生命的物理，第3集：为什么生命如此多样？

我们需要改变我们存在于这个世界的方式。

We need a change in the way we dwell in the world.

我认为这非常紧迫。

And that's, I think, urgent.

来自圣塔菲研究所，这里是复杂性。

From the Santa Fe Institute, this is Complexity.

我是克里斯·肯佩斯。

I'm Chris Kempes.

我是阿巴·伊莉·菲博。

And I'm Abha Eli Phoboo.

你知道，在过去的两集中，我们探讨了许多适用于生命的底层规律，它们非常有趣。

You know, over the past two episodes, we've looked at a lot of underlying laws that apply to life, and they're deeply interesting.

但让我感到惊讶的是，我们周围看到的植物和动物有着如此多样的多样性。

But it's still striking to me that there's so much diversity in the plants and animals we see around us.

我认为，物理学家在生命科学领域进展缓慢的原因之一是，生物圈真的非常复杂。

And one of the reasons, I think, that there's been this lag in physicists getting involved in the life sciences is that the biosphere is really, really complicated.

这并不是说物理学就不会变得复杂。

And that's not to say that physics can't get complicated too.

我们尝试模拟太阳表面。

We try to do things like simulate the surface of the sun.

但当你观察像标度律这样的规律时，会发现许多生物的实际情况与这些规律的预测不符。

But when you look at something like the scaling laws, there are many organisms that deviate from what the laws would predict.

当然，比如我想到了兔子和乌龟。

Sure, like if I think of a rabbit and a turtle.

这两种动物体型差不多，但它们的寿命却大不相同。

Both animals are about the same physical size, but their lifespans are so different.

兔子的寿命可能不到十年，而乌龟却能活上几十年。

A rabbit will probably live less than ten years, but a turtle can live for decades.

那么，这背后到底发生了什么？

So then what's going on there?

我们漏掉了哪个关键部分？

What part of the picture are we missing?

在今天的节目中，我们将深入探讨这个问题。

Well, in today's episode, this is exactly what we'll dive into.

我们将了解当生物多样性消失时会发生什么。

We'll get into what causes happens when biodiversity disappears.

我们还将听取两位研究人员的见解，他们将向我们展示，为何能够预测生物圈的动态对我们人类来说至关重要。

And we'll hear from two researchers who will show us why being able to make predictions about the biosphere is really, really urgent for us as humans.

第一部分：为什么生物圈如此多样？

Part one: Why is a biosphere so diverse?

所以，正如我们在第一集中讨论过的，这些规律本质上是：生物的体型与其多种特征之间存在根本关系，比如能量消耗速度、寿命和睡眠时间。

So, laws, which we talked about in our first episode, are basically this: there's an underlying relationship between an organism's physical size and a bunch of traits, like how quickly it burns through energy, its lifespan, and how much it sleeps.

你甚至可以将这些关系绘制成图表，它们会呈现出一条对数曲线。

You can even plot it out on a graph, and it follows this logarithmic curve.

如果你想象所有植物和动物都作为小点绘制在这张图表上，会明显看到一条斜率和潜在的关系。

And if you were to imagine all the plants and animals plotted out as little dots on this graph, there's an obvious slope and an underlying relationship.

但这些点并不会完全落在一条完美的直线上。

But the dots don't adhere to a perfect line.

这更像是一团紧密的云，形状像一条线。

It's more like a tight cloud that's in the shape of a line.

对。

Right.

这就像是用喷雾罐喷出一条线，而不是用一支非常非常细的笔画出来。

So like spraying an aerosol can of paint to make a line versus drawing it with a really, really fine pen.

没错。

Exactly.

这些液滴会朝不同方向飞散，但整体的形状依然存在。

The droplets kind of fly in different directions, but the overall shape is still there.

比例定律实际上是每个生物都同等感受到的物理定律。

So the scaling laws are literally the laws of physics that every organism feels equally.

比例定律基于重力、表面积和流体粘度等因素。

Scaling laws are based on things like gravity and surface area and fluid viscosity.

所以，让我们假设生命是在一种炼狱中进化的，那是一片巨大的空白白色空间，只有物理定律存在。

So let's pretend for a second that life evolved in a kind of purgatory, just a big blank white space of nothingness, with just the laws of physics.

这实际上是不可能的。

Which wouldn't actually be possible.

对，显然这不可能发生，但如果真的发生了，所有生物都会完全遵循这些比例定律。

Right, obviously that couldn't actually happen, but if it did, everything would adhere perfectly to the scaling laws.

那张图会是一条细而实的线，而不是一团云。

That graph would be a thin, solid line, not a cloud.

因为生物会仅仅为了优化物理定律而进化，以相对于自身体型最高效的方式利用能量。

Because organisms would just be evolving to optimize the laws of physics, to use energy in the most efficient ways relative to the size of their bodies.

好吧，但我们并不生活在一个白色、空旷的虚无之中吧？

Okay, but we don't live in a white, vast expanse of nothingness?

不，我们没有。

No, we don't.

我们生活在一个有天气模式、野火、不同生物群落和不同海拔的星球上。

We have a planet with weather patterns, wildfires, different biomes, and different altitudes.

因此，我们所处的环境又为我们的身体增添了一层额外的影响。

And so the environment we live in then adds this additional layer of influence to our bodies.

这可能会使生物在一定程度上偏离这种对物理定律的完美优化，因为这种偏离才使其能够在所处的生态系统中真正生存下来。

That might make the organism deviate a bit from this perfect optimization to the laws of physics, because deviating is what allows it realistically to survive in the ecosystem it's in.

每个生物都在与环境进行一场博弈，试图在仍受物理定律和这个云状分布约束的前提下，找到最佳适应周围环境的方式。

And each organism is playing a kind of game with its environment, trying to figure out how to adapt best to its surroundings while still, on a grand scale, being bound by the laws of physics and the shape of this cloud.

所以这就是为什么你可能会遇到两种体型大致相同的动物，比如我之前提到的兔子和乌龟，它们的寿命不同，活动方式也不同，对吧？

So that's why you could have two animals that are roughly the same size, like the rabbit and the turtle I mentioned earlier, which have different lifespans and move in different ways, right?

乌龟的寿命比兔子长得多，而且移动得更缓慢。

A turtle can live much longer than a rabbit, and it moves more slowly.

它们进化出了各自独特的生存策略。

They've evolved unique strategies to survive in nature.

没错。

Exactly.

尽管所有生物都同样受到物理定律的影响，但它们对环境各种因素的感知程度并不相同。

And even though all organisms feel the laws of physics equally, they don't feel all the influences of the environment equally.

一些植物，比如颤杨，生长在有野火的地区，并已适应了周期性焚烧的环境。

Some plants, like aspens, exist in places with wildfires and have adapted to thrive with periodic burns.

其他树木会在野火中遭受毁灭。

Other trees would be devastated by wildfires.

一些动物生活在极寒的气候中，另一些则生活在热带雨林中，等等。

Some animals live in really cold climates, others in tropical rainforests, etcetera.

这让我想到我的同事布莱恩·恩奎斯特所做的研究。

And this brings me to some work that my colleague Brian Enquist has done.

我的名字是布莱恩·恩奎斯特。

So my name is Brian Enquist.

我是亚利桑那大学生态与进化生物学系的教授，就在这里的亚利桑那州图森市。

I'm a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, here in Tucson, Arizona.

布莱恩是我们交谈过的人中少数几个先从事生命科学、后来才对物理学产生兴趣的人，而不是相反。

Brian is one of the few people we've spoken to who actually started out in the life sciences first and then became interested in physics instead of the other way around.

我确实觉得自己是一名受过传统训练的生物学家，只是后来发现了物理学。

I really do feel as if I am a biologist, a classically trained biologist that has found physics.

我很早就发现了物理学，大约在十岁左右，我发现自己非常喜欢在户外活动。

I found it rather early on, somewhere around the age of 10, I discovered that I really like being outside.

我记得第一次自己爬树的情景。

And, and I remember climbing a tree for the first time just on my own.

我有点儿远离了家，独自在森林里，感觉非常自在。

I kinda wandered away from, you know, the house and was out in the forest, and I was just very comfortable.

我为自己决定独自做这件事感到非常自豪。

And I was very proud of myself that I kinda decided to do that on my own.

我记得坐在树上想，这真酷。

I remember sitting in the tree thinking, This is pretty cool.

我觉得我想一辈子都做这件事。

I think I want to do this for the rest of my life.

布莱恩在生物多样性方面做了一些非常有趣的工作。

Brian's done some really interesting work on biodiversity.

所以，这种生物多样性的分布看起来可能相当随机。

So this cloud of biodiversity might look pretty random.

但他和几位合作者深入研究了这片分布，试图找出其中是否存在我们可以揭示的潜在规律？

But what he and several coauthors have done is zoom in on that cloud and ask, are there underlying laws here that we can tease out?

如果物理学的基本规律以可预测的方式塑造自然选择，那么环境的各个要素也必然以某种可预测的方式塑造自然选择。

If the basic laws of physics shape natural selection in predictable ways, then certainly, elements of the environment will shape natural selection in some predictable ways too.

他和一些合作者提出了所谓的‘性状驱动理论’。

And he and some co authors have coined what's called the Trait Driver Theory.

那么，植物或动物的哪种性状最能预测它是否出现在北极环境或热带环境中？

So what trait then of a plant or an animal best predicts whether or not you occur in an arctic environment or a tropical environment?

结果发现，有几种性状在某种程度上具有很强的预测性。

And it turns out that there are several traits then that are very predictive in a way.

也就是说，如果我们观察到这些性状，就能对生物体的生存方式、寿命、生理特征、新陈代谢以及它在地球上通常生活的区域有非常具体的了解。

That is, you know, if we see these traits, we know something very concrete about that organism in terms of how it lives, how long it lives, its physiology, its metabolism, and where it tends to live on the planet.

因此，性状驱动理论会以树木木材的致密程度或高度等特征为依据，预测该树木适应的环境类型。

So trait driver theory takes a characteristic like how dense a tree's wood is or how tall it is, and it makes a prediction about what type of environment that tree has adapted to.

对。

Right.

比如，树木在越接近北极的地方通常长得越矮。

Like trees tend to get shorter the closer you get to the Arctic.

以木材密度为例，轻木和红木都是热带植物，但它们在温暖环境中采用了两种不同的生存方式。

Or if you think about wood density, for example, balsa trees and mahogany trees are both tropical plants that have found two different ways to thrive in their warm environments.

如果你曾经玩过木材，比如你的孩子用轻木做过轻木飞机，对吧？轻木是非常轻的木材。

And so if you've ever played around with wood at all, if your kid maybe made these balsa airplanes made out of balsa wood, right, which is very light wood.

或者如果你尝试搬动一张红木做的桌子，或者某种非常沉重的热带木材，你会发现木材密度存在巨大差异。

Or if you tried to, move a desk made out of mahogany, right, or some sort of, like, really heavy tropical wood, you notice that there's tremendous variation in wood density.

所以当谈到红木树时，

So when it comes to a mahogany tree,

如果你投资于高密度的组织，那就是一种面向未来的投入。

if you invest in very high density tissue, that is an investment then for the future.

这表明你将长期存活。

That indicates that you're gonna be there for a long time.

因此，你不会把通过光合作用和新陈代谢辛苦获得的碳，用来做看似无用的事情，而是将其分配到木材或组织本身中。

So instead of kind of taking that carbon, that hard earned carbon from photosynthesis and all that metabolism then that's spent to obtain all this carbon, you then allocate it into something kind of, you know, seemingly non useful, wood or your tissue itself.

这种投入是为了让你能活得更久，从而在更长的时间跨度内逐步获取资源。

And so that investment is made so that you kind of hang around longer so that you can then obtain then your resources over a much longer time frame.

而像轻木这样的木材，你在构建生存结构上的投入非常少。

And something like balsa wood has very little investment in your structure that you're building in order to live.

因此，这种结构并不是为了长久耐用而建造的。

And so that structure then is not, you know, kind of built to last a long time.

但我们发现，轻木的生命非常短暂，但生长得极快。

But instead, what we find is that balsa wood lives a very fast life, but a very short life.

它的新陈代谢率非常高。

It has a very high metabolic rate.

它的光合作用速率也很高，基本上把所有碳都直接投入到了种子和后代中。

It has a high photosynthetic rate, and it basically takes all that carbon and puts it right into seeds and babies.

你知道，轻木树很容易被风吹倒，也容易被动物撞倒。

You know, balsa trees can blow over really easily in the wind, can easily get knocked down by animals.

但如果它能凭借这种低成本的结构迅速生长，就能把所有碳都投入到繁殖中，然后迅速死亡。

But if it can grow up really quickly because of this very cheap infrastructure, then it can throw all of that carbon instead into reproduction and then basically die.

因此，轻木树通过快速且容易地繁殖来适应环境，而红木树则通过更多地投资于自身身体、缓慢生长来适应环境。

So balsa trees have adapted by being able to reproduce quickly and easily, while mahogany trees have adapted by investing more in their own bodies and growing slower.

事实证明，木质更致密的树木在面对气候变化时更具韧性。

And it turns out having denser wood makes a tree hardier in the face of a changing climate.

布莱恩和他的合著者已经开始识别出更适合适应气候变化的特定植物特征。

And Brian and his coauthors have actually begun to identify specific plant traits that are better for adapting to climate change.

这意味着他们也能识别出哪些植物不具备这些特征。

And this means they can also identify which plants don't have those traits.

布莱恩最近发表了一篇关于这方面的论文。

Brian published a paper about this recently.

我们能否建立一个更具预测性的理论，将这些特征与生物体或表型对气候变化的响应联系起来？

Can we develop a more predictive theory for linking in these traits to then how an organism or a phenotype responds to a change in climate?

你最近参与发表了一篇刊登在《自然·通讯》上的论文。

You had a recent paper that you were part of published in Nature Communications.

论文指出，超过17000种树木面临快速全球变化的威胁。

It said more than 17,000 tree species are at risk from rapid global change.

你能给我们简单介绍一下这篇论文吗？

Could you tell us a little bit about this paper?

是的

Yeah.

因此，当我们研究多种气候变化情景和不同的人类土地利用情景时，我们不断发现相似的数字，即在未来的气候变化和人类土地利用情景下，越来越多物种的总面积面临崩溃，适宜栖息地大幅减少。

So what we actually found was that when we looked at several different climate change scenarios and different human land use scenarios, we kept coming up with similar numbers in terms of the number of species that seem to be increasingly more threatened of having their total area collapsing and their habitable area than not available in future climate change and human land use scenarios.

因此，我们希望为讨论的物种总数提供一个明确的范围。

And so we wanted to kind of bookend a number of what we were talking about in terms of the total number of species.

基于这些未来预测的计算表明，大约有17,000个物种面临风险。

And so our calculations based on kind of these future projections indicate that, yeah, about 17,000 species are at risk.

这是一个相当令人担忧的数字。

This is a pretty daunting number.

当然，这同时也为进一步的研究打开了大门，并帮助识别出那些急需采取保护行动的物种和地点。

And of course, then that also, you know, opens the door to additional research and as well as identify those species and locations where immediate conservation action would be needed.

17,000个物种面临风险。

17,000 species are at risk.

有些人可能会觉得这个数字令人不安，另一些人则可能认为这简直令人恐惧。

Some people might find that number unsettling, others might think it's downright frightening.

但为什么呢？

But why?

如果只有最顽强的生物存活下来，这有什么不好？

Why is it bad if only the hardiest of organisms are left?

适者生存，对吧？

Survival of the fittest, right?

在第二部分中，我们将探讨生物多样性为何重要，以及发现生物圈基本底层规律不仅对我们科学家而言具有趣味性，而且对于人类在变化的星球上生存也至关重要。

Well, in part two, we'll get into why biodiversity is important and why finding fundamental underlying laws of the biosphere is not just interesting for us as scientists, but it's also crucial for human existence in the face of a changing planet.

这是第二部分：为什么生物多样性重要？

This is part two: Why is biodiversity important?

假设气候变化已经消灭了许多树木，但红木树仍然存活下来。

So let's say climate change has wiped out a bunch of trees, but the mahogany tree is still left.

你可以看着一棵红木树说，这棵树健康而强壮。

You could look at a mahogany tree and say, this tree is healthy and strong.

但如果周围没有其他种类的树木，那么整个生态系统就会变得脆弱。

But if there aren't many other types of trees around, then the ecosystem as a whole is weak.

生物多样性很重要。

Biodiversity is important.

多样性使系统能够探索并更高效地获取资源和产生生物量。

Diversity allow us to, allow the system to actually explore and be more efficient at harvesting resources and generating biomass.

但同时，你也能更好地抵御害虫和病原体。

But at the same time, you are more protected from pests and pathogens.

你可能会加快分解速率，并以放大方式促进土壤形成。

You might generate fast kind of decomposition rate and you generate soil formation in an amplified way.

所以一切都更好。

So everything is better.

这是巴勃罗·马奎特。

This is Pablo Marquet.

我是巴勃罗·马奎特。

I'm Pablo Marquet.

我是智利天主教大学的教授。

I am a professor at the Catholic University in Chile.

我受过生态学的训练。

By training, I'm an ecologist.

我现在很好，正在梅特兰，你知道的，我在这里墨西哥度假。

I'm well, right now I'm Methotland, You know, I'm spending, holidays here in Mexico.

当我不出差时，我就在智利的圣地亚哥。

And when I'm not traveling, I'm in Santiago in Chile.

帕布洛曾对转移性癌症进行过一些研究，这乍一看似乎与生物多样性和生态学的研究相去甚远。

Pablo has done some research on metastatic cancer, which at first glance seems a little far removed from work on biodiversity and ecology.

但当我们分析了原发器官和转移器官之间传播路径的网络时，我们意识到这其实是一个生态网络。

But when we analyzed the network of the primary organ and the metastatic organ where it sends propagules, we realized that it was an ecological network.

我的意思是，它具备大多数生态网络的所有特性。

I mean, it has all the properties that most ecological network has.

转移性肿瘤最初出现在身体的一个器官，然后寻找其他器官作为传播目标，寻找适合繁殖的肥沃土壤。

Metastatic tumors start out in one organ in the body, and then they look around for other organs to spread to, fertile grounds for reproduction.

你可以把肿瘤看作是其生态系统中极其成功的生物，也许成功得有点过头了。

You could think of tumors as extremely successful organisms in their ecosystem, maybe a little too successful.

帕布罗和他的合作者们发现，磷元素就像是肿瘤的食物或肥料，因此肿瘤会遍布全身以寻找更多的磷。

What Pablo and his team of co authors discovered is that the element phosphorus is like food or fertilizer for tumors, So they spread throughout the body to find more of it.

因为你需要磷来构建蛋白质，需要构建富含磷的RNA和核糖体。

Because you need phosphorus to build proteins, because you need to build RNA that has a lot of phosphorus on it and ribosomes.

所以生长意味着你需要非常活跃地制造RNA和蛋白质，从而启动肿瘤的生长。

So growing means that you really have a very active way of creating RNA and creating proteins so you can start growing a tumor.

关于人体不同器官中磷含量的数据非常有限。

So there was very limited data on the phosphorus content of the different organs of humans.

但我们发现，转移通常发生在磷含量高于原发肿瘤所在器官的器官中。

But we found out that usually the metastasis goes to an organ that actually have a higher phosphorus content than the organ where the primary tumor actually started.

原因似乎是，由于它们改变了代谢方式，并且在ATP生成（能量产生）方面非常活跃，因此有能力超越正常细胞。

And the reason for that seems to be that since they have altered the metabolism and they are very active in terms of ATP, in generating energy, they have the scope to actually outgrow the cells.

但要做到这一点，它们需要更多的磷。

But to do that, they need more phosphorus.

因此，它们在磷含量更高的地方会繁殖得更好。

So they will proliferate better in a place where the phosphorus content is higher.

我们找到了统计证据，证明这确实是事实。

And we found statistical evidence that shows that in fact, that's the case.

有趣的是，肿瘤细胞想要利用能量、改变代谢、加速生长、超越其他细胞，并招募身体中的某些正常细胞来帮助它们。

And that is interesting to see that a tumor cell wants to actually capitalize on the energy, change the metabolism, start growing faster, outgrow other cells, recruit some normal cells in the body to actually help them.

这就是基本思路。

So that was the basic idea.

癌细胞消耗大量能量，并超越它们所处的空间。

Cancer cells consume a lot of energy, and they outgrow the spaces they're in.

转移性癌症破坏了人体的生态系统。

Metastatic cancer throws the body's ecosystem out of whack.

当一个生态系统失去平衡时，最终这个生态系统就会崩溃。

And what happens when an ecosystem is out of balance is that eventually, that ecosystem breaks down.

如果我们退后一步，从人体的生态系统跳到我们星球更广阔的生态系统，那么人类就像这些肿瘤一样，总是在四处寻找更多的磷来消耗。

If we take a step back and move outside the ecosystem of the body to the broader ecosystem of our planet, well, we humans are like these tumors, always looking around for more phosphorus to consume.

要找到一个可能像肿瘤一样运作的生物体，它必须像体内的细胞一样，打破与其他细胞的社会契约。

To find an organism that might act as a tumor, it will be an organism that somehow the same as a cell within a body kind of break its social contract with the rest of the cells.

而这样的实体会以某种方式切断了与其他实体的社会联系。

And that would be an entity that somehow broke its social connection to the rest of the entities.

显然，我们人类已经超出了一个正常体重约75公斤的物种在密度和影响力上本应达到的限度。

And the obvious kind of entities as, I mean, we have been outgrowing beyond what a normal species of seventy five kilos will achieve in terms of density and in terms of impact.

我的天，这太可怕了。

I mean, this is awful.

我们人类，即使我们想做个好人，过上美好的生活，我们却像癌细胞一样。

We humans, even if we want to be good individuals and live good lives as a whole, we're like cancer.

至少这是我对此的初步反应。

At least that's my initial reaction to this.

但帕布罗并没有用道德术语来描述，比如好或坏。

But Pablo doesn't describe it in moral terms, as good or bad.

但我们并不是坏的。

But we are not bad.

转移的癌细胞也不是坏的。

The metastatic cells are not bad either.

它们正在做的一些事情，可能并不利于自身的持续存在。

They are doing something that it might not be right for their own persistence.

因此，我们必须认识到，我们当前在世界上所做的事情存在危险。

So that's why we have to learn that there is danger in terms of what we are doing in the world right now.

对我们自己而言，这种危险是存在的。

There is danger for ourselves.

这就是问题所在。

That's the problem.

在退化的生物圈中生存可能并不容易。

It might not be easy to navigate through a degraded biosphere.

我们应当在为时已晚之前吸取这个教训。

We might want to learn the lesson before it's inevitable.

因此，我认为我们必须做出改变。

So that's why I think that we have to change.

我们需要改变我们在这个世界中的生存方式。

We need a change in the way we dwell in the world.

而且我认为，这是紧迫的。

And that's, I think, urgent.

不管这是好是坏，这仅仅是生存的基本需求。

Aside from whether or not this is good or bad, it's just basic survival.

尽管我们人类喜欢认为自己是特殊的，但我们完全融入了周围的生物多样性之中，我们是它的一部分，也依赖着它。

And as much as we humans love to think of ourselves as exceptional, we're completely embedded in the biodiversity around us, and we are part of it, and we need it.

我的意思是，当生命起源并开始演变、产生生物多样性时，实际上就像一股生物量浪潮覆盖了地球。

I mean, when life originated and started changing and generated biodiversity, actually it's like a wave of biomass covering the earth.

这是一件事物，却有着多种不同的形态。

And that is one single thing that have many different appearances.

这就是生命。

It's just life.

我们都是这股正在转化、形态多样的生物量潮汐的一部分。

And we are all part of that tide of biomass that is transforming and have many different appearances.

但归根结底，它起源于38亿年前，虽然年代久远，却依然存在。

But at the end of the day is something that originated 3.8 ago to say a date, but long past and is still here.

我们也是其中的一部分。

And we are part of that.

我们就是这一刻。

We are that moment.

这就是我们。

It is us.

我们只不过是一种转化，这么说吧。

We are just a transformation, so to speak.

那股生物量之浪就像一张巨大的移动被子，拥有各种不同的颜色、质地和形状。

That wave of biomass is like a giant moving quilt with all different colors, textures and shapes.

让我们回到布莱恩。

Let's go back to Brian.

是的。

Yeah.

气候变化将彻底改变这张被子的组合与构造方式。

So climate change is going to be dramatically rearranging how that quilt is put together and built.

我们所看到的生物多样性之毯，是数百万年、甚至数亿年演化的结果。

The quilt that we see of biodiversity is the result of millions, hundreds of millions of years of, you know, evolution.

在我们星球的历史上，曾发生过导致大规模灭绝的事件。

In the history of our planet, there have been events that caused mass extinctions.

著名的是，许多科学家认为，大多数恐龙的灭绝是因为六千六百万年前一颗小行星撞击地球。

Famously, many scientists believe that most dinosaurs became extinct because of an asteroid that hit the Earth sixty six million years ago.

它消灭了当时地球上约80%的动物物种。

It knocked out around 80% of all species of animals that were on the planet at that time.

显然，如果你今天环顾四周，你会发现生物多样性最终恢复并反弹了。

And obviously, if you look around today, you can tell that biodiversity eventually recovered and bounced back.

但是

But

气候变化也会在更短的进化时间尺度上撕裂这片毯子的重要组成部分。

Climate change will also rip out important components of that quilt on shorter evolutionary time scales.

我认为，关于气候变化本质的一个被严重低估的方面，是气候变化的时间尺度与生物多样性及生态过程形成所需时间尺度之间的对比。

I think the one thing that isn't emphasized enough about the nature of climate change is the time scales associated with climate change relative to the time scales at which biodiversity and ecological processes kind of emerge.

因此，我们讨论的是地球气候的巨大变化以及生物群落的重组，这些变化几乎发生在人类的时间尺度上。

So we're talking about an enormous change in the Earth's climate and reorganization of the Earth's biomes that basically occur close to human time scales.

过去大规模灭绝事件的例子表明，生物多样性的惊人壮丽能够自我重组并恢复，因此生命具有极强的韧性。

And examples of the past of mass extinction events shown how the amazing grandeur of biodiversity is able to reorganize itself and basically come back, and so life is tremendously resilient.

但我们现在看到、并且将越来越多地看到的变化，其发生的时间尺度不仅会重新排列这张生命之毯，还会不幸地撕去其中的重要组成部分。

But the changes that we're seeing now and increasingly are going to be seeing are gonna be operating at timescales that are going to not only rearrange this quilt of life, but unfortunately rip out major components of that quilt.

作为一名生态学家，我担心的是，这种对生命丰富图景的撕裂、破损和重组，我们的关键生态系统服务——清洁的空气、清洁的水——以及我们依赖生物多样性来维持的人类健康，究竟能承受多少？

And as an ecologist, the concern is that, you know, how much of that tearing, that tattering, that reorganization of life's rich tapestry, can our important ecosystem services of clean air, clean water, we rely on biodiversity for human health, how much can it take?

布莱恩、帕布罗、我和其他科学家希望，如果我们能进一步揭示这些生命的基本规律，就能更好地理解我们的生物圈将发生什么。

Brian, Pablo, myself, and other scientists are hoping that if we can tease out more of these fundamental laws of life, we'll get a better understanding of what's going to happen to our biosphere.

当我退一步思考我那些在地球科学领域、尤其是大气科学领域的杰出同事们时，我非常羡慕他们预测未来气候系统的能力。

And so when I step back and I think of all my wonderful colleagues in the earth sciences, and in particular those studying atmospheric sciences, that I'm very envious of their ability to predict the future of our climate system.

但很明显，理解未来气候系统的一个重大不确定性，就在于生物圈将发生什么变化。

But it's clear that one of the big uncertainties in understanding the future of the climate system has to do with what's going to happen to the biosphere.

如果我们聚焦于生物圈的科学，我们就缺乏同样的预测能力，无法预测在不同气候变化情景、不同人类土地利用情景、不同灭绝情景下，生物圈将如何呈现、运作和发挥作用。

And if we focus that on the science of the biosphere, we don't have the same degree of predictive ability in terms of predicting how the biosphere is going to look and behave and function under different climate change scenarios, under different human land use scenarios, under different extinction scenarios?

生物圈会发生什么？

What's going to happen to the biosphere?

布莱恩和他的合著者已经开始以一种近乎蛮力的方式做出预测。

Brian and his coauthors have started to make predictions in a kind of brute force way.

这些预测基于我们目前已知的40万种被生态学家记录的物种。

And these predictions are based on what we already know about the 400,000 species ecologists have cataloged so far.

例如，我们已经知道北极狐显然偏好寒冷的环境。

We already know that an Arctic fox obviously prefers a cold environment, for instance.

但这并不等同于基于统一理论做出预测。

But that's not the same as making predictions based on a unified theory.

处理如此庞大的数据集非常困难。

And dealing with this massive collection of data is hard.

我必须说，这项工作令人沮丧，因为处理生物多样性数据非常困难。

I have to say that this work is, you know, frustrating because dealing with biodiversity data is very difficult.

这些数据存在很多模糊性和不规范之处。

There's a lot of vagaries and dirtiness of the data.

这些数据组织得并不好，非常零散。

The data are not very nicely organized, very patchy.

存在很多问题。

There's a lot of issues.

因此，我们花了大量时间处理生物多样性数据的混乱问题。

And so we've been spending a lot of time dealing with the dirtiness of biodiversity data.

但这也很令人不安，因为我们对于如何预测未来不同物种的响应几乎没有理论基础。

But it's also a little unsettling because we have very little theory for how we basically kind of forecasting into the future how these different species will respond.

但必须说，这非常具有挑战性。

But I have to say, it's it's very challenging.

那为什么会这样呢？

So why is it like this?

我的意思是，地球科学已经长期优先发展天气预报。

I mean, the earth sciences have prioritized making weather forecasts for a while.

那为什么我们直到现在才开始思考如何对生物圈进行预测呢？

So why is it that we're only just starting to think about making forecasts in the biosphere?

好吧，帕布洛对这个问题和生态学的历史有一些背景信息。

Well, Pablo has some context for this and the history of ecology.

如果你看一下生态学的历史，我们生态学家源自一种传统，起源于那些走遍世界、描述世界并被各种生物形式及其相互作用的惊人多样性所深深震撼的博物学家。

If you look at the history of ecology, we ecologists come from a tradition that started with the big naturalist that were traveling the world and, describing the world and being completely dazzled by the huge variety and diversity of different forms and interaction among them.

而且，这些事物在空间和时间尺度上也恰好符合我们的感知范围。

And also because those things kind of match our scale in terms of space, time.

因此，这种观念一直延续至今。

So that really kind of lingers there.

生物学的很大一部分都根植于命名和编目。

So much of biology is rooted in naming and cataloging.

历史上，许多博物学家都在探索他们眼前的一切。

Historically, many naturalists were exploring whatever was right in front of them.

由于博物学家只能看到世界的一小部分，他们实际上受限于无法看清森林的全貌，而只关注眼前的树木。

And because naturalists only had a small slice of the world to look at, they were literally limited in how well they could see the forest for the trees.

相比之下，物理学和数学一直致力于退后一步，寻找抽象的规律来解释我们的世界，但仅限于非生命物质。

In contrast, physics and mathematics have always been about pulling back and finding abstract rules to explain our world, but only for the stuff that's nonliving.

我们现在才刚刚开始将这两种方法结合起来。

And we're now just starting to combine these two approaches.

因此，我们越来越多地关注这些以性状与环境相互作用为核心的生物尺度定律，试图找出一些更根本的方法，以预测生物多样性将如何响应。

And so increasingly, we've been looking to some of these biological scaling laws focused on trait environment interactions, trying to figure out if there are some underlying more kind of like approaches to scaling up and forecasting how biodiversity will respond.

但不得不说，这非常具有挑战性。

But I have to say it's very challenging.

布莱恩和我实际上正在合作撰写一篇论文，以识别和命名这些不同的科学探究方法。

Brian and I are actually working on a paper to identify and name these different approaches to scientific inquiry.

因为能够更批判性地思考如何共同运用这些方法，触及了根本性的问题。

Because being able to think more critically about how to use each of these approaches together gets at existential issues.

例如，如何尽可能快地推动科学进步，正如帕布罗和布莱恩都指出的，这迫在眉睫。

For example, how to move science forward as quickly as possible, which as Pablo and Brian have both noted is urgent.

是的。

Yeah.

所以，我应该退一步说，这正是我们正在试图发表的一篇论文。

So I should actually kind of, you know, step back and say that this is a paper we're trying to publish.

它还没有发表。

It's not published yet.

我们实际上希望很快能收到第二轮审稿意见。

And we actually hope to hear back on the second round of reviews here sometime soon.

但这是科学跨文化主义。

But so scientific transculturalism.

这是我们在圣塔菲研究所提出的一个新概念。

This is a new idea that we developed at the Santa Fe Institute.

稍微退一步说，科学跨文化主义的概念始于这样一种观点：关于世界，存在多种获取科学洞见的方式。

And just to step back a little bit, the idea of scientific transculturalism kind of starts with this notion that there are multiple ways to gain scientific insight then about the world.

因此，这些获取科学洞见的不同方式，我认为有着各自不同的哲学和文化根源。

And so, you know, those different ways of gaining scientific insight have kind of different, I think, philosophical and kind of cultural roots.

在生物学中，一种相当突出的方式是自然历史的视角。

And so one way that's pretty prominent in biology is more kind of the natural history perspective.

自然历史为我们提供了生命丰富的目录，对生物多样性的描述，当然还有细胞生物学的惊人发展，以及关于细胞如何运作、信息如何传递、遗传性等基本机制的诸多细节。

And so natural history has given us, you know, a wonderful catalog of life, the description of biodiversity, and of course, the incredible explosion of cellular biology and all the details of basically how cells work, how information is passed along, heritability, genetics, and so on.

这种自然主义方法是我们所说的精确性文化的一个例子，它以越来越精细的细节观察世界的变化，力求对所观察的事物达到极致的精确，并绘制出每一个细节。

This naturalist approach is an example of what we're calling exactitude culture, which looks at the variability of the world in finer and finer detail, getting really, really precise about what's being observed and mapping out every single thing.

而在另一个方向上，我们有粗粒化，即退后一步，试图简化一切。

And then in the other direction, we have coarse graining, which is pulling back and trying to simplify everything.

如果你到现在还没猜到的话，生命物理学的核心就是将这种粗粒化、简化的思路应用到生命科学中。

If you haven't guessed by now, the physics of life is all about applying that coarse graining, simplify everything approach to the life sciences.

我们在前两集中讨论的大部分内容都是这一思路的例证。

Much of what we've talked about in the first two episodes are examples of this.

尺度定律、组装理论、生物体的繁殖方式，以及现在的性状驱动理论二。

Scaling laws, assembly theory, the way organisms reproduce, and now, Trait Driver Theory two.

但粗粒化文化当然也存在于科学的许多其他领域，在生命科学中，这可能类似于群体遗传学或数量遗传学。

But coarse grained culture, you know, is in many different areas of science, of course, and within the life sciences, you know, maybe this would be, you know, something like population genetics or quantitative genetics.

因此，粗粒化文化的核心在于抽象的重要性，以及简约性和简化的重要性，这样才能在理解上取得突破。

So the idea of coarse grained culture is the importance of abstraction and the importance of things like parsimony and simplification so that you can kind of gain traction in understanding.

值得注意的是，这些方法中没有哪一种比其他方法更好。

And it's important to note that none of these approaches is better than any other.

我们需要所有这些方法协同工作，才能推动科学进步。

We need all of them working together in order to move science forward.

因此，科学跨文化主义的概念触及了决定科学步伐、科学进展速度的这一核心问题。

So the idea of scientific transculturalism gets to this kind of notion of what then determines the pace of science, how quickly science proceeds.

当然，当前迫切需要加快科学进展的速度，以理解气候变化和生物多样性危机——这些紧迫的挑战不仅会引发地球系统的连锁反应，还将给人类带来新的问题和挑战，我们必须在这些问题降临之前尽快识别出来。

And of course, there is this urgency of increasing the speed of scientific progress in terms of understanding how not only climate change, but the biodiversity crisis, how all of these urgent challenges are going to then lead to not only cascade through the Earth system, but then are going to be presenting these new problems and challenges for humanity that we urgently need to identify before they're set upon us.

因此，科学跨文化主义的理念在于，它能够加速科学进展，使我们能够应对与生物圈和人类世相关的诸多挑战。

And so the notion of scientific transculturalism is that it can speed scientific progress so that we can address many of these different challenges associated with the biosphere and the Anthropocene.

为此，其中一个解决办法是提高我们模型的可预测性等等。

And so to do so, one of the answers is to improve the predictability of our models and so on.

这一过程的每一步——发现尺度定律，然后理解使动植物适应不同环境的性状——

Each step of this process, discovering the scaling laws and then understanding the traits that allow plants and animals to adapt to different environments.

都像是在拼合一幅巨大而宏大的拼图的碎片。

It feels like unlocking pieces of a huge, grand puzzle.

这实际上相当令人充满希望，因为我们对生物圈的预测和理解越多，就越能至少尝试为即将到来的变化做好准备。

It's actually quite hopeful because the more we can predict and understand about the biosphere, the more we can at least attempt to prepare ourselves for what's coming.

这就是整合不同科学文化的目标。

That's the goal with integrating different cultures of science.

这实际上关乎拓展我们对科学如何开展的思考方式，以便更好地改进、进步并解决重要问题。

It's really about expanding the way we think about how science can be done so we can improve and progress and solve really important problems in a better way.

这非常符合圣塔菲研究所的风格。

It's a very SFI kind of attitude.

到目前为止，本季我们已经看到，这种视角如何帮助我们理解从最小的细胞到整个生态系统的各种生命形式之间的联系。

And so far in this season, we've seen how this outlook can help us understand the connections between all forms of life, from the smallest cells to entire ecosystems.

但还有一个我们尚未真正讨论过的重要领域。

But there's one more kind of big area we haven't really talked about yet.

那是什么？

And what's that?

是社会。

It's society.

我的意思是，我们是社会性动物。

I mean, we are social animals.

而这个星球上还有许多其他的社会性动物。

And this planet has many, many other social animals too.

没错。

That's right.

在下一期节目中，我们将运用标度律和粗粒化物理学的方法，探讨：社群背后的根本规律是什么？

In our next episode, we'll take the scaling laws coarse graining physics approach and ask: what are the laws underlying communities?

但人类要复杂和多变得多，他们有着如此多相互冲突的动机。

But humans are so much more complex and so much more complicated and they have so many conflicting motivations.

这些内容将在下一期《复杂性》中揭晓。

That's next time on Complexity.

在结束之前，我们有一个请求。

And before we go, we have a favor to ask.

如果你喜欢这个节目，支持我们的最好方式就是告诉一个朋友，或者两个、五个朋友。

If you've been enjoying this show, the best thing you can do to support us is to tell a friend about it or tell two friends or five.

请在Apple Podcasts、Spotify或你收听的任何平台为我们评分和评论。

And please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

这将帮助新听众找到这个节目，谢谢。

It'll help new listeners find the show, and thank you.

《复杂性》是圣塔菲研究所的官方播客。

Complexity is the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute.

本集由凯瑟琳·蒙库尔制作，主题曲由米奇·米尼亚诺创作。

This episode was produced by Katherine Moncure, and our theme song is by Mitch Mignano.

其他音乐来自Blue Dot Sessions，完整的音效致谢请见本集的节目说明。

Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions and the rest of our sound credits are in the show notes for this episode.

我是克里斯。

I'm Chris.

感谢收听。

Thanks for listening.