2018考研英语阅读：达尔文的自然选择理论不够完美

　　2018考研复习进行时，考研英语阅读真题中的文章，多摘自英美主流外刊，有时候你认识所有单词、搞清全部语法还不够，还需要了解英美文化，掌握他们的表达方式，这就是阅读的潜台词。下面新东方在线考研整理《2018考研英语双语阅读精选》，速来学习吧！

　　Darwin’s theory of natural selection is incomplete

　　达尔文的自然选择理论不够完美

　　I am Richard Prum. I am the William Robertson Coe professor of ornithology at Yale University.

　　我是理查德.普鲁姆，耶鲁大学鸟类学William Robertson Coe教授。

　　Today, most evolutionary biologists think that sexual selection by mate choice is really a kind of natural selection.

　　今天，大部分进化生物学家认为，按配偶选择的性别选择是一种自然选择。

　　So, when they see the peacock’s tail or a beautiful ornament in nature, they imagine that it evolves because it provides objectives information about the quality of the mate that choosers need to know.

　　那么，当他们看到自然界孔雀美丽的尾巴或者华丽的装饰时，他们会想这是进化而来的，因为这样的外表给选择者提供了需要知道的信息，即配偶质量的目标信息。

　　However, Darwin himself proposed an alternative theory.

　　然而，达尔文本人提出的是可选择性理论。

　　And that’s one that I’m very interested in trying bring back into the sciences.

　　那就是为什么我有兴趣打算再回到科学理论研究上的。

　　Darwin proposed that mate the choice is really about the aesthetic quality of the experience of the chooser. It’s about what the animals themselves think of as beautiful.

　　达尔文认为，配偶选择牵实际上是关于选择者经验的审美品质，是动物自身认为的美的选择。

　　When Darwin wrote the "Origin of Species" he has several problems at that end.

　　当达尔文写下《物种起源》后，自己却产生了几个难题。

　　He had no theory of genetics. No elaborated theory of the origin of humans.

　　他没有遗传学的理论。 没有详尽的人类起源理论。

　　And his additional problem was the origin of beauty.

　　而他的另一个难题是美的起源。

　　So he worried about it for more than a decade and then came out with a brilliant second book "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex."

　　对此，他思虑了十多年，后来出版了第二本精彩的书目《人的世系和性别的选择》。

　　In there he proposed a second theory of evolution, a theory based on sexual selection.

　　在这本书中，他提出了另一个进化理论，即基于性别选择的理论。

　　Immediately at that time, it was rejected as impossible. People thought that animals would not have the technical capacity to evaluate different forms of ornament.

　　但在那个时候，人们很快认为这是不可能的事，从而拒绝接受它。人们认为动物不会有鉴别不同装饰形式的技术能力。

　　And in addition, some of the responses, were explicitly misogynistic. They thought that females were specifically incapable of making these kinds of choices.

　　此外，一些反映显然表明他们是十分厌恶女性的。这些人认为女性绝不可能有这种能力做出这些选择。

　　As a result, Darwin’s theory of mate choice was driven out of evolutionary biology for more than a century.

　　结果，达尔文的配偶选择理论被淡出进化生物学的视线达一个多世纪之久。

　　So, one of my goals is to bring beauty back into the sciences by restoring an aesthetic view of the process of evolution - to mainstream biology.

　　所以，我的目标之一是通过恢复进化过程的美学观点把美引进科学的研究之中，以及主流生物学中。

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