第1篇精读笔记

此篇文章是关于Wrangham的新书《善良的悖论：人类进化中道德与暴力之间的奇怪关系》，讨论人类的进化史、道德的形成、政府的诞生。原文选自New Yorker，搜索文章标题即可查看原文。文章难度较大，译文仅供参考。

外刊原文：

<NEW YORKER>Did Capital Punishment Create Morality?

A new book argues that violence—specifically, the killing of alpha males—laid the foundation for virtue.

On June 30, 1860, there was a debate in Oxford between Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin’s chief explainer, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, himself a considerable intellectual. Concluding his skeptical remarks, Wilberforce turned to Huxley and asked mockingly whether it was through his grandfather or grandmother that he claimed descent from an ape. Taking the podium, Huxley thundered that if he had to choose for a grandfather either an ape or a clever and influential man who used his gifts to turn new scientific ideas to ridicule, he would certainly choose the ape. There were no more snide jokes about Darwinism in Victorian England.

Still, one feels for the bishop. It was hard, in 1860, to get one’s mind around evolution by natural selection, and it still is. It’s difficult talking about causation without purpose, but that is what Darwinism requires. And telling a story about the origins of morality that begins hundreds of thousands of years before any creature had a sense of right and wrong, or even a sense of self, is a tall order.

The story that Richard Wrangham tells in his new book, “The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution,” isn’t quite definitive—it is still a work in progress—but it’s very impressive. Wrangham, a primatologist at Harvard, has spent his career studying the great apes, especially chimpanzees, bonobos, and us. He is perhaps best known for the book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” published in 2009. In that highly original work, he argued that the discovery, made around 1.9 million years ago, that applying fire to food makes it more palatable transformed human destiny. It did this biochemically, because food contains much more energy when cooked—energy that fuelled a large increase in the size of our brain—and sociologically, by giving rise to the sexual division of labor and, specifically, marriage.

Wrangham’s first book (co-authored with Dale Peterson), “Demonic Males: Apes and the Origin of Human Violence,” from 1996, is more continuous with “The Goodness Paradox” than is “Catching Fire.” “Demonic Males” was written in the wake of two momentous discoveries: the violence of chimpanzees and the pacifism of bonobos. The premise of the book is that violence is adaptive, i.e., that it promotes survival. That may not seem controversial now, but it was through much of the twentieth century. Culture was thought to be the source of our antisocial emotions, and any suggestion that they also had biological roots was considered politically retrograde, or at any rate too depressing to contemplate—as though those acting under the influence of inherited tendencies were absolved of all moral responsibility.

Surveying the extensive record of primate violence in “Demonic Males,” Wrangham and Peterson made an intriguing discovery. Infanticide is not uncommon; and adults—usually males—killing other adults of the same species does happen. But in only two species do bands of males prowl the borders of their range and kill isolated members of other communities: chimpanzees and human hunter-gatherers. This is pure aggression, not territorial defense. The reason appears to be increased access to food resources and, when all the males of a neighboring community are killed or driven off, annexation of females. The record of chimpanzee violence is full and clear. Most remaining hunter-gatherer groups have been brought under the jurisdiction of a modern state and to some degree assimilated, so the record of human aggressiveness is more ambiguous. Still, as Wrangham and Peterson write, although “peaceful foragers have been repeatedly hoped for,” they have very rarely been found.

What has been found, instead, are bonobos. The last of the great apes to be discovered, bonobos are so physically similar to chimpanzees that their skeletons lay in museums for fifty years before it was noticed that they were a separate species. But socially and behaviorally, chimps and bonobos are worlds apart, even though they only live on opposite banks of the Congo River. Unlike chimpanzees, bonobos do not patrol, do not raid, and do not kill their neighbors. The sometimes deadly competition among males for sexual primacy and the rape and beating of females, which are commonplace among chimps, are unknown among bonobos. (Indeed, bonobo society is female-dominated.) Neighboring bonobo communities can mix amicably, which almost never happens among chimpanzees. Sex is much more relaxed and, apparently, enjoyable.

How did this idyllic state of affairs come about? It turns out that there is a relation between the abundance of food in an environment and the size and stability of foraging parties, and a further relation between the character of foraging parties and violence along the border between ranges. Scarcity has its usual malign effects. Why is the bonobos’ environment more benign than that of the chimps? Bonobos, chimps, and gorillas eat much the same foods: fruit, herbs, buds, leaves. But gorillas are more sensitive to dry spells, during which they move into the mountains, where there is greenery. In normal periods, they compete for food with chimps. There are no mountains south of the Congo River, so no gorillas live there, and bonobos have the food supply all to themselves. “Bonobos have evolved in a forest that is kindlier in its food supply, and that allows them to be kindly, too,” Wrangham and Peterson write.

Humans seem to have a capacity for violent aggression as strong as that of chimpanzees and a capacity for gentleness and docility as strong as that of bonobos. “Compared with other primates, we practice exceptionally low levels of violence in our day-to-day-lives, yet we achieve exceptionally high rates of death from violence in our wars,” Wrangham writes. “That discrepancy is the goodness paradox.” Wrangham has been pondering this paradox in the twenty years since the publication of “Demonic Males,” and he has the first draft of an explanation. It is, literally, far-fetched, relying on observations from Siberia, the South Pacific, the Amazon, Tierra del Fuego, and other remote corners of the earth, as well as on the work of archaeologists, paleontologists, psychologists, biochemists, neurophysiologists, geneticists, and others. The clichés about science being a vast coöperative endeavor may actually be true.

Scientists classify aggression into reactive and proactive types. Reactive aggression is a response to a provocation or threat. It’s angry, impulsive, and associated with high levels of testosterone. Proactive aggression is calculating, premeditated, and strategic. Think of those TV Westerns where the hero deliberately provokes a slow-witted, hot-headed antagonist who goes for his gun while our hero pulls his hat down over his eyes and clobbers him over the head with a six-shooter. Our hero is proactively aggressive; the villain is reactively aggressive. Usually, reactive aggression is individual, while proactive aggression is institutional, taking such forms as war or capital punishment.

To be continued…

精读笔记：

Did Capital Punishment Create Morality?

A new book argues that violence—specifically, the killing of alpha males—laid the foundation for virtue.

On June 30, 1860, there was a debate in Oxford between Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin’s chief explainer, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, himself a considerable intellectual. Concluding his skeptical remarks, Wilberforce turned to Huxley and asked mockingly whether it was through his grandfather or grandmother that he claimed descent from an ape. Taking the podium, Huxley thundered that if he had to choose for a grandfather either an ape or a clever and influential man who used his gifts to turn new scientific ideas to ridicule, he would certainly choose the ape. There were no more snide jokes about Darwinism in Victorian England.

单词讲解：

Capital punishment:死刑

短语衍生：capital crime/capital offence死罪

词根讲解：capit- = head，意思是和头相关的。

头部是人类最重要的地方，所以capital形容词（Adj.）表示重要的，做名词(N.) 表示首都，可衍生为某种活动发生的密集地。

例句：

Capital Adj.: Our capital concern is to avoid conflicts.  

Capital N.: Beijing, the capital of China. (首都) /The drug capital of Mexico.墨西哥的贩毒中心。

Alpha male:雄性头领

Alpha本表示首字母，此处表示“最重要的”

Lay the foundation(s) for:为...奠定基础 lay可用provide替代；

Lay-laid-laid铺设；

短语衍生：rock/shake the foundations of...动摇了...的基础  （写作词汇）

因为lay同时也是lie的过去形式之一，很多小伙伴会搞混，正确打开方式是：

Lie说谎: lie-lied-lied

Lie躺: lie-lay-lain （lay是“放置”，可以理解为把自己放置在地上，即为“躺下”,所以只有在lie做躺的时候过去式写作lay）

Considerable: consider(考虑)+able（可以...的）

值得考虑的=相当多的，重要的

短语衍生：a considerable amount/number of

例句：he spends a considerable amount of money on cars.

Skeptical（美式）：skeptic（怀疑论者）+al (后缀表“的”) = 对...怀疑的

Sceptical（英式）

短语衍生：be (highly/deeply) skeptical of/about sth对...持(高度)怀疑态度

例句：

He is highly skeptical of the proposed plan.他对提案持高度怀疑态度。

Mockingly：mock (V.取笑)+ing (动词的形容词后缀)+ly (副词后缀)= Adv. 取笑地

Mock V:讥笑或通过模仿来取笑对方 ；由动词的“模仿”之意衍生出mock Adj.:仿制的

例句：

He mocks her decision.他取笑她所做的决定。

The mischievous kid mocks his handicapped deskmate.

这个调皮的孩子（通过模仿）取笑残疾的同桌

A mock interview.一次模拟的面试

Mock anger假装的愤怒

近义词区分：fake强调有欺骗性的“伪造的”，如：fake LV 假的LV包；

mock强调“模拟的，假装的”

Claim：声称对某物的所有权或者做某事的权利；声称某事是真的（待证明）

例句：he claimed that his neighbour broke into his house.他声称邻居闯入了他家。（实际这个声称未必是真的）

She claimed deduction on the taxes.她要求减税。（她认为有权利要求减税）

Descent from：是...的后裔

词根讲解

De-(向下)+ scend (爬;上升)= Descent N. 下降  Descend V. 下降

a- (向...的) + scend (爬;上升)= Ascent N. 上升  Ascend V. 上升   

Podium：讲台，相当于一个platform

Thunder：本意为雷声，此处表示说话人的声音很大，意为“怒吼”

Ridicule：大家可能对ridiculous（可笑的）比较熟悉；ridicule为其的动词，“嘲笑”

Snide：挖苦的；一般是间接地嘲讽

假如你的好友化妆涂了红色的眼影，眼睛看起来肿肿的，你看了她可能会说“Was she crying whole day yesterday?”（你在间接挖苦她）。

短语衍生：snide remarks/comments挖苦的评论

长句讲解：

1. Concluding his skeptical remarks, Wilberforce turned to Huxley and asked(mockingly) whether it was through his grandfather or grandmother that he claimed descent from an ape.

看句子的时候一定要找到最主要的主句：

[if !supportLists]1. [endif]整个whether引导的句子当ask的宾语。

[if !supportLists]2. [endif]Concluding...是分词短语做状语修饰这个句子，可不看

[if !supportLists]3. [endif]mockingly为副词，一般表示方式，程度等，可不看

简化之后，主句为：Wilberforce turned to Huxley and asked A.（假设asked的内容为A）

A=whether...from an ape  

[if !supportLists]2. [endif]Taking the podium, Huxley thunderedthat if he had to choose for a grandfather(either an ape or a clever and influential man)(who used his gifts to turn new scientific ideas to ridicule), he would certainly choose the ape.

如上所示，简化之后的主句为黑体字。这句话比较复杂，需要拆开来看。

[if !supportLists]1. [endif]Taking the podium分词短语做状语，可不看

[if !supportLists]2. [endif]That if...a grandfather做宾语从句，做thunder的宾语

[if !supportLists]3. [endif]Grandfather (either an ape or a clever influential man)括号的部分修饰补充grandfather，即选择一只猿猴还是一个聪明的有影响力的人做爷爷

[if !supportLists]4. [endif]Influential man (who used his giftsto turn new scientific ideas to ridicule),括号内容修饰influential man，即一个会使用自己的影响力来让新的科学观点成为笑话的有影响力的人

（此处gift原指天赋，这里结合文章，理解为影响力）

背景介绍：Thomas Huxley是Charles Darwin（《物种起源》作者）的坚定拥护者；Samuel Wilberforce是教堂的主教，一位当时最具影响力的公众演讲者之一。关于这两人最著名的事迹估计就是1860年二人在Oxford大学博物馆进行的有关进化论的辩论了。

关于Samuel提问Huxley的问题”whether it was through his grandfather or grandmother that he claimed descent from an ape. “因为没有留下当时辩论的原稿，难以考证到底Samuel想表达什么意思。一方认为Samuel是提问Huxley怎么会有人乐意承认自己的祖先是猿猴；一方认为Samuel想表述的意思是Huxley本身并没有办法从自己的祖父祖母身上得出祖先是猿猴的结论，证据不足。大家感兴趣的话可以看维基百科的介绍

（关键词1860_Oxford_evolution_debate）

文章翻译：

死刑是道德形成的源头吗？

一本新书主张暴力----确切的说，除掉雄性头领 ---- 奠定了道德的基础。

1860年6月30日，Thomas Huxley，Charles Darwin的主讲解员，和主教Samuel Wilberforce，一位重要的学者，在Oxford展开了一次辩论。在结束语时，Wilberforce转向Huxley，嘲讽地问Huxley 他是否通过其祖父祖母得出自己是猿猴进化而来的结论。Huxley听后怒吼，如果自己需要从一个猿猴和一个有影响力，但却用自己的影响来使科学的新发现变成笑话的人当中选择，他绝对会选择猿猴做自己的祖父。在英国的维多利亚时期，没有其它关于“达尔文主义”的嘲讽。

Still, one feels for the bishop. It was hard, in 1860, to get one’s mind around evolution by natural selection, and it still is. It’s difficult talking about causation without purpose, but that is what Darwinism requires. And telling a story about the origins of morality that begins hundreds of thousands of years before any creature had a sense of right and wrong, or even a sense of self, is a tall order.

单词讲解：

feel for:同情

get one’s mind around:理解（通常指理解令人困扰的事情）

causation: caus(e)（原因）+ation （名词后缀）= 因果关系

Darwinism:达尔文主义；也指进化论

tall order:艰巨的任务

长句讲解：

And telling a storyabout the origins of morality (that begins hundreds of thousands of years before any creature had a sense of right and wrong, or even a sense of self,) is a tall order.

如上所示，简化之后的主句为黑体字。

[if !supportLists]1. [endif]About the origins of morality修饰补充 story，句意：讲述一个关于道德起源的故事

[if !supportLists]2. [endif]That begins...a sense of itself做定语从句修饰morality

文章翻译：

不过，人们是同情Samuel主教的。因为即便是现在，让一个人理解进化论学说都是一件困难的事情，更不用说1860年了。不带目的去讨论一件事情的因果关系是困难的，但是要理解达尔文进化论学说，必须这样做。进化论讲述了一个关于道德起源的故事，这个故事发生在数千万年前，那时候生物没有对错观念，甚至没有自身意识，这是一项艰巨的任务。

背景介绍：大家如果感兴趣可以上网搜索“达尔文的道德进化论”。其实达尔文的进化论不仅包括生物物种的进化，还讨论了人类在进化过程当中，良心和道德感的形成。他认为正是人类的这种道德感区分开了“人”与一般的动物。

The story that Richard Wrangham tells in his new book, “The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution,” isn’t quite definitive—it is still a work in progress—but it’s very impressive. Wrangham, a primatologist at Harvard, has spent his career studying the great apes, especially chimpanzees, bonobos, and us. He is perhaps best known for the book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” published in 2009. In that highly original work, he argued that the discovery, made around 1.9 million years ago, that applying fire to food makes it more palatable transformed human destiny. It did this biochemically, because food contains much more energy when cooked—energy that fuelled a large increase in the size of our brain—and sociologically, by giving rise to the sexual division of labor and, specifically, marriage.

单词讲解：

Paradox:悖论；自相矛盾

例句：

I can resist to anything but sweets.我可以抵抗除了糖果之外的任何东西。这句话本身就是悖论，如果自己能抵抗任何事，自然也包括糖果。

另一个常见的例子就是“I always lie.”如果这句话是真的，那么就和“我总是说谎”冲突。

primatologist:灵长类动物学家

词根讲解：primat(e) (灵长类动物)+ log(y)(学科)+-ist (后缀“...人”)=研究灵长类动物的人

bonobo:倭黑猩猩

Palatable:美味的

词根讲解：palat(e) (味觉,可口)+ able(可以...的)=使人感觉可口的

biochemically:生物化学地

词根讲解：bio-(生物)+chemical(化学物)+-ly(副词后缀)

fuel: V.加剧；N. 燃料；其过去式“L”可双写/不双写

例句：

What he did fuelled her anger. (V.)

Coal is a kind of fuel. (N.)

sociologically:社会学上地

词根讲解：soci-(社会)+o+log(y)(学说)+ical（形容词后缀）+ly(副词后缀)

Give rise to :引起，等同“cause、bring”

例句：The new technology gives rise to considerable improvement on the model.

这项科技使得这个模型有了巨大的改善。

文章翻译：

Richard Wrangham在他的新书《善良的悖论：人类进化中道德与暴力之间的奇怪关系》里面讲述的理论并没有得到确定---- 它仍然是一个研究中的课题 ----但是这个故事令人印象深刻。Wrangham是哈佛大学的灵长类动物学家，他的工作是研究类人猿，尤其是黑猩猩，倭黑猩猩，以及人类。他最出名的是2009年的著作《生火:烹饪造就人类》。在这本著作中，他主张约190万年前发现的火于食物的应用令食物更加美味，并且改变了人类的命运。这种变化是生物化学性的，因为食物在烹饪之后所含的热量更高 ----增加的能量大大促进了人类大脑的发育---- 随之在群体中产生了性别分工，尤其是婚姻的诞生。

Wrangham’s first book (co-authored with Dale Peterson), “Demonic Males: Apes and the Origin of Human Violence,” from 1996, is more continuous with “The Goodness Paradox” than is “Catching Fire.” “Demonic Males” was written in the wake of two momentous discoveries: the violence of chimpanzees and the pacifism of bonobos. The premise of the book is that violence is adaptive, i.e., that it promotes survival. That may not seem controversial now, but it was through much of the twentieth century. Culture was thought to be the source of our antisocial emotions, and any suggestion that they also had biological roots was considered politically retrograde, or atany rate too depressing to contemplate—as though those acting under the influence of inherited tendencies were absolved of all moral responsibility.

单词讲解：

co-author: co-(共同) +author(作者) 共同著作=合著 V.

词根讲解：co-表示合作，共同；

类似单词：co-founder, co-worker, co-owner...

知识延伸：以上连接co和author的标点符号”-”，英语名为“hyphen”(连字符)，一般用于前缀与单词，或者单词和单词连接 构成合成词。然而因为单词的演化，很多合成词的hyphen可以省略。而关于什么时候不能省略，其实有点复杂，在这里简单介绍3点：

[if !supportLists]1. [endif]连接一个大写的字母，或者数字：non(否定前缀)-American , post-1950

[if !supportLists]2. [endif]用于分开两个发音相同的元音，如anti-impact, pro-oxidant等

[if !supportLists]3. [endif]如果不加连字符会导致意思模糊的单词，recover（重新找到） VS re-cover (重新覆盖)

Recreation(娱乐) VS re-creation (再次创作)

所以，上面的co-author其实也可以写成 coauthor

最后，不确定的时候，查阅一下字典君吧~

Demonic: 词根demon (恶魔)+-ic（形容词后缀） 恶魔般的

in the wake of:紧随...（常暗含因果关系）

momentous:词根moment(片刻)+ous(形容词后缀) “转瞬即逝的”，引申为“重大的”

pacifism:和平主义 ； 词根-ism常指“...主义”

premise:前提

retrograde: retro(向后)+grad (走) 向后走= 后退的

At any rate:至少；不管怎样 这个单词不好用中文解释，朗文的英文解释是这样的：

[if !supportLists]1. [endif]used when you are stating one definite fact in a situation that is uncertain or unsatisfactory反正，不管怎样〔用于提出在不确定或令人不满意情况中的确定因素〕

[if !supportLists]2. [endif]used to introduce a statement that is more important than what was said before无论如何，不管怎样〔用于提出比刚才所说更为重要的事〕

contemplate:思考

be absolved of :免除...的责任

文章翻译：

Wrangham的第一本书是与Dale Peterson合著、1996年出版的《邪恶的男人:人猿和人类暴力的起源》。相比《生火》，这本书与《善良的悖论》联系更加紧密。《邪恶的男人》是在两个重大发现之后写的：黑猩猩的暴力倾向和倭黑猩猩的和平主义。这本书的前提是，暴力具有适应力，它促进了物种的生存。或许这个观点在现在看来不那么富有争议，但是在20世纪的大多数时候，它带来了争议。文化被认为是我们反社会情绪的来源，而任何关于它也有生物性根源的建议都被认为是政治性的倒退，或者，至少让人一想到就觉得沮丧 ---- 这就像在说那些有暴力倾向的人可以被免除道德的责任。

Surveying the extensive record of primate violence in “Demonic Males,” Wrangham and Peterson made an intriguing discovery. Infanticide is not uncommon; and adults—usually males—killing other adults of the same species does happen. But in only two species do bands of males prowl the borders of their range and kill isolated members of other communities: chimpanzees and human hunter-gatherers. This is pure aggression, not territorial defense. The reason appears to be increased access to food resources and, when all the males of a neighboring community are killed or driven off, annexation of females. The record of chimpanzee violence is full and clear. Most remaining hunter-gatherer groups have been brought under the jurisdiction of a modern state and to some degree assimilated, so the record of human aggressiveness is more ambiguous. Still, as Wrangham and Peterson write, although “peaceful foragers have been repeatedly hoped for,” they have very rarely been found.

单词讲解：

intriguing:有趣的

Infanticide: 词根infant+ i+ cid (杀) + e= 杀婴

A band of:一群（信念/目的）共同的人

prowl:悄悄徘徊

hunter-gatherer: people who lived by hunting and collecting food rather than by farming. There are still groups of hunter-gatherers living in some parts of the world. (依靠打猎捕鱼和采集果实为生的)狩猎采集者

drive off:击退

annexation: 词根annex(附加)+ -ation (名词后缀)= 合并，吞并

jurisdiction: 词根juris-(法律) + diction 司法权

assimilate: 词根as-(来自”ad”,朝...) + simil (相同，联想“similar”) + ate(动词后缀)   

使...相同 =同化

forager:找食物的人；  

Forage：to go around searching for food or other supplies四处搜寻〔食物、补给等〕

文章翻译：

Wrangham和Peterson通过《邪恶的男人》一书，大量调查灵长类动物的暴力行为记录，并有了一个有趣的发现：杀婴并非罕见；成年动物--尤其雄性--经常会杀害同一种族的其他雄性。但是只有两个种族的成年动物会徘徊于领地的边缘，并杀害落单的成员，即黑猩猩，和人类狩猎采集者。这是纯粹的暴力行为，而不是领域性的防御。原因似乎是为了抢夺更多的食物来源，以及在屠杀或赶走临近族群的雄性动物之后占有另一族群的雌性。黑猩猩的暴力行为历史是确凿而清晰的。而多数现存的狩猎采集族群因为被纳入了现代国家的管辖，从某种程度上同化了，因此人类的暴力行为记录较为模糊。但是，就像Wrangham 和Peterson所写的“虽然人们期待能找到和平的狩猎者”，但他们很少被发现。

What has been found, instead, are bonobos. The last of the great apes to be discovered, bonobos are so physically similar to chimpanzees that their skeletons lay in museums for fifty years before it was noticed that they were a separate species. But socially and behaviorally, chimps and bonobos areworlds apart, even though they only live on opposite banks of the Congo River. Unlike chimpanzees, bonobos do not patrol, do not raid, and do not kill their neighbors. The sometimes deadly competition among males for sexual primacy and the rape and beating of females, which are commonplace among chimps, are unknown among bonobos. (Indeed, bonobo society is female-dominated.) Neighboring bonobo communities can mix amicably, which almost never happens among chimpanzees. Sex is much more relaxed and, apparently, enjoyable.

单词讲解：

Be worlds apart:天壤之别   （写作词汇）

例句：Though growing up together, Susan and Lily are worlds apart.

短语衍生：grow/think/live worlds apart

patrol:巡逻

raid:突击, 最早是军事意义上的奇袭，现也引申为“突然搜查”

例句: the FBI raided the suspect’s house.

primacy: 词根prim(e)(第一的)+acy 首位

例句：the primacy of money金钱至上

One has to work hard to achieve primacy in his own field.

一个人要努力才能在自己的领域成为顶尖者。

commonplace: 词根common (常见的)+place(地方)= 屡见不鲜的

amicably: 词根am(爱)+ic(形容词后缀)+ably=友好的

文章翻译：

相反，我们发现的是倭黑猩猩。作为最后被发现的类人猿种，倭黑猩猩和黑猩猩在生理形态上十分相似，以至于它们的骨架在博物馆陈列了50年才被发现是另一物种。虽然倭黑猩猩和黑猩猩在居住区域上仅仅隔着刚果河，它们的社会形态和行为却有极大的不同。和黑猩猩不同，倭黑猩猩不巡逻，不突袭，也不会杀害它们的邻居，更不会为了争夺对雌性的性主权进行搏命殴打，也不会性侵犯雌性和殴打雌性（实际上，倭黑猩猩群体是母系主导）。相邻的倭黑猩猩群体们可以友好相处，而这在黑猩猩之间是不可能的。在倭黑猩猩群体中，性行为较为放松，而且显然更美好。

How did this idyllic state of affairs come about? It turns out that there is a relation between the abundance of food in an environment and the size and stability of foraging parties, and a further relation between the character of foraging parties and violence along the border between ranges. Scarcity has its usual malign effects. Why is the bonobos’ environment more benign than that of the chimps? Bonobos, chimps, and gorillas eat much the same foods: fruit, herbs, buds, leaves. But gorillas are more sensitive to dry spells, during which they move into the mountains, where there is greenery. In normal periods, they compete for food with chimps. There are no mountains south of the Congo River, so no gorillas live there, and bonobos have the food supply all to themselves. “Bonobos have evolved in a forest that is kindlier in its food supply, and that allows them to be kindly, too,” Wrangham and Peterson write.

单词讲解：

idyllic:美好的

come about:发生

It turns out that:最后结果是...(通常在自己的意料之外)

例句：it turns out that he is the right one.原来他才是对的。

malign: Adj.有害的,邪恶的

词根讲解：mal (坏的) + gn (出生)

例句：he killed his wife out of malign motives.处于邪恶的目的他杀害了自己的妻子。

Mal-做前缀的其他单词：

malpractice玩忽职守；malfunction 故障;  maltreatment 虐待; malnutrition 营养不良

benign: 词根ben(e) (好的) +i+gn (出生) =善良的；和善的

gorilla:大猩猩

Herb：花草；

近义词区分：herb和spice的区别参考维基百科：

Herb通常指植物的绿叶或者是花的部分（新鲜的或者干的皆可）；

spice指的是干的，由植物的其他部分（种子，树皮，根，水果）做成的香料

原文：Herbs generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits.

dry spells:干旱期；

Spell : a period of a particular kind of activity, weather, illness etc, usually a short period

〔某种活动、天气、疾病等的〕一段时间〔通常时间较短〕

短语衍生：cold/dry/wet/short...spell

greenery:绿色植物 不可数名词；

但是作为表述不同种类的植物时，可改为复数greeneries

类似的单词还有fruit - fruits ; cake - cakes等

文章翻译：

倭黑猩猩群体为何如此和谐？原来食物的丰富程度与觅食队伍的规模和稳定性有关；觅食队伍的特征与边界线附近的暴力行为也有关。食物的稀缺通常会带来不好的结果。为什么倭黑猩猩的生存环境比黑猩猩好呢？倭黑猩猩，黑猩猩，大猩猩的食物几乎是一样的：果实，花草，花蕾，树叶。但大猩猩对干旱期更加敏感，干旱期间它们会迁移至充满植物的山区，平常时间则会和黑猩猩竞争食物。刚果河的南部没有山，所以大猩猩没有居住在那片区域，倭黑猩猩因此享受到了所有的食物。“倭黑猩猩是在食物充足的森林中进化的，这使得它们更加友善。”Wrangham 和Peterson写到。

Humans seem to have a capacity for violent aggression as strong as that of chimpanzees and a capacity for gentleness and docility as strong as that of bonobos. “Compared with other primates, we practice exceptionally low levels of violence in our day-to-day-lives, yet we achieve exceptionally high rates of death from violence in our wars,” Wrangham writes. “That discrepancy is the goodness paradox.” Wrangham has been pondering this paradox in the twenty years since the publication of “Demonic Males,” and he has the first draft of an explanation. It is, literally, far-fetched, relying on observations from Siberia, the South Pacific, the Amazon, Tierra del Fuego, and other remote corners of the earth, as well as on the work of archaeologists, paleontologists, psychologists, biochemists, neurophysiologists, geneticists, and others. The clichés about science being a vast coöperative endeavor may actually be true.

单词讲解：

Docility:温顺

exceptionally:及其地

discrepancy:出入（本该相同）

例句：the discrepancy between the accounts given by two witnesses.两个目击者陈述的有出入

ponder:思考；沉思

far-fetched:牵强附会的;异想天开的（充满想象但是发生率低的）

例句：his parents said his dreams of becoming a big star was far-fetched.

paleontologist: 词根paleonto (古的...)+logist(学家)= 古生物学家

neurophysiologist: 词根nuero(神经)+physio(自然，生理)+logist(学家)=神经生理学

geneticist: 词根gen(基因)+etic (形容词后缀)+ist(..人)=基因学家

cliché:陈词滥调

endeavor:努力； 可数/不可数 均可；

英式写法：endeavour

知识延伸：

很多单词可以同时做可数(C)和不可数名词(NC)，如：success, experience, coffee, failure.etc.

具体取决于它是在描述一个抽象的广义概念还是一间具体的事物。

例句：

Sorry I don’t have time. (NC)  VS  Have a nice time ! (C)

Would you want some coffee? (NC)  VS   I’d like two coffees. (C，指两杯咖啡)

知识延伸：

英式和美式拼写的不同：（vowel指元音）

以下是大致规律，因为是语言，会有部分例外，不确定的时候最好查查字典哦~

BritishAmericanexample

ourorcolour - color

ise/izeizeorganize/organise - organize

reercentre - center

yseyzeanalyse - analyze

ae/oeeaesthesia - esthesiamanoeuvre - maneuver

enceensedefence - defense

ogueogdialogue-dialog

vowel+llvowel+ltravelled - traveled

文章翻译：

人类似乎同时具有黑猩猩的暴力倾向和倭黑猩猩的温和顺从。“与其他灵长类动物相比，人类日常的暴力行为更少，然而人类在充满暴力的战争中死亡率极高”，Wrangham写道. “这个现象就是’善良的悖论’ ”。在出版《邪恶的男人》之后的20年，Wrangham一直在思考悖论产生的原因并得出了初步的解释，虽然有点异想天开。这个想法基于对西伯利亚，南太平洋，亚马逊，火地岛，以及地球偏远角落的观察结果，同时参考了考古学家，古生物学家，心理学家，生物化学家，神经生理学家，基因学家，以及其它学者的作品。“科学无边界”这句老话可能是真的。

Scientists classify aggression into reactive and proactive types. Reactive aggression is a response to a provocation or threat. It’s angry, impulsive, and associated with high levels of testosterone. Proactive aggression is calculating, premeditated, and strategic. Think of those TV Westerns where the hero deliberately provokes a slow-witted, hot-headed antagonist who goes for his gun while our hero pulls his hat down over his eyes and clobbers him over the head with a six-shooter. Our hero is proactively aggressive; the villain is reactively aggressive. Usually, reactive aggression is individual, while proactive aggression is institutional, taking such forms as war or capital punishment.

单词讲解：

reactive: 词根re(向后，往回)+active(活跃的)=反应的；V. react 做出反应

proactive: 词根pro(向前)+active(活跃的)= 先发制人的

provocation: 词根pro(向前)+voc(声音)+ation(名词后缀) 走到别人面前叫喊= 激怒

V. Provoke激怒 (vok = voc )

testosterone:在此请理解为“雄性激素”；准确名称请自行看字典 o(*////▽////*)q

calculating:精明算计的（贬义）

premeditated:词根pre(在前)+meditat(e)（沉思）+ed(形容词后缀)= 预谋的

antagonist:敌手/对手；

clobber:狠揍；彻底击败

six-shooter:六发式手枪

institutional:形成制度的，惯例的

背景介绍：此处的Westerns指代一种类型的作品。作品围绕19世纪后期，流浪漂泊的牛仔（通常是枪战高手）。20世纪前期到60年代，牛仔题材的作品是好莱坞最受欢迎的种类之一。典型的好莱坞牛仔枪战场景是主人公与其对手在街上相遇，通常二人相隔10-25 英尺（3-7.62米）。这时两人互相观察看谁先掏出手枪（这是枪战可以开始的信号），一般对手会先掏出抢，然后毫无疑问，主角开枪更快更准，获得了胜利。（和我们的武侠决斗是不是很像(#^.^#) ）

文章翻译：

科学家把这种暴力倾向分为主动性和反应性。反应性攻击是被激怒或威胁做出的反应，通常是愤怒的，冲动的，与高水平的雄性激素有关。主动性攻击是功于心计的，是有预谋、有策略的。想象一下西部电视片，男主角故意激怒一个反应迟钝，脑袋发热的敌手，他愤怒地伸向手枪，男主角则拉下帽子遮住眼睛，快速的用六发式手枪猛击敌人头部。我们的英雄是主动性攻击；敌人是反应性攻击。通常反应性攻击是个人的行为，而主动性攻击通常形成了是制度性的，以战争或者死刑的方式出现。