经济学人双语阅读：政治遗传学 人体政治

【经济学人】双语阅读：政治遗传学人体政治

Science and technology

科学技术

The genetics of politics

政治遗传学

Body politic

人体政治

Slowly, and in some quarters grudgingly, the influence of genes in shaping political outlook and behaviour is being recognized

在某些方面，塑造政治前景和行为的基因影响正在慢慢地被人们所接受，虽然还是不情愿。

IN 1882 W.S. Gilbert wrote, to a tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan, a ditty that went I often think it's comical how Nature always does contrive/that every boy and every gal that's born into the world alive/is either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative.

在1882年，W.S吉尔伯特写的一首小诗-是为阿瑟-沙利文爵士的一首曲子而作，我一直认为，大自然的精工雕作是那么可笑/每个出生到这个世界上，并存活下来的男孩和女孩们/不是有一点自由倾向，就是有一点保守。

In the 19th century, that view, though humorously intended, would not have been out of place among respectable thinkers.

在十九世纪，这个观点虽然有一点幽默的意味，但是在那些备受尊敬的思想家眼中，也并不是一无是处。

The detail of a man's opinion might be changed by circumstances.

一个人意见的详细观点可能会由于环境而改变。

But the idea that much of his character was ingrained at birth held no terrors.

但是，这种与生俱来的，由他的性格决定的观念也没什么恐怖的。

It is not, however, a view that cut much ice in 20th-century social-scientific thinking, particularly after the second world war.

然而，它在二十世纪的社会科学思想中没有占到一席之地，特别是二战之后。

Those who allowed that it might have some value were generally shouted down and sometimes abused, along with all others vehemently suspected of the heresy of believing that genetic differences between individuals could have a role in shaping their behavioural differences.

那些认为它有一些价值的人们发出的呐喊，通常会被持不同观点人们的声音所掩盖，有时还会遭到辱骂，和那些对当时的异端邪说----即个体之间的遗传差异在塑造他们各自不同的行为上起了一定的作用----有些猜测的人们一样受到不公平对待。

Such thinking, a product compounded of Marxism and a principled rejection of the eugenics that had led, via America's sterilisation programmes for the feeble minded, to the Nazi extermination camps, made life hard for those who wished to ask whether genes really do affect behaviour. 这样的想法，与马克思主义融合后的产物，加上美国借口弱智而产生的绝育计划，这种优生学的原则性排斥反应直接导致了纳粹集中营的大屠杀，让那些想知道基因是不是对行为真的有影响的人们更加难以生存了。

Now, however, the pendulum is swinging back.

然而，现在，这个一直在变化的问题又摆到了人们面前。

In the matter of both political outlook and political participation it is coming to be seen that genes matter quite a lot.

就政治观点和政治参与而言，即将可以看出，基因确实起到了很大的作用。

They are not the be-all and end-all.

他们并不是最重要的。

But, as a review of the field published in September in Trends in Genetics, by Peter Hatemi of Pennsylvania State University and Rose McDermott of Brown University, shows, they affect a person's views of the world almost as much as his circumstances do, and far more than many social scientists have been willing, until recently, to admit.

但是，由美国宾夕法尼亚州立大学的彼德-哈特米和布朗大学的罗斯麦克德莫特合著的遗传学的发展趋势于今年九月出版，书中所持的遗传学观点认为，基因对人们世界观的影响几乎等同于环境的影响，而且，远远超过了许多社会科学家愿意承认的影响，直到最近他们才愿意接受这个结果。

Family values

家庭价值

The evidence for this claim comes from two types of source, one relatively old and one spanking new.

这种说法的证据有两种来源，一种比较古老，一种非常新颖。

The old is studies of twins, comparing identical and non-identical pairs.

古老的来自于对双胞胎的研究，以同卵双胞胎与异卵双胞胎进行对比研究。

The new is a direct examination of people's DNA, searching for genes whose variation correlates with observable behavioural differences.

新颖的是对人类的DNA直接进行检查研究，探求基因变异与观察到的行为变异的关系。

Twins studies, which seek to control for the effects of upbringing by comparing identical twins with fraternal ones, have been going on since the 1950s.

双胞胎研究从二十世纪五十年代就开始了，主要是通过对同卵双胞胎和异卵双胞胎进行比较，寻求控制成长的影响基因。