(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Lucy Huang.
If you have a dog, you've probably tried to train it. The basics, like sit and stay. Plus, of course, not to go to the bathroom on your rugs. And if your dog learns things quickly, you might start to think it's really smart. But:
"If you really want to know about dog intelligence, you have to look at non-dogs as well to understand what's special to dogs and what is just typical of groups they belong to."
Stephen Lea, a retired professor of psychology from the University of Exeter in the U.K. He and colleagues looked at dog intelligence in an animal intelligence context for a report in the journal Learning & Behavior.
Lea and his team looked at hundreds of published studies to compare dog cognition with that of other animals. They found that dogs are adept at picking up on social cues.
"They're good, for example, at using human pointing or following human gaze, looking at what you're looking at. We're not saying dogs aren't good at those tasks, they are. What we were saying is that there are some other animals that are just as good at them."
Like bottlenose dolphins and gray seals.
"It's not something that's unique to dogs or indeed that unexpected in dogs, given the sorts of animals dogs are. Namely, they're domesticated. They're derived from social hunters. And important, they're carnivores. They belong to a big group of mammals that also includes cats, hyenas, otters, bears, and also the seals and sea lions, which we sometimes forget about. But which, of course, are also very easy to train despite not being domestic."
And while dog cognition may not actually be exceptional, their noses definitely are:
"Their sense of smell...the extraordinary things that they can discriminate, like which of two identical twins they're looking at or sniffing at."
Lea also points out there are some tasks that dogs apparently cannot do, such as use tools or exhibit self-awareness. But:
"There's always the possibility that someone, somewhere is at this moment demonstrating that a dog can do something that we said it couldn't. And, because you can't prove a negative, so we could be wrong...in some sense, one reason why we wrote the paper was to challenge our colleagues to, okay, show us the evidence. Find a dog that will do these things and we'll happily change our minds. We're not, oh, I can feel the word coming: we're not dogmatic."
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Lucy Huang.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是露西·黄。
如果你有一只狗，你可能试着训练过它。比如坐下和停下等基本动作。当然，还有不要在地毯上大小便。如果你的狗狗学东西很快，可能你就会认为它真的很聪明。但是：
“如果你真的想了解狗狗的智力，你就必须着眼于非犬类动物，来理解狗狗的特别之处，以及它们所属群体的特性。”
英国埃克塞特大学的心理学退休教授史蒂芬·李说到。他和同事从动物智力角度研究了狗狗的智力，并将研究报告发表在《学习与行为》期刊上。
李和团队查阅了数百篇已发表研究，对比了狗和其它动物的认知能力。他们发现，狗善于察觉社交暗示。
“举例来说，它们善于通过人类的手指指向或追随人类的凝视方向，观察人类正在看的东西。这并不是说狗不擅长这些任务，它们确实擅长。我们的意思是，除了狗之外，还有其它动物也有一样的本事。”
比如宽吻海豚和灰海豹。
“因为狗也是动物，因此这并不是狗所特有的能力，狗完成这些任务也并非意料之外。也就是说，狗是被驯养的动物。是由群居的猎手驯化而来。重要的是，狗是食肉动物。它们属于哺乳动物，这一大类还包括猫、鬣狗、水獭、熊，还有我们有时会忘记的海豹和海狮。当然，尽管海豹和海狮不是驯养动物，但它们也很容易被训练。”
虽然狗的认知能力可能实际上并没有多么出众，但它们的鼻子绝对很特别。
“它们的嗅觉非同寻常，举个例子，它们能通过观察或嗅味道来分辨同卵双胞胎。”
不过李也指出，显然有些任务狗狗无法完成，比如使用工具或表现自我意识。但是：
“总有这样一种可能性：此时此刻有人正在某地展示狗能做我们认为其做不到的事情。因为你不能举反证，所以我们有可能是错的……在某种程度上，我们写这篇论文的原因之一就是挑战我们的同事，让他们拿出证据。如果我们能找到会做这些事的狗狗，那我们会很乐意改变想法。我们并不是，哦，我想到那个词了：我们并不是教条主义者。”
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是露西·黄。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. belong to 是（某族类或纲目）的一部分；属于；
Lions and tigers belong to the cat family.
狮子和老虎属于猫科。
2. be adept at 熟练的；擅长的；内行的；
He is adept at getting himself out of difficult situations.
他善于使自己摆脱困境。
3. derive from/be derived from 从…衍生出；起源于；来自；
The word Easter derives from Eostre, the pagan goddess of spring.
Easter（复活节）一词由Eostre（多神教的春天女神）衍生而来。
4. sniff at 闻；嗅；
The dog sniffed at my shoes.
那条狗嗅我的鞋。
