什么是生命密码
日期:2017-06-29 10:21

(单词翻译:单击)

 MP3点击下载

So, there's an actor called Dustin Hoffman.
有一个叫达斯汀·霍夫曼的演员
And years ago, he made this movie which some of you may have heard of, called "The Graduate."
十几年前 他拍摄了一部叫《毕业生》的电影 你们某些人可能听说过
And there's two key scenes in that movie.
在那个电影里有两个主要的场景
The first one is the seduction scene.
一个是勾引的画面。
I'm not going to talk about that tonight.
但是我今天不是来讨论那个的
The second scene is where he's taken out by the old guy to the pool,
在第二个场景中,他被一位长者带到游泳场边
and as a young college graduate, the old guy basically says one word, just one word.
作为一位毕业生,长者只对他说了一个词,仅仅一个词。

tedyj21.jpg


And of course, all of you know what that word is. It's "plastics."
当然 你们都知道那个词 就是“塑料”。
And the only problem with that is, it was completely the wrong advice.
但现在问题是,他给出的建议完全错了。
Let me tell you why it was so wrong. The word should have been "silicon."
让我来给你们讲讲为什么错了。因为这个词应该是“硅”。
And the reason it should have been silicon is because the basic patents for semiconductors had already been made, had already been filed, and they were already building them.
为什么说应该是硅呢?因为那时半导体的专利已经得以注册,人们已经建立了半导体产业城。
So Silicon Valley was just being built in 1967, when this movie was released.
所以硅谷就是在1967年建立的 正好是这部电影发行的那一年。
And the year after the movie was released, Intel was founded.
在电影发行的第二年 因特尔公司成立了。
So had the graduate heard the right one word, maybe he would have ended up onstage oh, I don't know maybe with these two.
所以说如果这位毕业生听到了正确的答案,或许他就会和这两位一样出现在台上。
So as you're thinking of that, let's see what bit of advice we might want to give
那么,想想看我们现在会给出什么建议,
so that your next graduate doesn't become a Tupperware salesman.
不要让我们的毕业生最后沦落为特百惠的销售员。
So in 2015, what word of advice would you give people, when you took a college graduate out by the pool
在2015年,当你把一位毕业生带到游泳池边你会说什么词呢,只说一个词,
and you said one word, just one word?
你给人们的建议会是什么词呢?
I think the answer would be "lifecode."
我想这个答案应该是“生命密码”。
So what is "lifecode?"
到底什么是“生命密码”呢?
Lifecode is the various ways we have of programming life.
生命密码是我们为生命编程的各种各样的方式。
So instead of programming computers, we're using things to program viruses or retroviruses or proteins or DNA or RNA or plants or animals, or a whole series of creatures.
也就说我们并非在电脑上编程,而是运用工具来编译病毒逆转录病毒、蛋白质DNA、RNA 动植物以及一系列的生物。
And as you're thinking about this incredible ability to make life do what you want it to do,
如各位所想,这项惊人的能力可以让生命按照程序编写的一样
what it's programmed to do, what you end up doing is taking what we've been doing for thousands of years,
做你想让它做的事得到你想得到的结果。那些已经进行了上千年的事情:
which is breeding, changing, mixing, matching all kinds of life-forms, and we accelerate it.
各种生命形式的繁殖、改变杂交、匹配 我们加速了这一过程。
And this is not something new.
这并不是一件新鲜事
This humble mustard weed has been modified so that if you change it in one way, you get broccoli.
这株芥菜经过了基因修饰,如果你以某种方式进行改变,它就变成了西兰花。
And if you change it in a second way, you get kale.
如果你换一种方式,它就变成了甘蓝。
And if you change it in a third way, you get cauliflower.
如果用第三种方式,得到的就是花椰菜。
So when you go to these all-natural, organic markets, you're really going to a place
所以当你去纯天然的有机菜场时,你所看到的蔬菜
where people have been changing the lifecode of plants for a long time.
的生命密码在很久以前就被改变了。
The difference today, to pick a completely politically neutral term
如今所不同的只是挑一个政治立场上完全中性的词来形容它。
We're beginning to practice intelligent design.
我们正在进行智能设计的实践
That means that instead of doing this at random and seeing what happens over generations,
这意味着我们不能随意地进行试验然后看看几代后会发生什么。
we're inserting specific genes, we're inserting specific proteins,
我们需要插入特定的基因和特定的蛋白质,
and we're changing lifecode for very deliberate purposes.
然后根据我们的目的修改生命密码,
And that allows us to accelerate how this stuff happens.
从而加速试验的结果。
Let me just give you one example.
让我举个例子。
Some of you occasionally might think about sex.
你们当中可能有人会偶尔产生性欲。
And we kind of take it for granted how we've changed sex.
我们已经对性爱的改变习以为常。
So we think it's perfectly normal and natural to change it.
所以我们认为这种改变非常正常和自然。
What's happened with sex over time is normally, sex equals baby, eventually.
过去,性爱的发生通常来讲,最后就意味着孩子。
But in today's world, sex plus pill equals no baby.
但是,在今天的社会,性加药等于没有孩子
And again, we think that's perfectly normal and natural,
再次强调我们认为这是很自然很正常的
but that has not been the case for most of human history.
但在人类历史中几乎没有这样的例子发生,
And it's not the case for animals.
动物身上也没有。
What it is does is it gives us control, so sex becomes separate from conception.
这样的改变让我们摆脱了束缚因此性和怀孕不再有必然联系。
And as you're thinking of the consequences of that, then we've been playing with stuff that's a little bit more advanced, like art.
你可以想象到这样的结果接着我们开始使用一些技术一些先进的技术,比如“艺术”。
Not in the sense of painting and sculpture, but in the sense of assisted reproductive technologies.
不是在绘画和雕塑意义上的艺术,是指辅助生殖技术。
So what are assisted reproductive technologies?
什么是辅助生殖技术呢?
Assisted reproductive technologies are things like in vitro fertilization.
这是一种类似体外受精的技术。
And when you do in vitro fertilization, there's very good reasons to do it.
有时可能有人无法怀孕
Sometimes you just can't conceive otherwise.
那么选择体外受精无疑是一个好选择。
But when you do that, what you’re doing is separating sex, conception, baby.
但是通过体外受精性、怀孕和孩子就完全分离开来。
So you haven't just taken control of when you have a baby,
所以你不仅可以决定生孩子的时间,
you've separated when the baby and where the baby is fertilized.
还可以将受精的时间和地点分离开来。
So you've separated the baby from the body from the act.
所以你可以把孩子和身体和性爱都分开。
And as you're thinking of other things we've been doing, think about twins.
再举个例子 比如双胞胎。
So you can freeze sperm, you can freeze eggs, you can freeze fertilized eggs.
你可以冻结精子,可以冻结卵子你也可以冻结受精卵。
And what does that mean?
这意味着什么呢?
Well, that's a good thing if you're a cancer patient.
如果你是一位癌症患者,这绝对是一件好事。
You're about to go under chemotherapy or under radiation, so you save these things.
你即将要接受化疗和放疗 所以你需要保存生殖细胞或受精卵
You don't irradiate them.
这样它们就可以免遭辐射。
But if you can save them and you can freeze them,
但是,如果你可以保存它们,冻结它们,
and you can have a surrogate mother, it means that you've decoupled sex from time.
甚至可以找一位代孕母亲,这就意味着你可以使性脱离时间的束缚。
It means you can have twins born -- oh, in 50 years?
也就是说你可以生下一对相差50岁的双胞胎?
In a hundred years? Two hundred years?
或许相差100年?200年?
And these are three really profound changes that are not, like, future stuff.
这些影响深远的改变这并不是将来的东西,
This is stuff we take for granted today.
这是我们今天认为理所当然的事情。
So this lifecode stuff turns out to be a superpower.
因此生命密码蕴含强大的力量。
It turns out to be this incredibly powerful way of changing viruses, of changing plants, of changing animals, perhaps even of evolving ourselves.
它以一种难以置信地方式改变病毒,改变植物,改变动物 甚至可以让我们自己进化。
It's something that Steve Gullans and I have been thinking about for a while.
史蒂夫·加兰和我对于生命密码有过一些思考。
Let's have some risks.
我们先说一些危险的情况。
Like every powerful technology, like electricity, like an automobile, like computers, this stuff potentially can be misused.
就像所有有力的科技一样,比如电力、汽车还有电脑,
And that scares a lot of people.
这吓坏了很多人。
And as you apply these technologies, you can even turn human beings into chimeras.
当你在使用这些科技时你甚至可以把人变成怪物。
Remember the Greek myth where you mix animals?
大家记得希腊神话中动物互相交配么?
Well, some of these treatments actually end up changing your blood type.
有一些治疗的结果甚至会让你改变血型
Or they'll put male cells in a female body or vice versa, which sounds absolutely horrible
或者他们会把男性细胞和女性细胞放入对方体内,听起来无比可怕。
until you realize, the reason you're doing that is you're substituting bone marrow during cancer treatments.
其实你发现这就是你在癌症治疗过程中替换骨髓的过程。
So by taking somebody else's bone marrow,
从别人身体上得到的骨髓
you may be changing some fundamental aspects of yourself, but you're also saving your life.
也许会改变你自己的基本情况,但同时也救了你的命。
And as you're thinking about this stuff, here's something that happened 20 years ago.
如果你仔细想想,这个技术已经存在20年了。
This is Emma Ott. She's a recent college admittee. She's studying accounting.
这是艾玛·奥特 她是个在校大学生。她主修会计。
She played two varsity sports. She graduated as a valedictorian.
她是两种体育的校队成员还作为学生代表进行了毕业演讲。
And that's not particularly extraordinary, except that she's the first human being born to three parents.
这都没有什么特别的,但是她是第一个三亲家庭的孩子。
Why? Because she had a deadly mitochondrial disease that she might have inherited.
为什么 因为她很可能通过遗传得了一种线粒体疾病。
So when you swap out a third person's DNA and you put it in there, you save the lives of people.
当你把第三个人的DNA植入这些人的体内,他们就可以活下来。
But you also are doing germline engineering, which means her kids, if she has kids, will be saved and won't go through this.
同时使用生殖工程学的技术,如果她有孩子,她的孩子也将永远免于这种疾病的侵害。
And kids will be saved, and their grandchildren will be saved, and this passes on. That makes people nervous.
她的后代,和她的后代的后代都会被挽救。这让人们紧张。
So 20 years ago, the various authorities said, why don't we study this for a while?
所以20年前,很多专家表示为什么我们不先研究一下
There are risks to doing stuff, and there are risks to not doing stuff,
使用这些技术是有风险的但是不用这些技术问题就会继续,
because there were a couple dozen people saved by this technology,
我们已经使用这些救了很多人。
and then we've been thinking about it for the next 20 years.
我们已经思考了20年。
So as we think about it, as we take the time to say, "Hey, maybe we should have longer studies,
这期间我们不停地说:“也许我们需要更长时间的研究”,
maybe we should do this, maybe we should do that,"
“也许我们要做这个也许要做那个”,
there are consequences to acting, and there are consequences to not acting.
凡事都是有两面性的。用科技治愈致命的疾病也不例外。
Like curing deadly diseases which, by the way, is completely unnatural.
治愈致命的疾病其实是非常反常的。
It is normal and natural for humans to be felled by massive epidemics of polio, of smallpox, of tuberculosis.
如果人类死于大量的传染病比如脊髓灰质炎,天花,肺结核,那是非常正常的。
When we put vaccines into people, we are putting unnatural things into their body
在人体体内疫苗就是一件很不正常的事,
because we think the benefit outweighs the risk.
但是我们认为利大于弊。
Because we've built unnatural plants, unnatural animals, we can feed about seven billion people.
因为我们培养了特殊的植株特殊的动物,我们才可以养育这70亿人。
We can do things like create new life-forms.
我们可以创造新的生物
And as you create new life-forms, again, that sounds terribly scary and terribly bothersome,
乍一听创造新生物实在太恐怖太可怕,
until you realize that those life-forms live on your dining room table.
其实你在餐厅的桌子上就可以看到那些新生物。
Those flowers you've got on your dining room table
餐厅桌子上买回来的鲜花
there's not a lot that's natural about them,
和自然完全沾不上边,
because people have been breeding the flowers to make this color, to be this size, to last for a week.
因为人类一直在选育固定的颜色固定的尺寸,以及强大的生存能力。
You don't usually give your loved one wildflowers because they don't last a whole lot of time.
你通常不会放野花在这因为它们活不了多久。
What all this does is it flips Darwin completely on his head.
这一切的一切都完全颠覆了达尔文的理论。
See, for four billion years, what lived and died on this planet depended on two principles: on natural selection and random mutation.

40亿年前,地球上生物能否生存取决于两个原则:自然选择和基因突变。
And so what lived and died, what was structured, has now been flipped on its head.
而这两个原则现在已经被完全颠覆了。
And what we've done is created this completely parallel evolutionary system
我们正在创造一个完全并行的进化系统
where we are practicing unnatural selection and non-random mutation.
这个系统里我们尝试着非自然选择和定向变异。
So let me explain these things. This is natural selection. This is unnatural selection.
让我来解释一下:这是自然选择。这是非自然选择。
So what happens with this stuff is,we started breeding wolves thousands of years ago in central Asia to turn them into dogs.
狗这个物种实际上是几千年前的中亚人通过驯养狼得到的物种。
And then we started turning them into big dogs and into little dogs.
然后我们开始把狗培育成大狗或者小狗。
But if you take one of the chihuahuas you see in the Hermès bags on Fifth Avenue
但是如果你带着一只第五大街上的某个爱马仕包里的吉娃娃
and you let it loose on the African plain, you can watch natural selection happen.
去非洲平原放生 你就可以看到自然选择的发生。
Few things on Earth are less natural than a cornfield.
地球上没有比玉米地更不自然的了。
You will never, under any scenario, walk through a virgin forest and see the same plant growing in orderly rows at the same time, nothing else living there.
如果你进入原始森林你永远不可能看到同一种植株
When you do a cornfield, you're selecting what lives and what dies.
你在种植玉米的时候,你决定了什么生什么死。
And you're doing that through unnatural selection.
你在进行非自然选择。
It's the same with a wheat field, it's the same with a rice field.
麦田也一样,稻田也一样,
It's the same with a city, it's the same with a suburb.
城市也一样,郊区也一样。
In fact, half the surface of Earth has been unnaturally engineered
事实地球上一半的地区都是人工控制的结果
so that what lives and what dies there is what we want,
这些地区我们决定物种的生死。
which is the reason why you don't have grizzly bears walking through downtown Manhattan.
所以你不可能在曼哈顿的街区看到灰熊走来走去。
How about this random mutation stuff? Well, this is random mutation.
基因突变是什么呢?这就是基因突变。
This is Antonio Alfonseca. He's otherwise known as the Octopus, his nickname.
这是安东尼奥·艾方塞卡,他还有一个外号叫做章鱼
He was the Relief Pitcher of the Year in 2000.
他是2000年的最佳替补投手。
And he had a random mutation that gave him six fingers on each hand, which turns out to be really useful if you're a pitcher.
他的基因发生了随机突变使得他的每个手掌都长出了六个手指 结果证明六个手指的手掌对于一个投手来说是很有利的条件
How about non-random mutation? A non-random mutation is beer. It's wine. It's yogurt.
非随机突变是怎样的呢 啤酒 葡萄酒 酸奶 都属于非随机突变。
How many times have you walked through the forest and found all-natural cheese?
你在森林里走的时候看见一块纯天然的奶酪的几率有多大呢
Or all-natural yogurt? So we've been engineering this stuff.
纯天然酸奶呢?这些都是非随机突变的结果。
Now, the interesting thing is, we get to know the stuff better.
有趣的是,现在我们对于突变了解的更多了。
We found one of the single most powerful gene-editing instruments, CRISPR, inside yogurt.
我们在酸奶中发现了基因编辑的有力武器CRISPR。
And as we start engineering cells,
我们开始控制细胞
we're producing eight out of the top 10 pharmaceutical products,
利用这个工具制造十种最常用药物中的八种
including the stuff that you use to treat arthritis, which is the number one best-selling drug, Humira.
包括治疗关节炎的特效药,修美乐。
So this lifecode stuff. It really is a superpower.
生命密码就是这些东西。它真的超级强大。
It really is a way of programming stuff, and there's nothing that's going to change us more than this lifecode.
真的就像在编码生物一样,再也不会有比生命密码对于人类的改变更大的改变了。
So as you're thinking of lifecode, let's think of five principles as to how we start guiding, and I'd love you to give me more.
所以在思考生命密码的时候 在开始准备使用它的时候 我们要遵守五个原则。我希望各位可以给我更多启发。
So, principle number one: we have to take responsibility for this stuff.
原则一:我们要承担对生命密码的责任。
The reason we have to take responsibility is because we're in charge.
之所以我们要肩负起责任是因为我们是使用者。
These aren't random mutations.
这不是随机的突变。
This is what we are doing, what we are choosing.
这是我们的选择,我们的工作
It's not, "Stuff happened." It didn't happen at random.
这不是“事情就这样发生了” 这既不是随机发生的。
It didn't come down by a verdict of somebody else.
也不会随着别人的决定而消失。
We engineer this stuff, and it's the Pottery Barn rule: you break it, you own it.
我们制造了它,根据珀特里·巴恩的原则:你破坏了规则,你就要对它负责。
Principle number two: we have to recognize and celebrate diversity in this stuff.
原则二:我们必须明白并且鼓励物种的多样性。
There have been at least 33 versions of hominids that have walked around this Earth.
曾经至少有33种原始人存在于这个世界上。
Most all of them went extinct except us.
除了我们之外绝大多数已经灭绝。
But the normal and natural state of this Earth is we have various versions of humans walking around at the same time,
但是正常情况下的地球应该有不同种的人类同时存在
which is why most of us have some Neanderthal in us.
这也是为什么很多人有尼安德特人
Some of us have some Denisova in us.
和丹尼索瓦人的特征。
And some in Washington have a lot more of it.
一些华盛顿的政客好像有更多类似的特征。
Principle number three: we have to respect other people's choices.
原则三:尊重他人的选择。
Some people will choose to never alter.
有人选择不改变,
Some people will choose to alter all.
有人选择改变,
Some people will choose to alter plants but not animals.
有人选择改变植物但是不改变动物,
Some people will choose to alter themselves.
有人选择改变自己。
Some people will choose to evolve themselves.
有人选择进化自己。
Diversity is not a bad thing, because even though we think of humans as very diverse,
多样性是好的 尽管我们认为人类多样性已经很丰富了,
we came so close to extinction that all of us descend from a single African mother
但是因为我们来自同一位非洲母亲的基因 我们也有灭绝的危险。
and the consequence of that is there's more genetic diversity in 55 African chimpanzees than there are in seven billion humans.
而且它的后果是 55只非洲黑猩猩的基因的多样性都比70亿人类丰富得多。
Principle number four: we should take about a quarter of the Earth and only let Darwin run the show there.
原则四:我们应该让四分之一的世界遵循达尔文的原则。
It doesn't have to be contiguous, doesn't have to all be tied together.
这四分之一的世界不用连在一起,也不用被绑定在一起看待。
It should be part in the oceans, part on land.
但是要有部分的海洋和部分的陆地。
But we should not run every evolutionary decision on this planet.
我们不应该决定地球上每一个物种的进化。
We want to have our evolutionary system running.
我们需要我们的进化系统的运行。
We want to have Darwin's evolutionary system running.
我们也需要达尔文进化系统的运行。
And it's just really important to have these two things running in parallel and not overwhelm evolution.
我们需要两个系统并行而不是压倒性的人工进化。
Last thing I'll say. This is the single most exciting adventure human beings have been on.
最后我想提的是 这是人类经历过的最刺激的一次冒险
This is the single greatest superpower humans have ever had.
这是人类拥有过的最大的超能力
It would be a crime for you not to participate in this stuff because you're scared of it, because you're hiding from it.
由于你的恐惧和逃避 而没有参与进来 你会有很大的愧疚感
You can participate in the ethics. You can participate in the politics.
你可以从伦理的角度参与进来你可以从政治的角度参与进来
You can participate in the business.
你可以从商业的角度参与进来
You can participate in just thinking about where medicine is going,
你可以仅仅通过思考制药业和工业的未来
where industry is going, where we're going to take the world.
通过思考我们和世界如何共处而参与进来。
It would be a crime for all of us not to be aware when somebody shows up at a swimming pool
如果有人出现在游泳池告诉我们了一个词,仅仅一个词如果那个词是“生命密码”
and says one word, just one word, if you don't listen if that word is "lifecode." Thank you very much.
如果我们没有听,没有注意那么这将是全人类的遗憾。非常感谢。

分享到
重点单词
  • potentiallyadv. 潜在地
  • acceleratevt. 加速,提前,跳级 vi. 加速
  • havenn. 港口,避难所,安息所 v. 安置 ... 于港中,
  • actingn. 演戏,行为,假装 adj. 代理的,临时的,供演出
  • evolvev. 进展,进化,展开
  • pitchern. 水罐,[棒球]投手,[植]瓶状叶
  • humbleadj. 卑下的,谦逊的,粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑
  • orderlyadj. 有秩序的,整齐的,一丝不苟的,和平的 adv.
  • celebratev. 庆祝,庆贺,颂扬
  • separatedadj. 分居;分开的;不在一起生活的 v. 分开;隔开