性别化行为：科学能告诉我们什么？

之后

After

这个

this

当这一点被指出后，亚利桑那州的一些研究人员决定通过进行一项真实的词汇计数研究来尝试解决这个争论。

was pointed out, some researchers in Arizona decided to try and settle the argument by conducting a real word counting study.

他们对近400名受试者进行了数天的录音，发现个体间存在巨大差异，但性别之间完全没有显著区别。

With almost 400 subjects who were recorded over several days, they found a great deal of individual variation and no significant gender difference at all.

两性平均每天说出的词汇量都约为16,000个。

The mean for both sexes of words uttered per day was approximately 16,000.

出于多种原因，像我这样的语言学家并不认为计算某人在特定时间段内说出的词汇量是衡量群体间健谈程度差异的有效方法。

For various reasons, linguists like me don't regard counting the words uttered by somebody in a certain time period as a useful measure of group differences in talkativeness.

但亚利桑那州的研究结果确实与我们已知的其他多项采用不同测量方式的研究相符。

But the Arizona findings did fit with what we already knew from quite a lot of other studies using other measures.

在平等关系间的日常对话中，男性和女性的发言量大致相当。

In casual talk among equals, men and women contribute about equally.

在涉及地位因素的非正式场合，多数研究发现男性比女性更健谈。

Informal situations where status is a factor, most studies find men talking more than women.

然而，部分研究也报告了该模式的例外情况，这表明真正的原因并非性别，而是地位差异。

However, some studies have reported exceptions to that pattern which suggests that the real explanation is not about gender, it's about status.

不出所料，在地位至关重要的情境中，高地位者往往比低地位者发言更多。

Not surprisingly, in situations where status matters, high status speakers tend to talk more than low status speakers.

性别因素间接影响这种现象，因为在相关情境中，男性仍明显更可能占据高地位职位。

And gender comes into this indirectly because in the situations in question, there's still quite a strong tendency for men to outnumber women in the high status positions.

因此我提到的例外情况包括：女性恰好是现场最高级别参与者，或讨论话题被两性公认为女性专业领域，此时男性会主动礼让女性发言。

So the exceptions I mentioned were cases where women either were the highest ranked participants as it happened, or the topic of conversation was something both sexes considered a female area of expertise, so that the women were deferred to by the men.

这揭示了现实语言使用的重要特征：不仅关乎你如何表达，更关乎他人如何倾听与回应——这种互动可能让你占据主导，即便你本无此意图或风格。

Which underlines an important point about real life language use, that it's not just about how you speak, it's also about how you're heard, how you're responded to, that can allow you to dominate without you necessarily having the intention or the style to dominate.

我着重探讨'女性比男性话多'的成见，因为它在大众观念中根深蒂固。但若有时间，我同样可以逐一反驳开场时提到的所有刻板印象——因为它们都缺乏可靠研究证据支持。

Now, I focused on the belief that women talk more than men because it's so entrenched in popular folklore, but if I had time, I could actually give the same treatment to all the generalizations I mentioned at the beginning because none of them is supported by good research evidence.

当然，这就使得争论'这些现象应归因于先天特质、社会影响还是两者混合'变得毫无意义。

And of course, that makes it a bit pointless to argue about whether we should explain them as expressions of hardwired traits or the result of social influences or a mixture.

如果差异本身并不存在，那么关于其成因的讨论也就无从谈起。

If the difference doesn't exist, the question of its causation doesn't arise.

但你可能会说，可你已经承认差异确实存在了。

But you might say, well, but you've already conceded there are differences.

用生物学基础来解释这些差异有什么问题吗？

What would be wrong with explaining them as having some biological basis?

事实上，不是已经有相当充分的证据表明言语能力存在差异，以及男女大脑语言组织方式不同吗？

Isn't there in fact pretty good evidence for verbal ability differences and also for differences in the way the male and female brains are organized for language?

对此我的回答是：并非完全否定，而是存疑。

To that my answer would be not no, but maybe.

目前尚无定论。

The jury is still out.

在我看来，关于这个话题经常被提及的一些极端主张，已经远远超出了现有证据能支撑的范围。

Some of the very strong claims that are often made on this topic, in my view, go well beyond what the evidence currently justifies.

例如，某些被当作科学共识来呈现的观点，实际上仍存在争议。

So for instance, some of the things that have been said, which have been presented as though they were matters of scientific consensus are actually under dispute.

一个很常见的说法（虽然今晚没人提到）是，女性更高级的语言能力反映了她们大脑在语言功能上不如男性那样强烈单侧化。

A very common claim, no one's actually made it tonight, is that women's more advanced verbal skills reflect the fact that their brains are less strongly lateralized for language than men.

因此女性可以更多地利用大脑两个半球来处理语言任务。

So women can make more use of both hemispheres for linguistic tasks.

这个论点包含两个主张。

That's an argument that involves two claims.

一个是关于单侧化，另一个是关于女性拥有更高级的语言技能。

One about lateralization and one about women having more advanced verbal skills.

正如我所说，这两个主张实际上都存在争议。

And as I say, both these claims are actually disputed.

在每种情况下，这个问题都引发了大量研究，这些研究并非都采用相同设计，也并非都得出相同结论。

In each case, the issue has generated a large number of studies which didn't all use the same design, didn't all come to the same conclusions.

在这种情况下，人们通常采用元分析技术。

In that situation, what people often do is use the technique of meta analysis.

也就是将各项研究汇总，通过统计手段试图找出总体趋势。

So putting the studies together and using statistical means to try and find out what the overall trend is.

关于大脑偏侧化，2008年发表的一项元分析得出结论：总体证据并不支持女性大脑偏侧化程度较低的观点。

On lateralization, a meta analysis published in 2008 concluded that overall the evidence didn't support the idea that women's brains were less strongly lateralized.

至于语言技能，2006年及更早1988年进行的元分析均表明，虽然存在差异且多数指标显示女性略占优势，但这种优势极其微弱。

And on verbal skill, meta analyses carried out in 2006 and before that in 1988, both concluded that although there is a difference and on most measures it does favor it is very slight.

这种差异要么微乎其微，要么近乎为零，其程度之小无法支撑依赖该结论的各类推论。

It's either slight or close to zero and too small to bear the weight of the stories that depend upon it.

也有观点指出，这种通过实验室测试衡量语言技能的方式，引发了关于受试者实际展示何种技能的质疑。

The point's also been made that this way of measuring verbal skill by using laboratory tests raises questions about what exactly subjects are displaying skill in.

他们是语言能力强，还是仅仅擅长考试？

Are they good with language or are they just good at tests?

此外，即使他们语言能力强，实验室测试能在多大程度上代表人们日常生活中的实际技能？

Also, even if they are good at language, how good a proxy is the lab test for the skills people deploy in everyday life.

我的研究并不涉及实验。

Now my research isn't about doing experiments.

它关注的是现实生活中的言语行为。

It is about real life verbal behavior.

那么也许我该继续谈谈我们能从中了解到什么。

So maybe I should move on to what we learn from that.

总的来说，我们发现性别确实对行为有影响。

In general, what we learn is that gender does have an influence on behavior.

存在一些明显与之相关的语言变异模式，但要理解这些模式，还需要了解另外三点。

There are patterns of linguistic variation which are clearly linked to it, but to make sense of those, there are three other things you need to know.

首先，我所说的模式绝不是男性这样表现、女性那样表现的简单二分。

First, the patterns I'm talking about are never cases of men behave this way and women behave that way.

大多数情况下，这些模式只涉及特定变体在相对频率上的微小差异。

Most of them involve small differences in the relative frequency of a particular variant.

也就是说，男性做某事稍多些，女性做某事稍少些，反之亦然。

So it's men do something a bit more, women do it a bit less or vice versa.

其次，似乎并不存在普遍适用的性别化语言行为模式。

Second, they don't seem to be any universal patterns of gendered linguistic behavior.

关键差异的具体表现会因文化和时代的不同而产生显著变化。

What the key differences are varies significantly across cultures and over time.

例如，在现代西方语言社区中，一个相当普遍的发现是女性的言语比男性更委婉、更有礼貌，在语法和发音方面更为规范。

For example, in modern western speech communities, it's quite a common finding that women's speech is less direct than men's, more polite, more correct in terms of grammar and pronunciation.

曾一度有人认为这可能是一个普遍模式。

And at one time, was thought that this might be a universal patent.

但在传统非西方社会工作的语言人类学家报告了许多相反模式的案例。

But linguistic anthropologists working in traditional non western societies have reported numerous cases where the patent is the opposite.

男性反而是使用高雅、礼貌和委婉语言风格的一方，而直率、粗俗和言语攻击则是女性的专长。

Men are the ones who use the elevated polite and indirect styles of language while directness, vulgarity and verbal aggression are female specialties.

第三个关键点是，我们通常发现每个性别群体内部的差异至少与两性之间的差异一样大。

The third crucial point is that we usually find at least as much variation within each gender group as we do between the two genders.

即使在同一个语言社区中，也不存在仅代表某一性别的单一说话方式。

Even in a single speech community, there isn't just one way of talking which is characteristic of each sex.

每种性别都存在多种说话方式，这些方式之间的差异不亚于它们与对立性别之间的差异。

There's a range of ways for each and these contrast as much with each other as with their categorical opposite.

这为我们提供了一个线索，指向我认为能真正解释语言行为中大多数性别差异的原因。

And that gives us a clue to what I am going to argue is the real explanation for most gender differences in linguistic behavior.

我说'大多数'是因为并非所有现象都能用单一解释概括。

I say most because there isn't just one explanation for everything.

但性别之所以产生如此强烈影响，主要原因是它与我们运用语言象征身份的方式密切相关。

But the main reason why gender does have such a strong influence is because well it relates to the way we use language to symbolize identity.

通过语言向他人传递我们是怎样的人、我们认同哪些群体以及区分哪些群体。

To signal to others what kind of person we are, who we think we're like and who we think we're different from.

性别是我们投入大量精力、通过各种象征手段来传达的身份维度之一。

Gender is one of the aspects of identity that we put a lot of work into communicating using various symbolic means.

服装、发型、步态、手势，当然还有语言——这些都是为此目的精心设计的工具。

Clothes, hairstyles, gait, gesture and of course language which is very, very well designed for this purpose.

由此产生的差异显然不只是人们固有天性的自然流露。

The differences this produces are clearly not just a case of people acting out their pre existing natures.

而是人们主动创造的、具有地域文化特异性且对他们至关重要的区分方式。

They're a case of people actively creating distinctions which are local and culturally specific and important to them.

这有点像男女外套纽扣的相反设计——既不由服装固有结构决定，也不由男女穿着者的身体差异决定。

So it's a bit like the contrasting placement of buttons on men's and women's coats which is not dictated by the inherent structure of the garment nor is it dictated by the bodily differences between the male and female wearers.

这本质上是一种符号的过剩，但人们用语言象征性别的方式比外套制造商使用纽扣的方式更为微妙。

It is basically an excess of symbolism, but the way people use language to symbolize gender is more nuanced than the way coat makers use buttons.

我们在性别内部看到如此多差异的原因在于，性别本身几乎算不上一种完整的身份认同。

The reason we see so much variation within genders is because gender all on its own is really not much of an identity at all.

人们不会把自己视为普通的男人或女人。

People don't think of themselves as generic men and women.

他们会认为自己是特定类型的男人或女人。

They think of themselves as certain kinds of men and women.

不同年龄、阶级、种族、职业、性取向和宗教信仰的男女。

Women and men of different ages, classes, ethnicities, occupations, sexualities, religions.

他们自认为是假小子或淑女、野丫头或娇娇女、粗犷汉子或都市美型男。

They think of themselves as laddettes or ladies, tomboys or girly girls, blokes or metrosexuals.

这些关于女性气质与男性气质的不同版本之间的局部对比，对语言行为的影响不亚于两性之间的整体差异——因为这两种差异本质上都在通过语言传递'你是谁'与'你不是谁'的信息。

And these local contrasts between different versions of femininity and masculinity have as much influence on linguistic behavior as the global distinction between the two sexes because you know, both of those sorts of distinctions are doing the same thing by communicating something about who you are and who you're not.

所以如果我们非要讨论男女来自不同星球，至少应该先扩充星球数量。

So if we're going to talk about men and women being from two different planets, we should at least actually extend the number.

我们或许应该说，涉及的行星可能不止火星和金星。

We should say that there might be more planets at issue than Mars and Venus.

但我认为无论如何，行星这个比喻都无济于事，因为它促使我们透过望远镜来看待语言与性别。

But I think the planetary metaphor is an unhelpful one in any case because it encourages us to look at language and gender you know, through a telescope.

而我建议，要真正看清任何有趣的现象，我们需要的是显微镜。

Whereas I'm suggesting that what we really need to see anything interesting is a microscope.

如同大多数重要关系一样，语言与性别之间的关系也很复杂。

Like most significant relationships, the one between language and gender is complicated.

其中蕴含的内容比大多数人（包括许多科学家）想象的要多得多。

There's a lot more to it than most people including many scientists might think.

很好。

Great.

那么现在可以提问了。

So now it's time to ask questions.

现场有三个麦克风。

There's three microphones.

请先举手示意

If you could just raise your hand.

虽然灯光很亮，但我想我能看到大多数人

There's the lights are quite bright, but I think I can see most people.

然后等待麦克风递过来

And wait till a microphone arrives.

后排左边有一位先生

There's a gentleman right at the back on the left.

我们会一次性收集一组问题，让专家们有机会回应不同方面。

And we'll take a group of questions at a time to give the panelists a chance to respond to different things.

非常感谢。

Thank you very much.

我注意到，小组中的两位女性一直在辩护无差异，而两位男性则一直在辩护差异。

I note that, the two women on the panel have been defending no difference, and the two men have been defending difference.

这在统计上并不显著，但我好奇这是否在其他方面具有意义。

That's not statistically significant, but I wonder whether it's significant in some other way.

也许您可以对此发表评论。

Perhaps you'd be able to comment.

好问题。

Good question.

还有其他问题吗？

Any other questions?

前排有一位女士。

There's a lady right in the front.

非常感谢。

Thank you very much.

请稍等麦克风传过来。

If you could just wait till the microphone gets here.

真的太棒了。

Really fantastic.

确实非常感谢所有这些演讲。

Thank you very much indeed for all of these talks.

我刚刚在想，读过《本质差异》以及莉兹·斯佩尔克的一些著作后，特别想知道西蒙对伊丽莎白在数学方面的研究有何看法。

I just wondered, having read the Essential Difference and also read some of Liz Spelke's work as well, I wondered what, Simon, what your thoughts were on, specifically on Elizabeth's work on mathematics.

那么确实听清楚了吗？

So did definitely get that?

能不能稍微再大声一点，我觉得音量需要再调高些。

Was could you just well, it just needs a little bit louder, I think.

抱歉，我刚才问的是西蒙对伊丽莎白数学研究的具体看法。

Sorry, I asked what Simon specifically thought of Elizabeth's work on mathematics.

还有

Any

其他问题吗？

other questions?

后排右侧有几位举手了。

There's a couple of hands right in the back on the right.

好的。

Yeah.

如果有一位女士，她后面还有另一个人。

If there's a lady and then behind her, there's another person.

是的。

Yeah.

我们讨论过两性在语言表达上的差异。

We've spoken about verbal linguistic differences between the sexes.

那非语言方面的差异呢？

What about nonverbal differences?

后排还有另一个人。

And there was another person in the row behind.

嗨，我是克里斯黛拉。

Hi, I'm Christella.

我在一家性别认同诊所工作，我在想——虽然我们还没涉及这个话题，可能这里也不太适合讨论——我接触过一些想要转换性别的人。这可能更多涉及社会建构，但确实有科学研究表明某些大脑差异会让男性在人生某个阶段产生成为女性的意愿。

I work at a gender identity clinic and I was wondering about, we haven't touched on that and perhaps this isn't the right environment, but I work with people who want to transition from one gender to another and perhaps that's more about social constructs, but there are some scientific studies that suggest some brain differences that make males for example want to be female at some point in their life.

好的，我们收集到一批非常有趣的问题，现在看看专家小组是否想回应这些问题。

Well, we've got a batch of very, very interesting questions, so maybe we'll just see if the panel wants to respond to those.

西蒙，你想接手这个问题吗？

Simon, did you want to take on Sure.

其中一些

Some of those

首先，第一个问题很有趣，但我想我们的样本量可能太小，无法得出任何结论。

Well, first of all, I mean, the first question was entertaining, but I think probably our sample size is a bit too small to draw any conclusions.

朱迪问我对莉兹关于数学领域无性别差异观点的看法。

Jude asked about my take on Liz's views about no sex differences in mathematics.

莉兹，我很喜欢听你的阐述。

And Liz, I enjoyed listening to your exposition.

但我觉得你主要关注的是婴儿期，某种程度上是学龄前阶段。

But I think most of what you focused on was infancy, to some extent preschool.

我知道我们在大西洋两岸对这些术语的使用略有不同。

And I know that we use those terms slightly differently on each side of the Atlantic.

但我认为你讨论的是婴儿或幼儿的计数或估算能力，这确实是数字能力的一个方面。

But I think that you were talking about, you know, infants' ability or toddlers' to count or to estimate, which, you know, is certainly one aspect of number scales.

但我在想，根据小组讨论中提出的若干观点，我们在寻找可能具有部分生物学基础的差异时，是否应该考察一系列行为表现。

But I'm wondering whether, just picking up on a number of comments made on the panel, that we should be looking at a range of behaviors when we're looking for possible candidates for partly biologically based differences.

所以，我们已经讨论了语言及其使用方式。

So, there's been discussion about language and about how we use language.

但实际上，我想指出语言的一个非常基础的方面——儿童何时开始说话。

But actually, I would pinpoint a very fundamental aspect of language, which is when children start to talk.

这其实是种很容易测量的指标。

It's a really sort of easy thing to measure.

大多数父母都清楚记得孩子说出第一个单词的具体时间。

Most parents know exactly when their child said their first words.

你还可以统计儿童能说出多少个单词。

And you can also count how many words a child produces.

英美两国的相关研究通过让家长在清单上勾选孩子掌握和使用的词汇量，都可靠地显示出女孩比男孩更早开始说话的性别差异。

And studies have looked at that, both in The UK and in North America, using various checklists when you ask parents to simply check on a list how many words does your child know and produce, show reliable sex differences that girls talk earlier than boys.

到18个月至两岁期间，女孩平均词汇量实际上是男孩的两倍。

And by the age of 18 to two years old, on average, the vocabulary size of girls is actually twice that of boys.

所以，我认为这取决于你关注行为的哪个方面。

So, I think, you know, it depends which aspect of behavior you look at.

这不是数学领域。

That's not mathematics.

这是语言习得的起始阶段。

That's the onset of language.

我认为这个问题的重要性在于，人群中有些儿童群体不仅可能相对另一性别存在发展迟缓，而且达到了更严重的临床级别。

And I think one of the reasons why that matters is that there are groups of children in the population who are not only delayed in terms of the other sex potentially, but delayed in a much more clinical level of severity.

比如患有特定语言障碍的儿童或自闭症儿童。

Children who have specific language impairment or children who have autism.

因此，理解典型变异（包括与性别相关的言语和语言理解发展年龄差异）

And so, understanding the typical variation, including sex linked variation in age of onset of speech and language comprehension.

或许也能帮助我们理解某些以语言障碍为特征的医学状况。

It might also help us understand some of these medical conditions where language is turns out to be an area of disability.

但我想指出的另一个更普遍的观点是：我们应该关注那些自然的行为特征，正如黛博拉指出的，这些特征在实验室测试中未必能被捕捉到。

But I think the other sort of more general point I want to pick out is that we should really be looking at behaviors which are natural, which aren't necessarily picked up when you carry out tests in laboratories, as Deborah was pointing out.

比如孩子与他人眼神接触的频率，对他人表现出多大兴趣。

So, things like the amount of eye contact a child shows, how interested they are in other people.

这些行为可以通过摄像机在更自然的情境下捕捉到。

You know, these things can be picked up in more naturalistic situations using video cameras.

所以关键在于我们测量哪些行为。

And so, it's all about which behaviors we measure.

西蒙，你想顺便回答一下关于数学的问题吗？

Simon, do you want to answer the question about mathematics as well?

然后莉兹可以接着发言。

And then Liz can come back.

好的。

Yeah.

我认为我们面临一个真正的难题：如果你观察高等数学领域，比如大学数学家的性别比例，确实能看到这种悬殊的性别差异。

Mean, I think, you know, we've got a real puzzle, which is that if you look at high level mathematics, such as the level of mathematicians at universities, we do see a big difference in this dramatic sex ratio.

在高等数学领域，男性约占大学数学家的75%。

It's about 75% male universities at that level of mathematics.

这种现象并非在婴儿期或学龄前出现，而是在成长过程和青春期发展中，到了申请大学时，数学专业申请者中约四分之三为男性。

They're not at infancy, not at preschool, but something happens during development and during adolescence, such that by the time young adults are applying to university, about three quarters of applicants in mathematics are male.

这确实是个谜题，你明白吧。

And that is a puzzle, you know.

这并非关乎计数问题。

And that's not about counting.

也不涉及基础算术或估算。

It's not about simple arithmetic or even estimation.

关于估算的讨论确实有趣，因为自闭症患者倾向于准确数字而非估算数字。

And, you know, it's an interesting discussion to be had about estimation because people with autism like to go for the accurate number, not the estimated number.

但确实有某种现象正在发生，需要进一步研究。

But, you know, something is happening, and it needs some investigation.

丽兹，我可以回应吗？

Liz, can I respond?

丽兹，丽兹

Liz, Liz

是的，当然。

yeah, absolutely.

丽兹，好的。

Liz Okay.

首先，关于我之前提出的所有概括性结论是否都基于对婴儿的研究这个问题？

First, on the issue of were all of the generalizations I was making based on studies of infants?

不，并非如此。

No, they're not.

这些结论是基于对婴儿期出现、在儿童期持续存在、并在我们成年后依然保留的能力的研究。

They're based on studies of abilities that emerge in infancy, that remain present in children, and that remain present in us as adults.

我没有提到这一点，但实际上当我们进行心算时，比如在脑海中解决言语符号算术问题。

I didn't talk about this, but in fact when we do, for example, arithmetic problems in our heads, verbal symbolic arithmetic problems in our heads.

我们会激活大脑中与婴儿执行相同任务时活跃的区域。

We activate areas of the brain that are also active when we do the tasks that infants do as well.

如果使用各种技术手段来减缓或损害非言语数字估算过程，就能在成人的言语符号数学能力中看到相应的损害。

And if one uses various techniques to slow down or otherwise impair processes of nonverbal estimation of number, one sees corresponding impairments in adults, verbal symbolic mathematical abilities.

因此，我所讨论的这些能力以及性别差异的缺失现象贯穿人的一生。

So the both the abilities that I was talking about and the absence of sex differences applies across the lifetime.

确实存在一些自然情境下能观察到性别差异，我们也听过相关例子。

Now it's true that there are natural situations in which one sees sex differences and we've heard examples of them.

这些自然情境的问题在于——我要表态支持至少让实验研究与自然观察并行开展。

The problem with these natural situations I'm going to come out in favor of experiments at least being conducted side by side with natural observations.

自然观察法的局限在于，人们表现出的行为受多重因素支配。

The problem with these natural observations is that the behavior that someone engages in is governed by many things.

它受动机因素、自我认同感以及个人目标追求的支配。

It's governed by motivational factors, by one's sense of identity, by what one wants to achieve.

能力确实参与其中，但绝非唯一因素，甚至不是决定具体情境行为的主要因素。

Abilities enter in, but they are by no means the only factor or even the primary factor that determines what somebody does in some concrete situation.

实验研究的优势在于能系统性地检验不同变量。

The thing that's nice about experiments is that you can test for different factors systematically.

这便是我真正推崇实验研究的原因。

And that's why I actually favor experimental studies.

西蒙没有提到的是——我原以为你会说——确实存在一些实验任务显示出性别差异，这些差异常被引用来解释为何男性工程师、科学家或数学家比女性多。

Now what Simon didn't say, which I sort of expected you to say, is that there are experimental tasks that show sex differences and that have been pointed to as a potential explanation for why it might be that there are more male than female engineers or scientists or mathematicians.

这些任务的问题在于，讨论中往往过分关注个别任务，因为它们显示出微小的性别差异，从而被视为解释当前社会特定现象（仿佛这是自然本意）的候选理由。

The problem with those tasks is that what tends to happen in this discussion is that individual tasks will get focused on and get enormous attention paid to them because they show a small sex difference and therefore look like a candidate for explaining why the particular situation that it obtains in our society at this moment is actually the way nature intended our society to be.

丽兹，我能打断一下吗？

Liz, can I just interrupt?

所以我们讨论的是确实存在的微小性别差异。

So we're talking about small sex differences, which does occur.

它们偶尔确实会出现，虽然规模不大。

They do occur occasionally, small ones.

但当我们观察，比如说，谁成为了数学教授时，性别比例大约是14名男性对1名女性。

But when we look at, let's say, who becomes a professor of mathematics, the sex ratio is something like 14 males to one female.

所以这些可不是微小的性别差异。

So those aren't small sex differences.

虽然这些都可以用社会模式、社会经验来解释，但我认为仍然需要有个解释。

Now they could all be explained in terms of social models, social experience, but I think it nevertheless needs an explanation.

我同意这需要解释，而且我认为我们应该非常严肃地将社会经验作为一种解释因素。

I agree that it needs an explanation and I think that we should take social experience very seriously as an explanation.

我之所以这么说，其中一个原因是当我还是学生时，医学领域的性别比例至少和今天数学领域一样失衡。

One reason why I say this is that back when I was a student, the sex ratio was at least as skewed, say, in medicine as it is today in mathematics.

在我们有生之年，我们已经看到这些性别比例可以发生多么巨大的变化，以及卡梅伦教授所谈到的那些因素产生了多大影响。

We've seen over our lifetimes how dramatically those sex ratios can change, and how much factors of the sort that Professor Cameron was talking about.

当你看到社会中某些角色已被特定人群担任时产生认同感，并因此将这些角色视为自己可能的职业选择，这既会导致分布失衡，也会造成性别分布随时间的改变。

Identifying with people who you see already fulfilling certain roles within the society and therefore seeing them as possible roles for yourself can lead both to skewed distributions and also to changes over time in sex distributions.

所以，医学是个很好的例子，因为这门科学现在达到了男女比例五五开。

So, medicine is a great example because the sex ratio in medicine, which is a science, is now fiftyfifty.

那么，

So,

当女性获得上大学的机会时——我们应该记住这并非历来就有，我所在的大学直到1930年代才开始向女性授予学位。

when the opportunity arose for women to go to university, and we should remember that that wasn't always available, my own university only started offering degrees to women in the 1930s.

而美国一些医学院直到1950年代才允许犹太人入学。

And some of the medical schools in The States didn't allow Jews to enter the medical schools till the 1950s.

我们知道这些社会变革会发生，但一旦群体被大学录取，如果男女双方都有兴趣，我们应该很快就能看到五五开的比例。

So we know that these social changes occur, but once groups are admitted into universities, we should expect to see a fiftyfifty ratio pretty quickly if the interests are there from both men and women.

最后请

One last word from

莉兹

Liz

说几句，然后我们再请罗宾发言。

and then we'll bring in Robin.

实际上，我弃权。

Actually, I'll pass.

我们可以继续

We can go

罗宾，回到

Robin, back to

你

do you

你想继续讨论这个话题还是其他提出的问题？

want to pick up this discussion or the other questions that came up?

你打算尝试讨论为什么男性会认为存在差异吗？

Are you going to try the one about why the men are arguing that there are differences?

嗯，本来想对此发表些看法，但我想还是算了。

Well, was going to of throw something in on that, but I think I won't actually.

其实这只是个问题，因为我自己也不知道答案。

Well, it was only a question because I don't know the answer.

不过我想或许可以就之前的问题和你演讲中的观点简单评论几句。

But I thought I might just comment sort of partly in the direction of the questions back up there and partly to the comments that you've made in your talk.

当我们研究小群体中男女对话行为的差异时——

And that is when we've looked at differences in conversational behavior between men and women in small groups.

首先，他们确实说话时长相同，这点完全正确。

The only, well A, they do both talk the same amount of time, absolutely correct.

总体而言，当你观察对话主题时，性别差异并不显著。

And by and large, when you look at the topics of conversation, there aren't very striking sex differences.

唯一显著的性别差异，我们发现的唯一显著性别差异实际上出现在与工作相关的情境中，而且这一差异会因小组中是否有女性在场而发生非常明显的变化。

The only striking sex difference, the only significant sex difference we had was actually in the context of work related things and this was a very striking change depending on whether there were girls present in the group or not.

这项研究实际上就在UCL（伦敦大学学院）进行的。

And this was actually done just up the road at UCL.

这些都是学生，所以他们感兴趣的话题显然是康德关于'不可思考之物'的理论——这是昨天讲座的内容。

So these were all students, so the topic of interest is clearly Kant's theory of the unthinkable, which was yesterday's lecture.

女生们大约会花5%的时间讨论康德的'不可思考之物'理论，无论小组中有谁在场。

Well, girls sort of spend about 5% of their time talking about Kant's theory of the unthinkable irrespective of of who who was was present present in in the the group.

小组。

Group.

男生们单独相处时也是如此。

And so did boys when they're talking to boys.

但如果小组中有女生在场，这个话题突然就成了世界上最引人入胜的内容。

But if there were girls present in the group, suddenly it became the most fascinating and interesting topic in the world.

我认为你们能注意到这种现象——男性这种展示知识的倾向，这就是为什么他们总想掌控局面，比如投影仪出故障时非要自己修理，而不让已经站在旁边的女性处理，他们会直接插进来。

And I think you pick that up, this sort of tendency for males to kind of display knowledge and that's why they want to govern, fix the projector when it doesn't work for you rather than letting the women do it who are already standing around it, they'll barge in.

正是这种抽象的社交环境为你们提供了展示的基础，而我认为从语言中得到的感受——或许我们与语言学家的视角略有不同——在于女性的语言远比男性更具社交性。

And it's that kind of abstract world environment which offers you a kind of basis for display, and I think the sense I get out of language anyway, we kind of perhaps look at it in a slightly different way to the way linguists do is that women's language is much, much more social than males.

男性语言更像是孔雀开屏炫耀羽毛。

It's males that's much more, it seems, looks very much like a peacock displaying Fluffering.

有时候，我的数据显示，如果去除部分语音信息仅提供文字记录，人们会误以为发言者是女性，实际上却是男性。

Well sometimes, I mean I have data where if you take some of the vocal information out and present people with a transcript, they it's women and actually it's men.

这些男性像女孩们一样闲聊八卦。

The men are, you know, gossiping like girls.

如果没有人打算回答第一位提问者的问题，或许我可以就此说几句。

If nobody else is going to try and give an answer to the first questioner's question, perhaps I may say something about it.

作为社会科学家我必须承认样本量太小难以推广结论，但需要指出的是这个讨论存在特定背景——因此女性表示差异不大而男性坚持己见可能并非巧合。

I would have to agree as a social scientist that the sample size is too small to generalize from, but I do feel the need to point out to kind of say that there's a context for this discussion, and that it may not therefore be a coincidence that it's the women who are saying, actually there's not that much difference, and it's the men who arguing for them.

因为现场两位女性可能涉及更多个人利害关系。

Because the women, the two women here, perhaps have something more personally at stake.

毕竟这场争论不属于科学抽象的范畴，在现实世界中其实无关紧要。

Because this is not an argument that is in the realms of kind of scientific abstraction and it sort of doesn't matter in the real world.

要知道，这确实很重要。

You know, it does matter.

我们讲述关于自己的故事会产生真实的后果，因为我认为作为物种，我们的行为实际上会受到我们如何理解自身及与世界关系的影响。

It has real consequences what stories we tell about ourselves because you know, one thing I think we are as a species is a species whose behavior can actually be affected by the ways in which we understand ourselves and our relationship to the world.

因此，我们讲述关于性与性别的故事至关重要。

So it really matters what stories we tell about sex and gender.

我认为，并非因为生物学在抽象科学意义上的真实本质，而是因为人们如何看待它、如何理解它的含义——如果用当前流行的话来说，就是所谓的'先天注定'。

I think, you know, not because of what biology really is in some abstract scientific way, but because of what people think it is, because of what they understand it to mean, if things are, you know, in the current populist parlance, hardwired.

他们会理解为这是不可改变的，正如莉兹刚才所说，认为世界现在的样子就是自然理想设计的样子。

They understand it to mean it's not changeable, as Liz just said, that the way the world is now is the way it was ideally designed by nature to be.

所以，我认为这其中牵涉重大，或许对女性而言比男性更重要，尽管由于样本量小，我们目前只是在讨论一些轶事证据。

So, I think there is a lot at stake, and perhaps more for women than for men, and that might be the reason, though of course, we are dealing in anecdotage here because of the small sample size.

让我们继续提问环节。

Let's have some more questions.

好的，我看到还有很多举手提问的观众，前排这里就有不少。

Right, we've got a lot more hands and there's quite a few in the front here.

后排第三排有位先生，前排也有几只手举着。

If three rows back, there's a gentleman and then there's a couple of hands up in the front as well.

这一切都非常有趣。

That that was all very interesting.

我想回到Sam Baron Cohen展示的第一张幻灯片，当时基本上是说我们知道男女在生理上存在差异，而那里已经有一个预设前提。

I kind of want to go back to the very first slide that Sam Baron Cohen showed, and when the basically, it was that we know there are differences between men and women physically and there was already an assumption there.

我们已经决定了什么是男人和女人。

We have decided what men and women are.

我们将根据这些分组来安排我们的研究。

We will arrange our studies according to these groups.

如果有人不符合我们对性别的认知方式，那么经过研究后，我们会将其统计在内。

If people don't fit into how we see sex, then studied, then we'll count it.

因此我想请教小组，能否评论一下这些研究进行的方式是如何已经在社会中规范了性别与性别的。

So I'm wondering if the panel could comment about how the ways in which these studies are conducted already regulate sex and gender in society.

谢谢。

Thank you.

前面有两只手举了起来。

And there were two hands up in the front.

你好。

Hi.

我基本上是从这样一个观点出发，我认为很多差异，比如数学教授的比例，可能是由社会因素决定的。

So I basically come from the point of view that I think that a lot of the differences, for example, mathematics professors might be socially determined.

但我有一个

But I have a

非常

very

具体的问题关于国际象棋特级大师，因为看起来似乎一个都没有。

specific question about grand masters in chess because it appears that apparently there are none.

我听说没有女性特级大师，或者非常少。

There are no female grand masters I heard or very few.

而在较低级别的比赛中，比例几乎是均等的。

Whereas in the lower stages, there's, it's almost equal.

所以，我想向Lesley你提出这个问题，如果

So, I wanted to address that to you Lesley, if

你可以

you could

对此发表评论。

comment on that.

谢谢。

Thank you.

我想我看到还有另一只手举起来了。

And I think I saw another hand going up.

所以，如果你可以...哦抱歉，是的，您先请。

So, if you could just, oh sorry, yes, after you.

那么，如果这位先生先提问，后面还有一位女士。

So, if the gentleman takes the question, and then there's a lady behind.

我想说的是，我觉得我对这种交流感到相当疲惫，这在我看来与二三十年前关于大脑理性化的讨论非常相似，比如试图从基因层面定位任何群体间的差异——男性与女性、黑人与白人之间的差异。

I would like to say that I think I said I'm quite fatiguing about this exchange and it does seem to me very similar to exchanges I would have heard twenty, thirty years ago about brain rationalization, for example, and the attempt to locate differences between any group of people, men, women, black, white, in genetics.

对吧？

Right?

我认为这就是潜台词，这就是潜台词。

And I think that's the subtext It's the subtext.

所讨论的这些差异，它们是根本性的吗？还是并非如此？

The differences that are being talked about, are they fundamental or are they not?

而且，你们知道，我注意到在七岁时——你们展示的许多曲线都是从七岁开始的——我注意到男孩和女孩穿的衣服非常不同。

And, you know, I've noticed that at age seven, which many of the curves you showed begin at age seven, I've noticed that boys and girls wear very different clothes.

我们觉得这是天生的吗？

Do we think that's hardwired?

对吧？

Right?

所以完全没有提到学习的影响。

And so there's no mention of learning.

而且也没有提到学习过程中可能涉及到的权力关系。

There's and there's no mention of the power relationships that may be involved in learning.

我感觉黛博拉在这次交流中已经非常疲惫了。

And I sense that Deborah is very exhausted by this exchange.

她为此争论了很长时间。

She's been arguing this for a long time.

似乎毫无进展。

It doesn't seem to go anywhere.

谢谢。

Thank you.

这里发生了什么？

What is going on here?

后排第二排有位女士吗？

Is there a lady second row back?

我读过一篇有趣的文章，讲的是一对瑞典夫妇正在以性别中立的方式抚养他们的孩子，父母不告诉任何人孩子的性别，试图避免性别刻板印象。

I've read an interesting article about a Swedish couple who are raising their child to be gender gender neutral and the parents aren't telling anybody about whether the child is male or female in an attempt to avoid gender stereotypes.

我想知道您对此有什么看法。

And I was just wondering if you had anything to say about that.

还有其他问题吗？

Any more questions?

没有，我们似乎...哦对了，中间还有一个问题。

No, we seem to oh yeah, there's just one in the middle.

我想了解您对男女在社会交往中差异的看法，特别是关于情绪表达和害羞程度方面，这与Baron Cohen教授提出的男性大脑情绪区域更大的观点有何关联？

I'm interested to know your opinions on the social the ways that men and women differ speaking socially related to how emotional they may be and how or how shy they may be in connection with Professor Baron Cohen's point about men having a larger emotional part

的大脑部分。

of the brain.

谢谢

Thank

谢谢。

Thank you.

那么黛博拉，你累了吗？

So Deborah, are you exhausted?

嗯，我今早参加了《今日》节目，所以从早上6点就起床了，所以字面意义上来说确实很累。

Well, I was on the Today program, so I've been up since 06:00 in the morning, so the literal answer to that is yes.

关于那对试图以性别中立方式抚养孩子的瑞典夫妇，恐怕这行不通。因为我们非常强调的一点——这总是让我觉得与常识观察相悖——就是认为某些成年照料者能完全掌控孩子的全部经历。

On the Swedish couple who are trying to raise their child to be gender neutral, I'm afraid that isn't going to work, because you know, one of the things we put an enormous amount of emphasis on, and it always strikes me that it actually runs counter to common sense observation, is the idea that caregivers, some adult caregivers, somehow control children's whole experience.

这种情况实际上只会在极短时间内成立。在语言学中，有个绝对信条：对你的影响远大于父母和照料者的，其实是你的同龄人。

That's really only true for a very short amount of time, you know, and in linguistics, it's an absolute article of faith that it's your peers who influence you far, far more than your parents and caregivers.

这方面的证据就是——嗯，我出生在格拉斯哥。

And you know, the sort of evidence for that is that, well, I was born in Glasgow.

当我最初习得语言时，我的口音就是格拉斯哥腔。

When I first acquired language, I sounded like it.

我父母搬走了，他们听起来还是老样子，而我却变了。

My parents moved, they still sounded the same, I didn't.

好吧，你知道，这几乎是对所有事情的一个隐喻。

Okay, so, and you know, that's a metaphor for pretty much everything about.

所以我认为这些孤立的社交尝试——无论是用非性别歧视的方式还是性别中立的方式抚养孩子——都注定会失败。

So I think these attempts, isolated social attempts to raise children, either in a non sexist way or in a gender neutral way, are absolutely sort of doomed to fail.

不过，我确实认为有趣的是，这种讨论的流行（其粗浅的流行形式被称为‘大脑性别’）产生的一个效果，就是彻底扼杀了关于我们是否应该尝试不同形式的育儿和社交化等问题的所有讨论。

However, I do think it's interesting that one of the effects, I think, of the popularity of this discourse whose crude popular form is called brain sex, has been to kind of knock out all discussion of whether we ought to be trying different forms of parenting and socialization and so on.

基本上结论似乎是，我们尝试过但失败了。

Basically the conclusion seems to be, we tried that and it failed.

所以我们不需要再讨论它了，因为这都是大脑决定的或诸如此类的原因。

So we don't need to talk about it anymore because it's all in the brain or whatever.

因此，尽管你无法独自完成，但我认为你的社会化实践确实会带来影响。

And so although you can't do it on your own, certainly I think what your socialization practices are does make a difference.

关于西蒙·巴伦-科恩引用的研究，我想指出一个方法论上的细微差别。

Mean one of the things I'd say about the studies that Simon Baron Cohen cites, it's sort of a slight methodological minutiae type point.

但在这些研究中我们无法回避的是，几乎所有作为受试者参与的人——比如那些为孩子当天说出多少新词打勾的看护者——

But one of the things we can't get away from in these studies is that practically everyone who participates in them as a subject, for instance, the caregivers who are ticking the boxes for how many new words their child has uttered that day.

他们都知道女孩应该更擅长语言表达，也知道自己的孩子是男孩还是女孩。我认为他们会因为对男女差异的固有认知，而采用不同的交流方式。

They all know that girls are supposed to be more verbal and they know whether their children are girls or boys, and I think, and they talk differently to girls and boys because of beliefs about how girls and boys are.

我认为你不能排除这种可能性：这确实会影响此类研究的结果。

And I don't think you can rule out the possibility that that does influence what the results of those kinds of studies are.

看来我对这个话题说得有点多了。

So, I seem to have gone on about that.

其他人提出了一个关于语言与情感关系的问题。

Somebody else had a question about language, which was about emotion.

是这样吗？

Is that right?

但我不确定是否完全理解你想表达的意思。

But I'm not sure I totally understood what you were getting at.

我的意思是，那些旨在研究女性是否比男性在语言中更善于情感表达的实验发现事实并非如此——除一个领域外：在大型语料库研究中，当你分析数百万被标记的连续词汇时，有趣地发现男性在一个情感表达领域（即极端脏话）遥遥领先。

I mean, studies designed to investigate whether it's true that females are more emotionally expressive in their language than males have found that it isn't, except in one area, in big corpus studies where you look at millions and millions of running words that have been produced and tagged so you can search them at a computer and look what goes with what, have interestingly found that in one area of emotional expression, and that is sort of extreme swearing, men are well ahead.

所以最下流的脏话更多是由男性使用的。

So the most obscene swear words are used much more often by men.

实际上通常没人会说，这意味着男性其实非常情绪化，但这确实是一种情绪表达方式。

Nobody actually usually says, well, that means that men are really, really emotional, but actually it is a form of emotional expression.

除此之外似乎没有差异，但我不确定这是否是你真正想问的。

Otherwise, there seems to be no difference, but I'm not sure that that's actually what you are asking about.

黛博拉，除了《今日》节目之外，这里确实有个严肃的观点，不是吗？

Deborah, apart from the Today program, there is a serious point there really, isn't there?

我是说，你是否感到相当沮丧，因为二十年前就在进行的辩论和讨论至今仍在继续，甚至有些话题又重新回来了？

I mean, do you feel rather depressed that debates and discussions that were going on twenty years ago are still going on or indeed have even come back again?

我对最近某些性别模型被热情接纳的现象感到沮丧，因为我认为，曾几何时，特别是大众讨论其实是更为细致入微的。

I'm depressed by the enthusiasm with which certain kinds of models of gender have recently been embraced, because I think, you know, there was a time when the discussion, the popular discussion essentially, and you know especially, was more nuanced.

我的意思是，我并不认为这种情况真的消失过，但能够以其他方式讨论的时期似乎非常短暂，之后现状就再次占据了上风。

I mean I don't think this ever really went away, but the time when it was possible to talk in other ways, or was, seems to have been very short before the status quo kind of reasserted each other.

所以是的，我确实认为人们接受那些极其简单化的形式，这种程度尤其令人沮丧。

So yes, I do think the extent to which people buy into really very simplistic forms of it is particularly depressing.

不过你知道，显然我不认为任何理智的人会否认存在基于生物学的差异。

Though that you know, obviously I don't think any sane person denies that there are biologically based differences.

我从未听过任何女性主义者说大多数女性能够怀孕而男性不能这一事实是社会建构的。

I've never heard any feminist say that the fact that most women can get pregnant and no men can is socially constructed.

社会建构的是其意义。

It's the meaning of it that's socially constructed.

你知道，这在社会中会产生什么后果。

You know, what consequences it has within society.

所以这些问题是可区分的，但我确实认为我们又回到了非常粗浅和简单化的讨论方式上。

So those things are separable, but I do think we have gone back to really a very crude and simplistic way of discoursing upon this.

罗宾？

Robin?

我就这个问题简单说几句，因为对我们而言，试图理解关系的本质似乎才是其核心所在。

I'm just going to say something very briefly really about on this emotional issue because it seems to us trying to understand the nature of relationships to actually be the core for it.

恐怕这有点无性别的意味。

This is sort of asexual I'm afraid.

这其中并不存在性别问题，但有个相当有趣的现象：我们面临的一个难题是实际上不知道如何描述——显然这些关系是情感层面的。

There's no gender issue in it, but it is quite an interesting issue that one of the problems we're coming up against is we actually don't know how to describe, it's clear that the relationships are emotional.

这某种程度上反映了内在发生的事。

That's kind of what's going on inside.

我们实际上缺乏描述这种状态的语言。

We actually don't have a language to describe it.

这使得情况变得非常...我是说我们可以统计使用的情感词汇之类，但正如你暗示的那样，这并不总是特别有帮助。

That actually makes it very, I mean we can count up, you know, sort of emotional words used and things, but that isn't always necessarily very helpful I think as you've kind of indicated.

问题在于，我们实际上并不知道当你经历这些时内心真正的感受是什么，因为我们缺乏将其转化为语言的恰当方式，也无法对其进行认知，这就是为什么我们在用语言表达情感术语时如此困难。

The problem is we don't actually know what it is that you're feeling inside when you have these things because we don't have a very good way of turning that into language and we can't cognize about it and that's why we have such difficulty expressing emotional terms in language.

我认为在某种意义上，这就是我们为何会欣赏诗人的原因，因为他们似乎确实具备用语言表达那些内心感受的能力。

I think in one sense that's why we kind of appreciate poets in a way because they actually seem to have that skill to be able to express those inner feelings in language.

用一种我们都能共情和理解的语言表达，但随之而来的问题是，如果情况确实如此，我们就缺乏衡量关系质量或体验关系的方法，因此我们无法判断不同性别或其他人对世界的看法是否存在差异。

In a language we can all then empathize with and understand, and the problem with that is, then if this is the case, we have no metric for measuring the quality of relationships or how we experience relationships, So, we couldn't tell if there are differences in the way one sex viewed the world or the other or indeed anybody else.

你仿佛被困在这个孤立的情感微观世界中，只能通过非常间接的方式感知他人内心的活动。

You're sort of in this little isolated, I'm emotional microcosm where you only get these very indirect senses of what's going on in other people's minds.

这使得我们在科学研究中很难把握这个问题。

That kind of makes it very difficult for us in science to get a handle on that problem.

最终我们不得不面对它。

In the end we have to.

我认为答案是科学最终必须尝试所有可能性。

Think the answer is science has to try everything in the end.

我们不应该被当下表面的困难所阻碍，但这确实是我们工作中遇到的一个主要问题。

We shouldn't be stymied by apparent difficulties at the time, but it is a major problem that we're encountering in our work.

Liz，你终究会

Liz, inevitably you're going to

不得不

have to

面对国际象棋的问题。

deal with chess.

是的，我想解决国际象棋的问题，但我目前没有好的答案给你。

Yes, I want to deal with chess, but I don't have a good answer for you.

我认为可以排除某些可能性——为什么在最高水平赛事中，当许多孩子从小就开始下棋时，最终成为象棋大师的总是男孩和男性。

I think that there are some possibilities that we can rule out as to why it is that at the very highest levels you boys and men going on to be chess masters when lots of kids are playing chess early on.

首先可以排除的是下棋所需的基本能力，比如追踪空间物体移动、棋盘走位预判未来布局等。

So one thing we can rule out is that the basic abilities you need to be able to play chess, to track movements of objects in space, movements around the board, see ahead to further configurations and so forth.

这些能力在男孩和女孩身上似乎是均等存在的。

These seem to be equally available to boys and girls.

不过关于国际象棋我们还知道：要真正精通它，必须经过多年高强度训练，需要投入漫长而密集的努力。

Another thing that we know about chess, though, is to become really good at it, you have to practice it intensely, work on it intensely over many years, long, long periods of intense work.

但我认为有两个原因可以排除‘男性普遍比女性更倾向于投入这类高强度工作’的观点。

But there are two, I think we can rule out the idea that in general, males are more likely to engage in that kind of intense work than females are for two reasons.

首先，还有其他职业同样需要多年高强度训练，比如成为杰出的音乐家。

First of all, there's other occupations that also require very intense work over many years, like becoming a great musician.

而在那些领域里，我们并没有看到像国际象棋大师那样的性别比例失衡现象。

And there we see plenty of we don't see the skew that you see for the chess masters.

此外，当观察普通人群并询问‘人们为未来收益而努力的能力如何’时，会发现女孩至少和男孩一样优秀，在某些衡量标准上甚至可能略胜一筹。

Plus, when one looks across the general population and asks how good are people at working hard for future gains, one sees that girls are at least as good as boys, and probably better on by very small amounts on some of these measures.

因此这个谜题依然困扰着我。

So I'm left with the puzzle.

我认为我们尚未理解其中原因，国际象棋研究确实需要像分析数学与科学推理那样被系统分析。

I don't think we understand why, and I think that the study of chess is really going to need to be analyzed in the same kinds of ways that mathematical and scientific reasoning have been analyzed.

就像数学和科学一样，人类并非为下棋而进化。

Like math and science, we didn't evolve to do chess.

当我们下棋时，实际是在以新方式整合其他能力。我认为在真正理解其中机制之前，我们无法判断男女是否存在本质差异——这种差异可能影响着谁会更投入这项活动，以及谁最终能成为顶尖高手。

Whatever we're doing when we do it, we're taking other abilities and we're putting them together in a new way and I think we won't really be able to answer, to understand what's involved, and therefore to understand whether there's anything inherently different about boys and girls that influences who becomes involved in it and who becomes really good at it.

我认为我们目前还无法回答这个问题。

I think we won't be able to answer that question yet.

我认为，作为人类这个物种，在认知上最独特之处可能在于：我们的大部分知识都来自彼此的学习。

I think possibly the cognitively most distinctive thing about us as a species is that most of what we know we learn from each other.

这一点在数学和科学领域尤为明显。

Certainly this is true for mathematics and science.

事实上，我们中只有极少数人真正做过那些为受过教育者的世界观提供依据的实验。

A very few of us have actually done any of the experiments whose findings inform an educated person's views of the world.

这些都是我们通过与他人交谈、阅读报纸、上学和读书所了解到的。

These are things that we learn about in talking to other people, in reading newspapers, in going to school, in reading books.

我们从他人那里学到了海量的知识。

We're learning an enormous amount from other people.

而这种向他人学习的倾向性可以一直追溯到婴儿期之初。

And this predisposition to learn from other people goes all the way back to the beginning of infancy.

从生命最初阶段开始，婴儿就在关注他人。

From the very beginning of life, infants are paying attention to other people.

他们倾向于分析他人的行为，以便自己能够模仿。

They're tending to analyze other people's actions so that they themselves can reproduce them.

从儿童开始理解语言起，他们就在系统地吸收他人提供的信息，并评估他人以判断谁是可靠的见证者——当不同的人对世界有不同说法时，我该相信谁的证言等等。

From the time children start understanding language, they're systematically taking in information from other people and evaluating other people to see who's a good witness here, whose testimony should I be trusting when if different people are saying different things about the world and so forth.

因此学习必然是我们获得现有认知能力过程中不可或缺的部分。

So learning is very much has to be a part of the story of how we come to have cognitively the abilities that we have.

我确实认为，我们这种向他人学习的先天倾向，或许能部分解释为何尽管平均而言我们更认同与自己同性别的人。

I actually think that this predisposition that we have to learn from other people may partly explain why even though we identify with people of our own gender more than others on average.

我们按性别划分社会群体。

We divide up the social world by gender.

我们在生理上因性别而存在差异等等。

We differ physically by gender and so forth.

为何我们在认知能力上实际上不存在性别差异？

Why we don't actually differ cognitively by gender?

因为要向他人学习，你必须与他们具备认知上的共同基础。

Because in order in order to learn from other people, you have to have cognitive common ground with them.

若想理解他人向你传达的信息，你必须与他们共享对世界的基本假设。

You have to make the same assumptions that they do about the world if you're going to understand what they're communicating to you.

而那些天生具备向所有人学习能力的孩子——他们所在社会群体中的每一个成员——如果发现父母生活在截然不同的认知星球上，对世界有着根本不同的理解并给予他们无法调和的信息，我想这些孩子会陷入极大的困惑。

And children who are built to learn from everybody, everybody in their immediate social group, would I think find themselves in a very confusing place if it turned out that their mother and their father were living on different planets and construing the world fundamentally differently and giving them incommensurable kinds of information.

因此我认为，我们的社会性和相互学习的倾向性或许能解释：为何即使兴趣各异，我们对世界的认知和思维能力仍能保持同步。

So I actually think that our sociality and our propensity to learn from each other could potentially help explain why, even as our interests diverge, our conceptions of the world and our cognitive abilities seem to stay in line with one another.

不过最后还有一点。

But one very last point.

我认为你的问题中设定了一个无益的二分法。

I do think that in your question, you set up a dichotomy that's not helpful.

这种二分法认为事物要么是后天习得的，要么就有生物学基础。

A dichotomy that says either something's learned or it has some biological basis.

但事实上，我们人类这个物种在生物学上就先天具备学习倾向。

I actually think we're a species that's biologically predisposed to learn.

若要理解人类如何能发展出任何特定文化成员所具备的百科全书式知识，我们必须同时关注这些生物能力及其得以展现的环境。

And that if we want to understand how we are able to develop the encyclopedic knowledge that members of any given culture have, we have to look at those biological abilities as well as the environment in which they express themselves.

Liz，我想请教你，因为据我所知，你原本的研究方向并不涉及性别差异，是Larry Sumner在2005年引发的争议让你被动应战。

Liz, I just wanted to ask you, because as I understand it, you weren't really looking at sex differences in your work at all Larry Sumner provoked the controversy in 2005, and you sort of rose to the challenge.

我是说，你是否觉得这场辩论其实有点令人疲惫？

I mean, do you find this debate actually a little tiresome?

今晚我玩得很开心，

I'm having fun tonight,

所以

so

确实，我最初并未打算研究性别差异，在我大部分工作中都认为这个问题相当乏味，因为我们得到的研究结果总是表明：没有证据支持这种差异。

maybe It's true that I didn't set out to study sex differences, and throughout most of my work I thought the question was fairly boring because the answer was always no, there is no evidence for this in the studies that we're doing.

但深入思考后我发现——尽管男女在行为方式、社会角色等表面存在显著差异，我们在认知层面却如此相似，这其实挺有意思。

But actually the more I think about it I think look, with all of the manifest differences on the surface in the ways that men and women behave and the roles that they play and so forth, it's kind of interesting that we're so alike cognitively.

因此我现在认为这是个值得探讨的问题。

So I do think that's an interesting question.

太好了。

Great.

西蒙。

Simon.

今晚有很多精彩的问题，我很享受听取小组讨论的答案。

So lots of great questions tonight, and I've enjoyed listening to the answers on the panel.

首先，关于父母试图以性别中立的方式抚养孩子的问题。

First of all, on the question of a parent trying to raise their child in a gender neutral way.

我对罗宾提到的关于猴子和其他灵长类动物在所谓的打闹游戏中表现出的性别差异很感兴趣。

I was interested by what Robin was saying about monkeys and other primates and this sex difference that emerges in what he called rough and tumble play.

而且，你知道，我非常想知道，如果一个孩子没有被明确告知性别，他们的游戏风格会如何发展，因为这种现象不仅存在于多种灵长类动物中，人类也同样如此——男孩往往更倾向于参与这类打闹游戏。

And, you know, I'd be very interested to know what happens to this child who's not told if they're male or female in terms of the style of play because that's certainly something that you see across a range of primate species, but we also see it in human primates too, that boys are more likely to engage in more of this rough and tumble play.

这只是一个关于其起源的有趣问题。

And it's just an interesting question of where it comes from.

然后我们讨论了这个关于国际象棋大师的问题。

Then we had this question about grandmasters in chess.

我认为这确实非常有趣，因为与丽兹描述的那些研究不同——那些研究关注的是比如幼儿时期使用简单数学积木所展现的数学能力。

And I do think that's a really interesting one because unlike the kind of studies that Liz was describing, where we're looking at, say, mathematical abilities in early childhood of using the sort of simple building blocks in mathematics.

当你观察另一个极端，那些成为国际象棋大师或获得相当于数学界诺贝尔奖——菲尔兹奖的人。

When you're looking at the other extreme, the people who become grand masters in chess or who get the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics, which is the Fields Medal.

我的意思是，据我所知，在菲尔兹奖的历史上从未有过女性获奖者。

I mean, I don't believe there's been a single female winner of the Fields Medal in the history of the medal.

我对国际象棋大师中女性缺席的现象很感兴趣。

And I was interested to hear about the absence of women in grandmaster chess.

这让我想起哈佛大学Liz的同事史蒂芬·平克的一个观点，他谈到在分布中段比较均值时，男女差异可能非常微小，甚至看不出性别差异。

And what I'm reminded of is an observation by one of Liz's colleagues at Harvard, Steve Pinker, because he talks about the very small differences you see in the middle of the distribution when you're comparing means that males and females can be very close to each other, and as a result, see very small, if any, sex differences.

但当你观察极端情况，看那些要么出类拔萃要么存在困难的个体时，可能会看到非常倾斜或更显著的差异。

But when you go out to the extremes, when you look at individuals who either excel or have difficulties, you might see very skewed or much more marked differences.

他将此描述为正态分布的函数关系。

And he describes this as a function of the normal distribution.

让我用身高来举例说明：如果我们比较均值，男女身高差异其实很小。

So if I can just illustrate what I'm talking about, if we took height, we know that males and females only differ by a small amount if you compare the means.

你应该记得，男性与女性的平均身高差距大约是6英寸。

You remember it was about six inches between the average male and average female.

这是在平均值或分布的中段。

That's at the mean or the middle of the distribution.

当你走向极端，以极高的人群为例，史蒂芬·平克指出，在五英尺八英寸这个高度，男女比例是30:1。

When you go to the extremes and let's take extremely tall people, at five feet eight, Steve Pinker points out the sex ratio is 30 males to one female.

如果再增加两英寸法到六英尺，这个比例就变成了2000:1。

Now if you go two more inches along that dimension to six foot, the sex ratio becomes 2,000 males to one female.

所以他的观点是，这与正态分布的衰减方式有关，以及当你在分布中段看到微小差异_code时，_code在分布尾端_code这些差异会被放大。

So the point he makes is it's to do with the way that the normal distribution drops off and what happens when you have a small difference in the middle of the distribution, how those differences can be exaggerated in the tails of the distribution.

而且，我们需要理解的是，为什么在像自闭症这样的医学状况中，性别比例会如此偏向男孩。

And, you know, part of what we have to understand is why we see these very dramatic sex ratios in both medical conditions like autism, where the sex ratio can be biased towards boys.

为什么在高等数学或国际象棋等职业中，我们可能会看到一些非常扭曲的性别比例。

Why we might see some very distorted sex ratios in occupations like higher mathematics or higher chess playing.

对我来说，这其中有一些有趣的关联，因为自闭症患者不会从他人那里学习，而我们大多数人都会非常关注他人的面部表情和行为。

And to me, have some interesting connections because what happens in autism is that the person doesn't learn from others, whereas most of us are paying a lot of attention to faces and to what other people are doing.

自闭症患者倾向于以独自的方式自己解决问题。

The person with autism tends to figure things out on their own in a solitary way.

他们几乎可以说是自学成才的。

They learn things almost, you know, by themselves.

当那位破解费马大定理的数学家研究这个问题时，他并没有去剑桥大学的数学系。

When the person the mathematician who cracked Fermat's last theorem worked on that problem, he didn't come into the maths faculty in Cambridge.

他待在家里，独自工作了七年，直到他来到数学系展示他对这个数学难题的解答。

He stayed at home and he worked for seven years in isolation until he arrived at the math faculty to present his solution to a mathematical problem.

在我看来，这反映了某些思维更倾向于社交，而另一些则更倾向于独立解决问题、自主探索。

And to me, this is about some minds being very oriented towards being sociable and other minds being very oriented towards being being motivated to solving a problem on their own, figuring things out on their own.

我认为我们需要为这种学习风格的多样性留出空间，发展心理学有时会假设所有儿童都以相同方式发展，但有些孩子会以不太合群的方式进入教室，而另一些则会更善于社交。

And, you know, I think, you know, we need to make space for that diversity of learning styles that sometimes developmental psychology tends to assume that children all develop in the same way, but there are going to be some kids who enter the classroom in a less sociable way and others who enter the classroom in a much more sociable way.

而这正是人类多样性的一部分。

And that is part of the diversity of human beings.

我想说的最后一点是，这场辩论是否已经让人感到厌倦。

The last point I want to make is whether this debate is getting tired.

我想说，四十年前如果我们回想关于性别的讨论，那时的对话确实非常二元对立，一切都归因于后天学习，而生物学家则被塑造成反派角色。

And I would say that, you know, forty years ago, if we thought about debates about gender, you know, we did have very dichotomous conversations that it was all about learning and that the biologists were the bad guys.

事实上，社会生物学家曾被等同于某种形式的法西斯主义，即认为从生物学角度看待性别将彻底关闭社会变革的可能性。

In fact, sociobiologists were equated with being some form of fascism where, you know, a biological approach to gender was going to foreclose any possibility of change in society.

我认为过去四十年真正的变化是我们有了人类基因组计划。

And I think what has changed over forty years is actually that we've had the Human Genome Project.

我们不能再否认遗传学的重要性，但也没人想贬低后天学习的重要性。

We can no longer deny the importance of genetics, but no one wants to discount the importance of learning.

二者同样重要。

Both of them are equally important.

而我期待在21世纪的当代辩论中，能看到对二者共同塑造人类行为的认可——无论我们讨论的是性别议题还是其他行为模式。

And what I'd like to see in today's debate, you know, twenty first century, is a recognition that both contribute to human behavior, whether we're talking about gender or any of our other behaviors.

非常感谢，您说得太有道理了。

Thank you very much, Simon.

我相信大家都。

I'm sure you all agree with me.

这真是一场引人入胜的对话。

It's been an absolutely fascinating conversation.

在我请大家表达感谢之前，我想提醒大家注意，这个系列的下场辩论将于12月1日在同一地点、同一时间举行，主题是《性别转换：激进技术带来的挑战》。

Before I just ask us to express our appreciation, I just want to draw your attention to the fact that there's another debate in this series on the December 1, same place, same time, Transitioning Gender, the Challenges of Radial Technologies.

我记得后排有人提出了关于跨性别者的问题，很遗憾专家组没有回应。

I think there's a question on transgender which came up at the back, which I'm afraid the panel didn't address.

或许在那场辩论中，这个问题可以得到解答。

So perhaps at that debate, that will be something that can be addressed.

现在，我相信大家会和我一起为这场精彩的对话鼓掌。

In the meantime, I'm sure you will join me in a round of applause for a wonderful conversation.

更多精彩内容，请访问guardian.co.uk/audio。

For more great downloads, go to guardian.co.uk/audio.