名垂科学史的十只灵长类动物
发布: 2009-3-04 22:10 | 作者: cnnas | 来源: 大风车中英文门户网站社区
名垂科学史的十二只灵长类动物
It’s a common theory that, given enough time (and food … and ink ribbon), a million monkeys on a million typewriters will eventually bang out the works of Shakespeare. But that only goes for average monkeys. Round up a few higher-class primates armed with an education and some travel experience, and we wouldn’t be surprised if you got a masterpiece on par with Harry Potter or The Firm. In fact, the following 10 hot-shot simians might even know enough to assemble a science textbook; in which case, they’d definitely need to leave room for a chapter about themselves.
在概率论中有这么一个著名例子，一只猴子站在打字机旁，假定它随机地敲击各个键，每次击键时，任何符号或空格键被敲击的可能性是相等的，如果给它足够长的时间，猴子就完全可以打出莎士比亚全集(或大英博物馆中的所有书籍。这就是所谓的“无限猴子定理”。
上面说的只是普通的猴子，而对少数更高级的接受过训练并有旅行经验的灵长类动物来说，它们做出更伟大的事情来，我们也不应该感到奇怪。比如下面这12只灵长类动物用自己的行为撰写了科技教科书。从这个角度讲，他们确实应该走出自己的小世界开拓生命的新篇章。
1: 贝克尔和艾布尔：第一批进入太空的“女士” Baker & Able
Never send a man to do a female monkey’s job. That was the logic of the U.s. Army’s Medical Research and Development Department in 1959 when they wanted to gauge the body’s physical response to space travel. Instead of relying on fit, able-bodied Americans, researchers there turned to two highly patriotic gals named Baker (a squirrel monkey) and Able (a rhesus monkey). On May 28, the monkeys steeled their nerves, entered the nose cone of a Jupiter AM-18 missile, and embarked on a suborbital mission into space. It would take two more years before a human male, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, had the guts to attempt the same thing.
During their 15-minute flight, the simian sidekicks reached speeds of 10,000 mph and soared to an altitude of 300 miles. For nine minutes, they were weightless. Even more impressive, they lived to screech about the experience - making them the first two living beings to survive a space flight. Sadly, life wasn’t all bananas and back-scratches after the girls returned home. By the time Baker and Able made the cover of Life magazine on June 15, Able was dead. Although her body could withstand forces 38 times the normal force of gravity, she couldn’t cope with the anesthesia necessary to remove a tiny electrode implanted in her body for the trip. She died four days after her return to Earth. Baker, however, spent the rest of her life basking in the glow of celebrity from her specially designed enclosure at the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. She died in 1984 at the ripe old age of 27.
永远不要让一个男人去做一只母猴子的工作，这是美军医疗研发部于1959年获得的一个结论。当时，他们想测试太空旅行对身体的影响，认为派一只雌性猿猴要比身体健康的美国人更合适，因此研究人员选择了两只极具爱国精神的母猴--一只名叫贝克尔的松鼠猴和一只名叫艾布尔的猕猴。当年5月28日，看似镇定自若的她们被送进“木星AM-18”火箭的头锥，开始进入太空的绕地飞行(直至两年之后，苏联宇航员尤里.加加林才作为人类第一人完成了同样的太空壮举)。
在为期15分钟的飞行过程中，火箭的飞行时速最高达到1万英里，飞行高度达到300英里，并且在长达9分钟的时间内，两只母猴都处于失重状态。更令人注目的是，她们安然无恙地返回地球，成为首批经历太空飞行的动物。然而，生活中也不全是一帆风顺的玫瑰花，就在两只母猴安返地球后不久，6月15日，贝克尔和艾布尔刚刚登上《生活》杂志成为封面“人物”之时，艾布尔却在返回地球四天之后就不幸去世了。尽管她的身体能够承受38倍于地球重力的压力，但却无力承受一次小小的麻醉术，那是为取出因太空旅行而植入其体内的一个小小电极进行的小手术。
然而贝克尔一直健康地活着，并且终生享受着成功的荣耀，安逸地生活在美国阿拉巴马州哈什维尔航天中心专为她设计的围笼里，最终于1984年以27岁的高龄安然辞世。
“白胡子”大卫：利用工具钓白蚁
Once upon a time, not so long ago, members of the scientific community thought they had the whole evolution thing figured out. Simply put, humans were smarter than primates because humans made tools. But, apparently a few chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream Research Center in Tanzania didn’t get the memo.
David Greybeard and Jane Goodall.
In 1960, then-fledling primatologist Jane Goodall was studying Gombe’s wild chimps when she came across an adult male "fishing" for termites by dipping a twig into a hole and feasting on the bugs that clung to the stick. She named him David Greybeard and began to track him, eventually finding that he (and other males) used such tools regularly. In addition, the chimps would customize their termite twigs by stripping off the leaves and bark layer to help fit the sticks into specific feeding holes. This was the first documented case of a non-human manufacturing a tool, and it turned the scientific community upside down. As eminent anthropologist Louis Leakey put it, "Now we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans."
就在不久之前，科学界还一直以为已经解决了进化发展史上的所有问题，简单来讲，人类比其它灵长类动物更高级是因为人类能够使用工具，但位于坦桑尼亚贡比鸟兽保护区的黑猩猩的表现却对这一看法提出了挑战。
1960年，初出茅庐的灵长类动物学研究者珍.古德来到贡比研究这里的野生黑猩猩，并偶然发现一只成年雄猩猩竟然会“钓”白蚁：它将一支嫩枝伸进白蚁洞里，诱使白蚁到此聚餐，然后一网打尽。珍给这只雄猩猩起名叫“白胡子”大卫，并开始跟踪调查他，终于发现几乎所有的雄猩猩都会经常使用类似工具；另外，黑猩猩们还会加工改造白蚁“钓具”，去掉枝上树叶、剥去树皮，以便更好地伸到蚁洞里去“钓”白蚁。这是首次明确记载除人类以外的动物能制造并使用工具，完全颠覆了科学界以前的结论。正如著名人类学者路易斯.李基所说，“现在我们必须重新定义工具，重新定义人类，否则就得承认非洲黑猩猩也属于人类。”
3. Oliver 奥利佛：为自己调制威士忌
If David Greybeard blurred the line between humans and chimpanzees by fishing for termites, you can imagine all the evolutionary issues raised when a chimp named Oliver started mixing his own Highballs.
Oliver was a bald-headed, Spock-eared chimpanzee that, besides playing bartender, also walked on two legs, used a toilet, and loved watching TV. For most of his life, Oliver’s various trainers paraded him around at carnivals and on television shows as a freak. But things changed for Oliver in 1975. A Manhattan lawyer who caught his act decided the chimp was so human-like that he just might be the elusive "missing link" between man and beast and put Oliver through a battery of scientific tests to prove it. Sure enough, an exam conducted in Japan indicated that oliver had 47 chromosomes - more than a human’s 46, and less than a chimp’s 48. The results were more than enough to get the press and the public excited. When subsequent exams proved inconclusive, though, the American media lost interest. But in 1996, researchers test Oliver again. This time, they definitively concluded that he had 48 chromosomes, making him all chimp. He wasn’t the missing link after all, but scientists still concede that he probably was the Albert Einstein of chimpanzees.
如果说“白胡子”大卫用工具“钓”白蚁的行为模糊了人类和黑猩猩的界限的话，你就可以想象当一只名叫奥利佛的黑猩猩竟然会为自己调制威士忌饮料时，关于进化论的讨论会变得激烈起来也就毫不奇怪了。
奥利佛是一只秃头且耳上有疤的非洲黑猩猩，除了可以充作酒吧调酒师外，它还会两腿直立行走，使用马桶，喜欢看电视。在一生中的大部分时光里，他一直接受各种驯养师的训练，在狂欢节和电视上做“怪物”演出。然而到1975年奥利佛的生活发生了变化：一名曼哈顿律师观看了演出后认为，他太像人类了，应该是属于人与动物基因之间“缺少的一环”，并开始对奥利佛进行一系列的科学测试来证实这一点。
令人信服的是，日本进行的一项测试显示奥利佛有47组染色体--比人类的46组染色体要多，比黑猩猩的48组要少--这一结果足以新闻界和公众兴奋不已；然而后续测试证明这一结果并不可靠，使美国媒体失去了兴趣。但是到了1996年，研究人员再次对奥利佛进行了测试，这次他们确定他有48组染色体，绝对是个黑猩猩，而不是那“缺少的一环”，不过科学家仍然认为他可能属于黑猩猩中的爱因斯坦。
4. Hellion 海利恩--让导盲犬相形见绌
You’ve probably wanted a "helper monkey" ever since you saw Mojo drinking beer on the couch with Homer Simpson. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to get one in real-life. But bear in mind, the fantasy wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for hellion, the first monkey trained to lend humans a helping hand (and tail).
Hellion with owner Robert Foster
Today, Hellion is a role model for other simian aides. At the 6,000-square-foot Helping Hands training center in Boston, young capuchins attended classes five to six times a week for a full year before receiving their first assignments. To date, the institute has placed more than 93 monkeys with disabled clients.
当你看到莫杰和霍默.辛普森一起躺在沙发上喝啤酒时，肯定也想要一个这样的帮手猩猩，不幸的是，在现实生活中这可太难了。但是请记住，如果不是海利恩的存在，这样的幻想可能根本就不存在。海利恩是世界上第一只经过训练可以帮助人类的猴子。
1977年，教育心理学者玛丽.琼.威拉德开始训练一种身手敏捷的小猴子来帮助残障人士，它们通常总追随在街头手风琴师或流浪汉身旁。仅仅两年之后，威拉德就让自己训练出的第一个新生海利安去给一位名叫罗伯特.福斯特的四肢瘫痪者做帮手，结果非常成功，事实上他们直至现在还是一对。福斯特凭借用嘴操作的激光器来指挥海利安去做事，这只帮手猴的职能十分广泛，包括从帮福斯特梳头发到锁门到开立体音响，甚至还能用小吸尘器清洁房间。
到现在，海利安已经成为帮手猴的榜样。在占地6千英尺的波士顿帮手猴训练中心，小猴们会每周上5至6次课，直至一年之后开始正式上任，目前为止该机构已为超过93名残障人士提供了帮手猴服务。
5. "Nim" Chimpsky 黑猩猩尼姆：“我要吃桔子”
After David Greybeard proved that chimps could make tools, scientists scrambled to establish another dividing line between man and primate. This time, they decreed it to be the use of language. One avid proponent of the new theory was Noam Chomsky, renowned linguist at MIT. Chomsky derided trainers for attempting to teach sign language to primates and insisted that only the human mind is capable of grasping the complexities of language syntax.
Nim Chimpsky.
Nim might have failed to grasp the concepts of syntax and sentence structure, but he wasn’t a total disappointment. Turns out, Nim was a decent abstract artist. Working mostly with a mix of magic markers and crayons, he produced works of art that critics describe as childlike and playful. He would
often work for weeks in one color, then switch to another, allowing his drawings to highlight the transition between phases. Nim died in 2000. Today, his portfolio of roughly 200 drawings is valued at $25,000.
就在“白胡子”大卫证明黑猩猩也可以制造工具后，科学家开始寻找人与其它灵长类动物间的标志界限，这次他们认为本质区别在于能否使用语言。
麻省理工学院著名语言学家诺姆.乔姆斯基即是该新理论的积极鼓吹者之一，他对那些尝试教授灵长类动物手语的驯练师总是一笑置之，坚称只有人类才能掌握复杂的语言句法。自然而然地，全球各地的动物学家都急于证明他的观点是错误的。就拿黑猩猩尼姆来说，你会发现非洲黑猩猩确实就如乔姆斯基所说的那样。上世纪七十年代中期，各路驯练师用尽办法想让尼姆学会美国手语，但它最终只掌握了125个姿势，很显然它的语言开发深受自身单轨思维的破坏。他能说的最复杂的一名话是，“给我桔子吃，我要吃桔子。”
尼姆可能在学习掌握语音句法方面没有成功，但他并不一无是处，事实证明尼姆是个出色的抽象派艺术家，他的作画工具是各种记号笔和蜡笔，其作品被评论家形容为孩子气的、好玩的。有时他会连续数周使用一种颜色，然后再突然转向另一颜色，相信它的画作对学习语言也有帮助。尼姆死于2000年，现在它的将近200幅画作价值已达25000美元。
6. Koko 科科：在线聊天 喜欢宠物
Noam Chomsky didn’t get long to bask in the glory of Nim Chimpsky’s failures. In 1972, Stanford graduate student Francine Patterson began teaching American Sign Language to a female lowland gorilla named Koko. In only a few weeks, she was making the correct signs for food and drink.
Known as the world’s first "speaking" gorilla, Koko currently boasts a vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs and understand roughly 2,000 spoken words. She still struggles with the occasional word, though. Unfortunately, one of them happens to be "people," which she tends to substitute with "nipple," thus explaining how she became the defendant in a sexual harassment case against some caretakers a few months back (seriously).
When not signing or pushing the envelope of political incorrectness, Koko enjoys playing on her computer. In 1998, she even logged onto America Online and fielded questions from the public through an interpreter. During that chat, fans were able to learn what pet Koko would like to have ("dog"), the first-hand gossip on what she thought about the male gorilla brought in to be her mate ("frown bad bad bad"), and what a 310-pound gorilla really wants ("candy, give me"). But such mindless banter clearly wasn’t enough to hold the attention of a genius gorilla. Koko soon grew bored with the chat (calling it "obnoxious") and wandered off to play with her dolls.
尽管黑猩猩尼姆证明乔姆斯基的观点是对的，但这一结论并未保留多久。1972年，斯坦福大学研究生弗朗辛.帕特森开始教一只名叫科科的雌性低地大猩猩学习美国手语，仅仅数周之后，她就能正确做出要食物和饮料的手势了。
现在的科科以世界上最先会“说话”的猩猩而闻名，可以掌握超过1000个词汇，能听懂约2000个单词，当然，某些特定词汇也能难倒她。不幸的是，总让她为难的一个词汇是“people(人们)”，她总是将其误认为“nipple(乳头)”，因此数月之前还因为此被几名看护以性骚扰为由告成了被告(绝对属实)。
另外科科还喜欢玩电脑，1998年甚至还成功登陆美国在线网，通过翻译在线回答公众提问。通过那次聊天，粉丝们知道了科科最想养的宠物是“小狗”，对于带来给她当配偶的雄猩猩，她的第一反应是“糟透了”，还有一只重达310磅的猩猩最想要的是“我要吃糖”。但是这些不用脑子的玩笑当然不足以吸引一只真正猩猩的注意力，科科很快就厌烦了这种聊天(称真讨厌)，跑到一边玩她的玩具去了。
7. Kanzi 坎兹：超越养母 会说“外语”
So you think you’re special because you taught you simian sign language? Before you go and register the little guy in any big talent shows, be prepared to put your monkey where your mouth is.
In the 1980s, researchers at Georgia State University began studying the bonobo chimpanzees’ ability to understand and mimic human language. They started out with a bonobo trainee named Matata, but even after several years, they weren’t able to make much headway with her. Matata’s adopted baby son Kanzi, however, was a different story. Turns out, the young chimp picked up quite bit (more than his mommy, certainly) by accompanying Matata to "school" every day. In 2002, researchers began noticing that Kanzi was able to express his needs using four distinct sounds that corresponded to specific objects or commands (banana, juice, grapes, and yes). While this particular brand of beat poetry isn’t necessarily stimulating, the very suggestion that primates employ an audible "language" is a direct affront to the linguistic experts who claim they don’t have the marbles to do so.
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Kanzi.
不要以为能教给灵长类猿猴手语就了不起了，当你决定带它参加任何大型才艺展示会前，一定得准备好随时为它出头。
在80年代，佐治亚州立大学的研究人员开始研究非洲倭黑猩猩理解和模仿人类语言的能力，最初他们选择了一只名叫马它它的倭猩猩开始训练，经过数年努力之后依然在她身上看不到太大进步。但马它它的养子坎兹的表现却大为迥异，事实证明，这只小猩猩在每天陪妈妈“上课”期间就掌握了很多东西(绝对大大超过其母)。2002年，研究人员发现坎兹能发出四种截然不同的声音来表达自身的明确需求(代表香蕉、果汁、葡萄和“是”)。虽然只凭这些特殊的音节并不特别令人振奋，但却足以正面证明了语言学家声称灵长类动物不具备掌握语言能力是错误的。
除去掌握了黑猩猩尼姆难以达到的能力之外，坎兹还证明自己确实是灵长类动物中的天才。在掌握了“bonono”的发音之后，他还掌握了英语中2000至3000口语单词，甚至还能与自己的辅导教师、心理学者休.萨维奇通过敲击一个特制键盘上的若干抽象符号进行交流。事实上大多数美国人都无力学习第二语言，而坎兹却已经开始学习“第三外语”了。
8. Indah and Azy 因达和阿兹：逻辑思维 数学天才
While chimpanzees and gorillas are puttering about in English classes, orangutan siblings Azy and Indah are working on something more akin to studying for the LSAT. At the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo exhibit, the "Think Tank," primates are taught to practice more abstract ways of thinking, often working with logic puzzles and communicating via symbols.
Indah, for instance, learned to combine symbols representing verbs and nouns to create simple commands, such as "open bag." She was also a (relative) math whiz, having mastered the numbers one, two , and three. Before her death in 2004, her trainers were well on their way to teaching her how to assign numerical values to objects - the first step in monetary exchange. (She was so close to being able to go shoe shopping!)
While less left-brained than his sister, Azy is no simian slacker. He’s mastered counterintuitive thinking, something chimpanzees (supposedly the smarter species) can’t do. For example, trainers can present Azy with two bowls of grapes; and although his first inclination is to grab the one with more grub, he’s now learned that picking the bowl with fewer grapes will get him a bigger reward.
当人类尝试教授黑猩猩和大猩猩掌握英语发音时，其猩猩同类阿兹和因达正进行类似LAST法学院入学考试之类的学习。在史密斯学院全国动物展上，展示了如何教授灵长类动物采取更抽象的思维方式，比如解开逻辑难题或者通过符号交流等。
以因达为例，她已经学会了将代表动词和名词的不同符号合在一起使用，来表达自身的简单需求，如“打开包”。同样她也算是个数学天才，掌握了数字1、2和3。在她2004年去世之前，辅导老师正教授她如何用数字表达物体的价值，并且进展顺利。第一步是使用钱币，她甚至都快能自己去买鞋了！虽然与姐姐相比，阿兹的左脑不够发达，但他非常勤奋，他非凡的反直觉的思考能力是一般黑猩猩难以达到的。比如，当训练师拿给阿兹两碗葡萄时，虽然他的第一反应是先拿那碗葡萄多的，但现在他学会了先拿那碗少的，这样会获得更多的奖励。
9. Tetra2 泰特拉二世：第一只被克隆出来的猴子
Tetra2 can’t speak, she can’t do math, she doesn’t known sign language, and (trust us on this one) you won’t get her within 20 feet of a space shuttle. But Tetra2 can claim something the other monkeys on this list can’t: She’s a clone.
In 1999, scientists at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center split eight-cell rhesus embryos into four identical two-cell clones and implanted 13 of them into surrogate mothers. Four of the monkeys got pregnant, but only one of the babies, Tetra2, survived. For the first time, the seemingly impossible dream of every government on Earth (to own an army of genetically identical monkeys, of course) was within reach. As an added bonus, using cloned monkeys as identical subjects for medical experiments removes the genetic variables, meaning more accurate results. The scientific ramifications are potentially enormous … but we still prefer to focus on the monkey army.
泰特拉二世不会说话，也不会算算术，更不会手语，她也不可能参与太空旅行，但泰特拉二世具备其它在这份名单中的其他灵长类动物所不具备的素质：她是被克隆出来的。
1999年，俄勒冈地区灵长类动物研究中心的科学家将恒河猴的八细胞晶胚分离成四组相同的两细胞晶胚，再将培育的胚胎植入代孕母亲体内，后来有4只猴子成功受孕，但只有一个平安降生，她就是泰特拉二世。地球上任何一个政府都梦想拥有一只基因完全相同的猴子部队，这一以前看似遥不可及的梦想突然间变得触手可及了。另外的用处还包括，可以使用克隆猴子作为同一受体接受医药测试，从而规避了基因的变异性，能得到更为准确的结果，其它的科学应用也存在着无数潜力。
10. Brachiator III 布里切特三世：猴子部队从它开始
Speaking of monkey armies, robotics wizard Dr. Toshio Fukuda and his crack team of researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have clearly forgotten the key theme of science-fiction: the annihilation of human life at the hands of a vengeful machine. Their invention, an intelligent robotic monkey with the super tough nickname Brachiator III has trouble written all over it.
But don’t worry about hordes of invading pseudo-simians just yet. For now, a cumbersome external battery limits Brachiator’s environment to its jungle gym. It’ll have to wait until a smaller, more lightweight power source has been developed before it can learn to walk … and, of course, destroy.
说到猴子部队，智能机器人奇才福田敏男(Toshio Fukuda)博士及其来自日本名古屋大学的研究团队完全置科幻小说中人类被极具报复心理的机器人所消灭的情节于不顾，发明了智能机器猿，并起了个强硬的绰号“布里切特三世”。
人工智能猿在向人形机器人方向 迈出了两大步，其外型仿照一只长臂猿的骨架，内置14个发动机使其每个关节都能自由移动，行动起来更灵活敏捷。福田敏男博士认为，布里切特三世在人工智能方面也取得了重大突破，它采用一套先进的复合视觉系统作为电脑外脑，因而能自行决定该做什么动作，该调动身体的哪些部分，甚至还能从失误中吸取教训——如果布里切特三世在体操馆丛林一般的杠上跳上跳下时没有抓住哪根杠，其大脑会在下次纠正过来。
我们不用担心这些假猿猴会对人类构成威胁，目前对布里切特来说，笨重的外接电源设备限制了它的活动范围，唯有等发明了更小更轻的动力设备之后，它有才有可能真正地走动，到那个时候，它要搞点小破坏，也不是不可能的。