Congratulations. By beinghere, listening, alive, a member of a growing species, you areone of history's greatest winners -- the culmination of a success storyfour billion years in the making. You are life's one percent. Thelosers, the 99 percent of species who have ever lived, are dead-- killed by fire, flood, asteroids, predation, starvation, ice,heat and the cold math of natural selection. Yourancestors, back to the earliest fishes, overcame all thesechallenges. You are here because of golden opportunities madepossible by mass extinction.
恭喜大家！ 能夠來到這裡， 活著聽演講， 作為一個不斷壯大的物種中的一員， 你們是進化史上的大贏家—— 達到了40億年物種進化的頂峰。 你們佔了物種的1%。 而那些沒能來到這裡的失敗者， 那些曾經活著的99%， 已經死了—— 不是死於火災，水災，小行星撞擊，被捕食，就是死於饑寒交迫和高溫， 或被物競天擇這一冷酷無情的法則淘汰。 而你們的祖先， 也就是那些早期的魚類， 克服了種種困難存活了下來。 你們今天來到這裡實屬難得， 而這要歸因於物種大滅絕。
It's true. The same is true of yourco-winners and relatives. The 34,000 kinds of fishes. How did we allget so lucky? Will we continue to win? I am a fish paleobiologist whouses big data -- the fossil record -- to study how some species winand others lose. The living can't tell us; they know nothing butwinning. So, we must speak with the dead.
千真萬確。 這包括你們那些活下來的同伴和親戚， 也就是其它34000 種魚類。 為何我們如此幸運？ 這種幸運會持續多久？ 我是一個魚類古生物學家，我通過大數據 —— 也就是化石記錄—— 研究物種存活或滅絕的原因。 那些活著的魚什麼也不能告訴我們， 它們除了活著，什麼也不知道。 所以，我們必須要從那些死去的物種身上找答案。
How do we make dead fishestalk? Museums contain multitudes of beautiful fish fossils, but theirreal beauty emerges when combined with the larger number of ugly, brokenfossils, and reduced to ones and zeros. I can trawl a500-million-year database for evolutionary patterns. Forexample, fish forms can be captured by coordinates and transformed toreveal major pathways of change and trends through time.
但我們如何使死魚說話呢？ 博物館裡存放著大量美麗的魚化石， 但將它們和更多難看而又支離破碎的 魚化石相結合，並且被分為有意義和無意義兩個類別後， 它們真正的價值才顯現出來。 我可以從一個記錄著五億年進化史的資料庫裡，打撈出進化模式。 比如： 將魚的形狀進行歸類， 然後重組，就能夠揭示跨越時空的 主要進化途徑和規律。
Here is the story of the winners andlosers of just one pivotal event I discovered using fossildata. Let's travel back 360 million years --six times as long ago as thelast dinosaur -- to the Devonian period; a strangeworld. Armored predators with razor-edge jaws dominated alongsidehuge fishes with arm bones in their fins. Crab-like fishes scuttled acrossthe sea floor. The few ray-fin relatives of salmon and tuna coweredat the bottom of the food chain.
化石數據顯示，優勝劣汰的故事 和一個生死攸關的事件有關。 讓我們穿越回3.6億年前—— 也就是距最後的恐龍滅絕的時間 再往前推大約六倍的時間， 即古生代， 那是一個奇異的世界。 有著利刃般下顎的身披盔甲的 捕食動物是主宰者， 與它們共存的是那些 魚翅中長著臂骨的巨型魚。 這些魚如同螃蟹一樣在海底穿行。 而三文魚金槍魚的幾個親戚，那些鰭刺魚類， 則蜷縮在食物鏈的底層。
The few early sharks lived offshore infear. Your few four-legged ancestors, the tetrapods, struggled intropical river plains. Ecosystems were crowded. There was noescape, no opportunity in sight. Then the world ended.
幾種早期的鯊魚為了求生棲居在近海區域。 而你們少數四條腿的祖先，那些四足動物， 在熱帶河流平原勉強度日。 生態系統擁擠不堪， 逃無可逃， 生機渺茫。 然後就是世界末日。
No, it is a good thing. 96 percent ofall fish species died during the Hangenberg event, 359 million yearsago: an interval of fire and ice.A crowded world was disrupted and sweptaway.
別誤會，這可是件好事。 96%的魚類 死於3.59億年前的泥盆紀末生物大滅絕： 那真是一個冰與火的輪迴煉獄。 從前擁擠不堪的世界格局被打破並抹平了。
Now, you might think that's the end of thestory. The mighty fell, the meek inherited the earth, and here weare. But winning is not that simple. The handful of survivors camefrom many groups -- all greatly outnumbered by their own dead. Theyranged from top predator to bottom-feeder, big to small, marine tofreshwater. The extinction was a filter. It merely leveled theplaying field. What really counted was what survivors did over the nextseveral million years in that devastated world.
現在，你也許認為故事就這麼結束了。 大傢伙倒臺，小生物逆襲， 於是就有了我們。 但是勝出並沒有那麼易如反掌。 那些為數不多倖存下來的不同物種—— 相較於那些死去的同類，數量少得可憐。 可以將它們從強到弱， 由大到小， 由海洋生物到淡水生物排列來開。物種大滅絕是一種過濾。 但僅僅是掃平了戰場而已。 而真正起作用的是那些倖存者在接下來幾億年光陰的所作所為， 末日後的世界，一片狼藉。
The former overlordsshould have had an advantage. They became even larger, storingenergy, investing in their young, spreading across theglobe, feasting on fishes, keeping what had always worked, and bidingtheir time. Yet they merely persisted for a while, declining withoutinnovating, becoming living fossils. They were too stuck in theirways and are now largely forgotten.
從前的大傢伙因為有著先天優勢， 從而變得更巨大， 儲蓄能量， 並傳遞給後代， 它們的群體漸漸遍布整個地球， 以魚類為食， 保留曾經起作用的機能，並等待它們的時機。 但它們並沒有興旺多久， 因為沒有進化，數量越來越少， 直至成為活化石。 它們困於自身的局限性裡， 直至今日，幾乎被遺忘。
A few of the long-suffering ray-fins, sharksand four-legged tetrapods went the opposite direction. They becamesmaller -- living fast, dying young, eating little and reproducingrapidly. They tried new foods, different homes, strange headsand weird bodies.
一些耐得住考驗的鰭刺魚類， 鯊魚，和四腿生物的命運 卻與那些大傢伙背道而馳。 它們體型變得更小—— 長得快，死的早， 吃得少，繁殖快。 它們嘗試新食物， 新環境， 長得奇形怪狀。
And they found opportunity,proliferated, and won the future for their 60,000 livingspecies, including you. That's why they look familiar.You know theirnames. 然後它們找到了機會，繁衍生息， 並為6萬活著的物種贏得了將來， 包括你們。 這就是為何它們看起來如此面熟。 你知道它們的名字。
Winning is not about random events oran arms race. Rather, survivors went down alternative, evolutionarypathways. Some found incredible success, while others became deadfish walking. A real scientific term.
勝出不是偶爾事件， 或體能競賽。 相反，是因為倖存者選擇了 不同的進化途徑。 有的令人難以置信的成功了， 而有的雖生猶死。這是真正的科學術語。
I am now investigating how thesepathways to victory and defeat repeat across time. My lab has alreadycompiled thousands upon thousands of dead fishes, but many moreremain. However, it is already clear that your ancestors' survivalthrough mass extinction, and their responses in the aftermath madeyou who you are today.
現在，我在研究 這些勝敗之路是如何 在時間的長河裡重複上演的。 我的實驗室裡堆滿了數以萬計的魚骸， 而且還會有所增加。 然而，目前很清楚的是， 你們的祖先從生物大滅絕中死裡逃生， 而它們在劫後餘生的反應， 造就了今日的你們。
What does this tell us for thefuture? As long as a handful of species survive, life willrecover. The versatile and the lucky will not just replace what waslost, but win in new forms. It just might take several million years. Thank you.
這些對未來有什麼啟示呢？ 那就是，只要有為數不多的物種存活， 生命就會繁衍不息。 那些幸運、適應力又強的傢伙不但會取代已經沒落的物種， 而且會以新的形態勝出。 只不過，這要花上幾百萬年。謝謝大家。