The Selfish Gene自私的基因英文原版 选读 1-1. Why are people?

I am going to give some examples of apparently selfish and apparently altruistic behavior. It's difficult to suppress subjective habits of thought when we are dealing with our own species, so I shall chose examples from other animals instead. First some miscellaneous examples of selfish behavior by individual animals.

我将给出一些明显自私和利他行为的例子。当我们与自己的物种打交道时，很难抑制主观思维习惯，因此我将选择其他动物的例子。首先是一些动物个体自私行为的例子。

Blackheaded gulls nest in large colonies, the nest being only a few feet apart. When the chicks first hatch out they are small and defenseless and easy to swallow. It's quite common for a gull to wait until a neighbor's back is turned, perhaps while it is away fishing, and then pounce on one of the neighbor's chicks and swallow it whole. It thereby obtains good nutritious meal, without having to go to the trouble of catching a fish, and without having to leave its own nest unprotected.

黑头海鸥在大的群体中筑巢，巢距只有几英尺。当小崽崽刚孵化出来时，它们很小，没有防御能力，很容易被吞下。海鸥通常会等到邻居的背转过来，也许是在外出捕鱼时，然后猛扑到邻居的一只小崽崽身上，把它整个吞下。因此，它可以获得营养丰富的食物，不必费心去抓鱼，也不必离开自己的巢穴而不受保护。

More well known is the macabre cannibalism of female praying mantises. Mantises are large carnivorous insects. They normally eat smaller insects such as flies, but they will attack almost anything that moves. When they are mate, they male cautiously creeps up on the female, mounts her, and copulates. If the female gets the chance, she will eat him, beginning by biting his head off, either as the male approaching, or immediately after he mounts, or after they separate.

更广为人知的是雌螳螂可怕的食同类行为。螳螂是大型食肉昆虫。它们通常吃苍蝇等较小的昆虫，但它们几乎会攻击任何移动的昆虫。当它们交配时，雄性会小心翼翼地爬到雌性身上，骑上雌性，然后交配。如果雌鸟有机会，她会吃掉它，先咬下它的头，要么是在雄鸟靠近的时候，要么是在它上马后，要么是在它们分开后。

It might seem most sensible for her to wait until copulation is over before she starts to eat him. But the loss of the head does not seem to throw the rest of the male's body off its sextual stride. Indeed, since the insect head is the seat of some inhibitory nerve centers, it is possible that the female improves the male's sexual performance by eating his head. If so, this is an added benefit. The primary one is that she obtains a good meal.

对她来说，等到交配结束后再开始吃他似乎是最明智的。但头部的缺失似乎并没有让男性身体的其他部分偏离性步伐。事实上，由于昆虫的头部是一些抑制性神经中枢的所在地，雌性昆虫有可能通过吃掉雄性昆虫的头部来改善其性行为。如果是这样，这是一个额外的好处。主要的目的还是她吃了一顿好饭。

The word "selfish" may seem an understatement for such extreme cases as cannibalism, although these fit well with our definition. Perhaps we can sympathize more directly with the reported cowardly behavior of emperor penguins in Antarctic. They have been seen standing on the brink of the water, hesitating before diving in, because of the danger of being eaten by seals. If only one of them would dive in, the rest would know whether there was a seal there or not. Naturally nobody wants to be the guinea pig, so they wait, and sometimes even try to push each other in.

“自私”这个词对于同类相食这样的极端情况似乎是一种轻描淡写的说法，尽管这些都符合我们的定义。也许我们可以更直接地同情南极帝企鹅的懦弱行为。有人看到它们站在水边，在潜入水中之前犹豫，因为有被海豹吃掉的危险。如果他们中只有一个人潜入水中，其他人就会知道那里是否有海豹。当然，没有人想成为试验品豚鼠，所以他们会等待，有时甚至会试图相互推搡。