电池、1个灯泡、和1条电线? 那你能画出上述问题的图解吗?不用真的画 但如果需要的话, 你能画出来吗? 还是你会说 这个不可能?

The third question is, why is it hotter in summer than in winter? I think we can probably agree that it is hotter in summer than in winter, but why? And finally, would you be able to -- and you can sort of scribble it, if you like -- scribble a plan diagram of the solar system, showing the shape of the planets' orbits? Would you be able to do that? And if you can, just scribble a pattern.

第三个问题,为什么夏天比冬天热? 大家应该都同意夏天比冬天还热 但为何如此?最后,你能不能 简单的勾勒出 太阳系的平面图... 呈现出行星轨道运行的形状 你可以画得出来吗? 你画得出来的话,就把形状画出来

OK. Now, children get their ideas not from teachers, as teachers often think, but actually from common sense, from experience of the world around them, from all the things that go on between them and their peers, and their carers, and their parents, and all of that. Experience. And one of the great experts in this field, of course, was, bless him, Cardinal Wolsey. Be very careful what you get into people's heads because it's virtually impossible to shift it afterwards, right?

好,孩童对事物的概念不是老师教的 老师时常这么以为,但实际上概念来自于常理 来自于孩童对周遭世界的体验 来自于他们跟同伴彼此交流 还有跟保姆、父母亲、所有人交流的经验 这个领域中的一个专家,对了,愿他安息 就是渥西主教,他说要你将东西放进其他人的闹袋里的时候要小心 因为那些东西几乎不会再改变,对吧?

(Laughter)

(笑声)

I'm not quite sure how he died, actually. Was he beheaded in the end, or hung?

我不太清楚他的死因,真的 他最后上了断头台?还是被吊死?

(Laughter)

(笑声)

Now, those questions, which, of course, you've got right, and you haven't been conferring, and so on. And I -- you know, normally, I would pick people out and humiliate, but maybe not in this instance.

现在回到那四个问题,大家都知道是什么问题了 你们彼此之间也没有讨论答案 我平时习惯点人站起来回答让他丢脸 不过这次就不点了

A little seed weighs a lot and, basically, all this stuff, 99 percent of this stuff, came out of the air. Now, I guarantee that about 85 percent of you, or maybe it's fewer at TED, will have said it comes out of the ground. And some people, probably two of you, will come up and argue with me afterwards, and say that actually, it comes out of the ground. Now, if that was true, we'd have trucks going round the country, filling people's gardens in with soil, it'd be a fantastic business. But, actually, we don't do that. The mass of this comes out of the air. Now, I passed all my biology exams in Britain. I passed them really well, but I still came out of school thinking that that stuff came out of the ground.

种籽可以很重,基本上所有的这些 99%都来自于空气 我相信有85%的人,或许在你们TED会比较少 会说木材来自于大地,而有些人 也许你们中的一两位, 可能结束后会来找我争论 说木材其实是来自于大地 若是如此,那我们就会有让卡车跑来跑去 把人们的花园都填上土,那会是很棒的生意。 不过实际上我们不会那么做 因为木材的材料大部分其实是从空气中来的 我在英国念书时考生物每考必过 我的成绩很好,但毕业后 还是以为木材来自于大地

Second one: can you light a little torch-bulb with a battery bulb and one piece of wire? Yes, you can, and I'll show you in a second how to do that. Now, I have some rather bad news, which is that I had a piece of video that I was about to show you, which unfortunately -- the sound doesn't work in this room, so I'm going to describe to you, in true "Monty Python" fashion, what happens in the video. And in the video, a group of researchers go to MIT on graduation day. We chose MIT because, obviously, that's a very long way away from here, and you wouldn't mind too much, but it sort of works the same way in Britain and in the West Coast of the USA. And we asked them these questions, and we asked those questions of science graduates, and they couldn't answer them. And so, there's a whole lot of people saying, "I'd be very surprised if you told me that this came out of the air. That's very surprising to me." And those are science graduates. And we intercut it with, "We are the premier science university in the world," because of British-like hubris.

你能用一枚电池和一根电线点亮灯泡吗? 是,你可以,我会示范怎么做。 不过,现在有个坏消息 本来有个影片要给大家看 可惜在这边声音放不出来 所以我就口头描述一下的,用巨蟒剧团的表演方式, 影片内容是这样的,在影片里有一群研究员 在毕业典礼那天去麻省理工学院 为什么是麻省理工呢?因为它离这里很远 大家也就不会太介意 不过场景设在英国结果也差不多 或是设在美国西岸 我们问了麻省理工的毕业生这四个问题 这些理工科毕业生也答不出来 而且还有很多学生表示 “我很惊讶你说木材是从空气中来的 ”这真的让我很吃惊“,那些理工的毕业生这么说 我们用”我们是全球第一的理工大学“来作影片的结尾。 因为英国人很傲慢

(Laughter)

(笑声)

And when we gave graduate engineers that question, they said it couldn't be done. And when we gave them a battery, and a piece of wire, and a bulb, and said, "Can you do it?" They couldn't do it. Right? And that's no different from Imperial College in London, by the way, it's not some sort of anti-American thing going on.

我们拿第二个问题去问硕士毕业的工程师们 他们说这不可能做得到 我们拿了电池、电线、和灯泡 问他们”你能做到吗?“,他们没办法,是吧? 顺道一提,伦敦的帝国学院的情况估计也差不多如此 我们不是在做什么反美的事

As if. Now, the reason this matters is we pay lots and lots of money for teaching people -- we might as well get it right. And there are also some societal reasons why we might want people to understand what it is that's happening in photosynthesis. For example, one half of the carbon equation is how much we emit, and the other half of the carbon equation, as I'm very conscious as a trustee of Kew, is how much things soak up, and they soak up carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

虽然听来颇像。问题的关键是我们花了很多钱 来教育大众,我们应该正确地来做这件事。 其中也有一些社会因素 让我们想使大众了解光合作用如何运作 例如,有一半的碳储量是人类排放的 而另一半碳储量 我相当关切,身为皇家植物园的受托管理人

That's what plants actually do for a living. And, for any Finnish people in the audience, this is a Finnish pun: we are, both literally and metaphorically, skating on thin ice if we don't understand that kind of , here's how you do the battery and the bulb. It's so easy, isn't it? Of course, you all knew that. But if you haven't played with a battery and a bulb, if you've only seen a circuit diagram, you might not be able to do that, and that's one of the problems.

是植物吸收多少二氧化碳 植物就是以此维生的 如果在场有芬兰人,这是芬兰话的双关语 我们无论在实际上或隐喻上,都是如履薄冰 要是我们不明白那些事 电池和灯泡只要这要做就行 很简单,不是吗?你们都懂了 但要是你没有亲手碰过电池和灯泡 如果你只看过电路图 你可能就做不出来,这是个麻烦

So, why is it hotter in summer than in winter? We learn, as children, that you get closer to something that's hot, and it burns you. It's a very powerful bit of learning, and it happens pretty early on. By extension, we think to ourselves, "Why it's hotter in summer than in winter must be because we're closer to the Sun." I promise you that most of you will have got that. Oh, you're all shaking your heads, but only a few of you are shaking your heads very firmly.

那么,为何夏天比冬天热? 我们从小就知道,离热的东西太近 你就被烫到,这真很有效的教育方法 很小的时候大家就学到了 延伸这个论点,我们觉得夏天比冬天热 一定是因为我们离太阳比较近 我相信大多人都懂了 哦,大家都在摇头 不过只有几个人摇得很坚定

Other ones are kind of going like this. All right. It's hotter in summer than in winter because the rays from the Sun are spread out more, right, because of the tilt of the Earth. And if you think the tilt is tilting us closer, no, it isn't. The Sun is 93 million miles away, and we're tilting like this, right? It makes no odds. In fact, in the Northern Hemisphere, we're further from the Sun in summer, as it happens, but it makes no odds, the difference.

其他人只是这样子摇而已,好吧 夏天比冬天热是因为太阳的辐射线 传播得比较多,地球倾斜的关系 如果你以为是朝太阳的方向倾斜,那就错了 太阳离地球1亿5千万公里,地球倾斜角度大略如此 倾斜不是差别所在,在北半球 夏天时我们离太阳更远 跟倾斜没有关系

OK, now, the scribble of the diagram of the solar system. If you believe, as most of you probably do, that it's hotter in summer than in winter because we're closer to the Sun, you must have drawn an ellipse. Right? That would explain it, right? Except, in your -- you're nodding -- now, in your ellipse, have you thought, "Well, what happens during the night?"

好,问题四是画出太阳系的平面图 如果大家相信,大多数可能都相信 夏天比冬天热是因为地球离太阳较近 大家应该都画了椭圆形 对吧?这就能解释了吧? 除非,你点头了,你画了个椭圆形 你有想过,「夜晚又是怎么回事」?

Between Australia and here, right, they've got summer and we've got winter, and what -- does the Earth kind of rush towards the Sun at night, and then rush back again? I mean, it's a very strange thing going on, and we hold these two models in our head, of what's right and what isn't right, and we do that, as human beings, in all sorts of fields.

澳洲和美国这边,澳洲是夏天 这边是冬天,难道说 地球在晚上会冲向太阳 然后再冲回来?这实在很奇怪 我们脑中有两种思考模式,对的和错的 身为人类,我们在很多领域都这样思考

So, here's Copernicus' view of what the solar system looked like as a plan. That's pretty much what you should have on your piece of paper. Right? And this is NASA's view. They're stunningly similar. I hope you notice the coincidence here.

左边是哥白尼画的太阳系平面图 跟你们纸上画的差不多,对吧 右边是NASA的版本,两张图非常相似 我希望大家注意其中的巧合 要是你知道人们有错误观念

What would you do if you knew that people had this misconception, right, in their heads, of elliptical orbits caused by our experiences as children? What sort of diagram would you show them of the solar system, to show that it's not really like that? You'd show them something like this, wouldn't you? It's a plan, looking down from above. But, no, look what I found in the textbooks. That's what you show people, right?

你会怎么做 在他们脑中,楕圆形的轨道 是他们儿时经验教的吗? 你会给他们看什么样的太阳系示意图? 证明太阳系不是他们想的那样 你会给他们看这种图吗? 这是俯瞰的平面图 可是并非如此,瞧瞧我在教科书里找到的 你会给他们看这种图对吧?

These are from textbooks, from websites, educational websites -- and almost anything you pick up is like that. And the reason it's like that is because it's dead boring to have a load of concentric circles, whereas that's much more exciting, to look at something at that angle, isn't it? Right?

出自教科书 出自教育网站 你找得到的几乎都是这种图 会以这种视角呈现是因为 只有一堆同心圆太死板无趣 从这种视角看太阳系比较新鲜刺激 不是吗?

And by doing it at that angle, if you've got that misconception in your head, then that two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional thing will be ellipses. So you've -- it's crap, isn't it really? As we say.

因为弄成这种视角 如果你脑中有了这种误解 用二度空间来呈现三度空间就会变成椭圆形 这真是糟糕,可不是吗?

So, these mental models -- we look for evidence that reinforces our models. We do this, of course, with matters of race, and politics, and everything else, and we do it in science as well. So we look, just look -- and scientists do it, constantly -- we look for evidence that reinforces our models, and some folks are just all too able and willing to provide the evidence that reinforces the models.

因此,我们寻求证据来增强我们的心智模式 我们用这种方式处理种族、政治、所有事 当然也用这种方式处理科学,我们只观看 是科学家在这么做,我们不断寻求证据 来增强我们的心智模式,有些人很有办法 也乐意提供证据来增强那些模式

So, being I'm in the United States, I'll have a dig at the Europeans. These are examples of what I would say is bad practice in science teaching centers.

所以我现在人在美国,就会说欧洲人的坏话 这些图片都是我认为不良的科学教育

These pictures are from La Villette in France and the welcome wing of the Science Museum in London. And, if you look at the, kind of the way these things are constructed, there's a lot of mediation by glass, and it's very blue, and kind of professional -- in that way that, you know, Woody Allen comes up from under the sheets in that scene in "Annie Hall," and said, "God, that's so professional." And that you don't -- there's no passion in it, and it's not hands on, right, and, you know, pun intended.

类似教学中心,这些图取自法国维叶特科博馆 以及伦敦科博馆的迎宾翼展示区 你看看这些东西建成的模样 有很多玻璃隔板,蓝光色调,弄得很专业似的 那种方式,就像是伍迪艾伦从床单里冒出来 在《安妮霍尔》戏中的那一幕 他说“老天,这真是太专业了” 这其中没有热情,没有动手参与,是吗 这是个双关,不过也有好的教学方法

Whereas good interpretation -- I'll use an example from nearby -- is San Francisco Exploratorium, where all the things that -- the demonstrations, and so on, are made out of everyday objects that children can understand, it's very hands-on, and they can engage with, and experiment with. And I know that if the graduates at MIT and in the Imperial College in London had had the battery and the wire and the bit of stuff, and you know, been able to do it, they would have learned how it actually works, rather than thinking that they follow circuit diagrams and can't do it. So good interpretation is more about things that are bodged and stuffed and of my world, right? And things that -- where there isn't an extra barrier of a piece of glass or machined titanium, and it all looks fantastic, OK?

我举一个例子,离这里很近,旧金山探索馆 在那里所有的东西,展示品之类的 都是用孩子能懂的日常用品做成的 都可以动手玩,孩子们可以专心玩好好体验 我知道麻省理工毕业生 以及伦敦帝国学院毕业生 手上有电池电线点亮灯泡的话 他们会明白其中的原理 而不是觉得他们照着电路图来做是做不到的 好的教学方法不是 沉溺陶醉在自己世界里对吧? 那些东西也不该被隔着 用玻璃或是钛制品隔开 看起来很漂亮就好,好吗?

And the Exploratorium does that really, really well. And it's amateur, but amateur in the best sense, in other words, the root of the word being of love and passion.

旧金山探索馆在这点做得非常好 看上去很业余,但业余得很对头 也就是说,根本的出发点是出自爱和热情

So, children are not empty vessels, OK?So, as "Monty Python" would have it, this is a bit Lord Privy Seal to say so, but this is -- children are not empty vessels.

所以,孩童不是空瓶子 用“巨蟒剧团”的说法 就是有点像英国掌玺大臣会说的 意思是说孩童不是空无一物的瓶子

They come with their own ideas and their own theories, and unless you work with those, then you won't be able to shift them, right?

他们生来就有自己的想法和理念 如果你没从这些地方着手,就改变不了他们 对吧?

And I probably haven't shifted your ideas of how the world and universe operates, either. But this applies, equally, to matters of trying to sell new technology.

我大概没有改变大家的想法 对于世界和宇宙到底如何运作 不过这些道理同样可以用在推销新科技上也

For example, we are, in Britain, we're trying to do a digital switchover of the whole population into digital technology [for television].

例如,在英国,我们试着把全部的电视 都换成新科技的数位电视

And it's one of the difficult things is that when people have preconceptions of how it all works, it's quite difficult to shift those.

有个难题是 人们对事物运作的方式一旦有了成见 就很难去改变

So we're not empty vessels; the mental models that we have as children persist into adulthood. Poor teaching actually does more harm than good.

我们不是空瓶子,我们保有心智模式 从幼年到成年一直都存在 不良的教学是弊多于利

In this country and in Britain, magnetism is understood better by children before they've been to school than afterwards, OK? Same for gravity, two concepts, so it's -- which is quite humbling, as a, you know, if you're a teacher, and you look before and after, that's quite worrying. They do worse in tests afterwards, after the teaching.

在美国和英国,在磁力知识上 孩童在就学前学得比较好 重力知识也一样,两个不同概念,这实在可悲 如果你是个老师,看见受教前和受教后的差别 实在令人忧心,学童在受教后考得更差

And we collude. We design tests, or at least in Britain, so that people pass them. Right? And governments do very well. They pat themselves on the back. OK?

我们都是共犯,我们设计测验方式 至少在英国是这样,好让人们能通过考试 政府也帮了不少忙,他们推波助澜 懂吗?

We collude, and actually if you -- if someone had designed a test for me when I was doing my biology exams, to really understand, to see whether I'd understood more than just kind of putting starch and iodine together and seeing it go blue, and really understood that plants took their mass out of the air, then I might have done better at science. So the most important thing is to get people to articulate their models.

我们都是共犯 如果有人替我设计测验 在我要考生物的时候 让我能真正明白,明白我是否真的懂了 不是只在淀粉中加入碘液 看着反应呈现蓝色 而且能真正明白植物是从空气中茁壮的 我的科学可能就会学得比较好 所以,最重要的是要让人们能表述清楚他们的模型

Your homework is -- you know, how does an aircraft's wing create lift? An obvious question, and you'll have an answer now in your heads. And the second question to that then is, ensure you've explained how it is that planes can fly upside down. Ah ha, right.

回家作业是,机翼是怎样帮助飞机起飞的? 这问题很好懂,大家心中也有答案了 注意事项是 你要确保自己能解释为何飞机头向下的时候也能飞, 对吧

Second question is, why is the sea blue? All right? And you've all got an idea in your head of the answer. So, why is it blue on cloudy days? Ah, see.

问题二,海为何是蓝色的? 大家心中应该都有答案了 那么,为什么阴天时海还是蓝的?看吧 (笑声) 我一直想在美国讲这句话

(Laughter)

(笑声)

I've always wanted to say that in this country. (Laughter) Finally, my plea to you is to allow yourselves, and your children, and anyone you know, to kind of fiddle with stuff, because it's by fiddling with things that you, you know, you complement your other learning. It's not a replacement, it's just part of learning that's important. Thank you very much. Now -- oh, oh yeah, go on then, go on.

最后,我希望大家能让自己,还有孩子 以及任何你认识的人,去动手接触事物 因为亲自接触了事物,你知道的 你就补足了其他方面的学习不足,这不是替换 这只是学习中很重要的一部分 谢谢大家 那么,噢,没关系,继续吧

(Applause)

(鼓掌)

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