政治遗传学

　　2015复习正是强化复习阶段，在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。名师老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》.杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。 　　The genetics of politics 　　政治遗传学 　　Body politic 　　人体政治 　　Slowly, and in some quarters grudgingly, theinfluence of genes in shaping political outlook andbehaviour 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 thinkit s comical how Nature always does contrive/that every boy and every gal that s born intothe 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 ofplace 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 characterwas 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 andsometimes abused, along with all others vehemently suspected of the heresy of believingthat genetic differences between individuals could have a role in shaping their behaviouraldifferences. 　　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 eugenicsthat had led, via America s sterilisation programmes for the feeble minded, to the Naziextermination camps, made life hard for those who wished to ask whether genes really doaffect 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 thatgenes 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 ofPennsylvania State University and Rose McDermott of Brown University, shows, they affect aperson s views of the world almost as much as his circumstances do, and far more than manysocial 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 onespanking 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 variationcorrelates 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 identicaltwins 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。 　　In that time, quite a number, in many countries, have looked in part at political questions. 　　那时候，很多国家的大多数人，他们的注意力主要集中在政治问题上。 　　Dr Hatemi and Dr McDermott pored over 89 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of genesand environment on political matters. 　　哈特米博士和麦克德莫特博士认真钻研了，89名同行对于基因和环境对政治问题影响的评论文章。 　　These included twins political knowledge, their attitudes to racial, sexual and religiousquestions, their views on defence and foreign policy, and their identification with particularpolitical parties. 　　这些评论报道包括了双生子的政治知识，他们在种族，性别和宗教问题上的态度，他们对国防和外交政策的看法，还有他们对特别党派的认同感。 　　On all counts, identical twins were found to be more alike than fraternal twins. 　　通过这些项目的研究，发现同卵双胞胎比异卵双胞胎更相像。 　　That knowledge, refracted through the prism of statistical theory, allows calculations of theproportionate influences of genes, family environment and general environment onparticular traits to be made. 　　通过统计理论分析得到的结果，可以推算出基因、家庭环境和外部环境对特别性状的相应比例的影响。 　　Some show strong genetic influence. 　　其中，一些结果表明受到了很强的基因影响， 　　Some show little. 　　而有一些几乎不受基因影响。 　　Intriguingly, political knowledge and party identification are at opposite ends of thespectrum. 　　有趣的是，政治知识和党派认同分别处于研究结果的两端。 　　As the chart shows knowledge is highly genetically determined. Identification with aparticular political party, by contrast, is largely a question of family upbringingmuchmore so than are opinions about the sorts of policy that it might be thought would determinevoting patterns. 　　就像上表揭示的，政治知识受到基因的影响最大。相反，对特别政治党派的认同主要是家庭教育的问题，而对于各种政策的意见，家庭教育对这个的影响远远不如对前者的影响。 　　But even family ties weaken when people leave homeand they do so in a way that helpsdisentangle genetic influence. 　　但是当人们离开家，家庭联系甚至日益减弱时，这样在某种程度上就把研究的方向聚集到了基因的影响上。 　　Dr Hatemi showed this in 2009 when, along with a group of colleagues, he looked at twinsaged between 11 and 75. 　　哈特米博士在2009年-当时他与他的同仁们一起工作，对11岁到75岁的双生子进行了研究-公布了这个研究结果。 　　His results demonstrated that until their late teens both kinds of twins had equally similarpolitical views. 　　他的研究结果说明了，直到这些双生子十几岁时，他们的政治看法都很相似。 　　Soon after they flew the nest, though, as might be expected, their views began to diverge. 　　但是，可能就像预测的一样，在他们离巢后不久，这些双生子之间的看法就开始有分歧。 　　And, just as would be expected if genes have political influence, the views of fraternal twinsdiverged more than did those of identical ones. 　　而且，就像预计的，如果基因有政治影响力的话，那么异卵双胞胎的意见分歧将会比那些同卵双胞胎更加严重。 　　Between the ages of 18 and 20 identical and fraternal twins both shared nearly 70% of theirpolitical ideology. 　　18到20岁的同卵和异卵双胞胎的政治思想近70%都相同。