I think it’s - I’m a believer in the precautionary principle as I’ve just said,
我觉得-我刚就说过我相信预警原则
and I think we have to worry about possible consequences of things that we do, and the ability to edit our own genomes is one thing we ought to worry about.
我们必须考虑我们所做事情可能带来的后果，而编辑人类基因组的能力是我们应该担心的一件事
I’m not sure it’s so much an ethical problem as a more practical problem.
我不确定它像其他实际问题那样是一个伦理问题
What would the consequences be? Would the consequences be bad? And they might be.
后果可能是什么？会是恶劣的影响吗？是有可能的
I think it’s worth noticing that long before CRISPR long before it became capable of editing our genomes in anyway
值得注意的是CRISPR出现很久以前，在它有能力以任何方式编辑人类基因组之前
we have been editing the genomes of domestic animals and plants by artificial selection,
我们就一直在用人工选择编辑家畜和乡土植物的基因组
not artificial mutation, which is what we’re now talking about, but artificial selection.
不是我们正在讨论的人工突变，而是人工选择
When you think that a Pekingese is a wolf, a modified wolf, a genetically modified wolf—
你可能觉得北京犬其实是狼，一只被改进、从基因上被改进的狼
modified not by directly manipulating genes but by choosing for breeding individuals who have certain characteristics,
不是通过直接操纵基因来改进，而是通过选择拥有某些特征的个体繁殖来改进

for example, a small stubbed nose, et cetera, and making a wolf turn into a Pekingese.
比如小粗鼻的特征等等，从而让一只狼变成了一只北京犬
And we’ve been doing that very successfully with domestic animals like dogs, cows, domestic plants like maize for a long time,
很久以来，我们在狗、奶牛等家畜和玉米等乡土植物上做的很成功
we’ve never done that to humans or hardly at all.
但我们基本从来没在人身上进行过那种改进
Hitler tried it but it’s never really been properly done with humans I’m glad to say.
希特勒曾经试过，不过庆幸的是他在人身上做的很失败
So if we’ve never done that with humans with the easy way, which is artificial selection,
所以如果我们没有用简单的人工选择方式对人类进行过这种改进
it’s not obvious why we would suddenly start doing it the difficult way, which is by direct genetic manipulation.
那也没什么理由突然开始用困难的直接操作基因方法来改进
There doesn’t seem to be any great eagerness to do it over the last few centuries anyway.
过去几百年来并没有人急着想要这么做
A lot of people have problems with what they call designer babies.
很多人反对他们所谓的设计婴儿
You could imagine a future scenario in which people go to a doctor and say, "Doctor, we want our baby to be a musical genius.
你可以想象一下未来的这种场景：很多人去找医生说“医生，我们想让自己的孩子成为音乐天才
Please edit the genes so that we have the same genes as the Bach family had or something like that to make them into a musical genius."
请编辑一下我们的基因让它和巴赫家族一样，或者加点那种基因之类的东西让他成为音乐天才”
I mean that horrifies many people.
这让很多人感到害怕
It’s got totally obvious why that’s anymore horrifying than parents who are ambitious for the musical future of their child forcing the child to practice the piano three hours a day.
很明显，这比想让自己的孩子成为音乐人才而逼着孩子每天练习三小时钢琴的父母更加可怕
There are differences, of course, forcing it to practice is maybe unpleasant for the child but it doesn’t go into the next generation,
当然，这还是有区别的，逼着孩子练琴可能会让孩子不开心，但它不会传到下一代
changing the genes does so there is a difference there.
但改变基因却会，还是有区别的
But at least people who shudder with horror at a designer baby who’s a musical genius, people who shudderat horror at that,
但至少害怕音乐天才设计婴儿的人，害怕这种事的人们
why don’t you shudder with horror at forcing a child to have music lessons when it doesn’t want to or practice music when it doesn’t want to?
为什么不怕逼着孩子在不想上课或不想练琴的时候去上课练琴呢？
I think although there is an analogy between technological evolution and biological evolution, it’s dangerous to push that analogy too far.
虽然技术进化和生物进化有相似性，但若是类推的太过分可就危险了
I’ve just been decrying the view that everybody is an expert.
我一直反对人人都是专家的观点
And I’m not an expert in technology and I think that every scientist needs to admit when they don’t know.
我本人并不是技术专家，每位科学家也应该承认不知为不知
The analogy is there, things change gradually, the evolution of the airplane starting from the Wright brothers in the beginning of the 20th century until the present,
类比是，事情是逐渐发生变化的，飞机的演变始于20世纪初莱特兄弟发明的飞机，直到现在
it’s been spectacularly fast but it is gradual evolution and it looks, to some extent, like biological evolution.
它的速度空前之快，但这是一个慢慢演变的过程，在某种程度上，这看起来像生物进化
But whether it occurs by natural selection that’s open to argument.
但它是否是通过自然选择发生的，这还有待讨论
You could say that it does occur by a form of natural selection, but it’s not the same kind of natural selection.
你可以说它确实是通过一种自然选择发生的，但那不是同一种自然选择
So I don’t regard myself as a biological evolutionist as qualified to talk about technological evolution.
因此我并不认为自己是一名合格的讨论技术进化的生物进化学家
I’m interested in the analogy but I think it only is an analogy and it doesn’t go too far.
我对这种类比很感兴趣，但它仅仅只是一个类比，不能过分解读