双语译文 因大脑与女性不同，男性死亡概率更高？

因大脑与女性不同，男性死亡概率更高？...

前列腺癌死亡率不断上升，但这与神经决定论毫无关系。

It is the crossover moment. For the first time, more men are dying of prostate cancer than women are from breast cancer. Any GP surgery will offer a blood test to check a man’s prostate-specific antigen (PSA) indicating cancer. All men have to do is ask.

与从前不同，因前列腺癌死亡的男性人数第一次超过了因乳腺癌死亡的女性人数。任何一家全科医生诊疗室（GP诊疗室）都将会提供血液化验，来检测男性体内标志前列腺癌的前列腺特异抗原（PSA）是否异常。男性只需要主动要求做这项化验。

The trouble is that, as we all know, men are from Mars. They don’t go to GPs, don’t talk about illness and believe in their own invincibility. Men with their compartmentalised brains are inherently greater risk-takers and believe they will beat the odds. In any case, to concede the threat of illness is an acknowledgement of weakness – very unmasculine.

问题是，人人都知道男人来自火星。他们根本不会去GP诊疗室，不会谈论疾病，他们坚信自己是不可战胜的。由于男性大脑各区域分工明确，他们天生更愿意冒风险，并相信他们可以度过难关。任何情况下，在疾病的威胁前退缩都会被看作是软弱的表现，极其没有男子气概。

Empathising women from Venus, with their different brain structures that encourage talking and discussing issues, are more keenly aware of the risks. One of the reasons death from breast cancer is declining is because women, better understanding the risks, demand action as an NHS priority – and then act on what is offered. No parallel demand is coming from men.

女性则来自金星，她们富有同情心，大脑结构与男人不同，愿意说话和讨论问题，能更敏锐地认识到危险。因乳腺癌死亡的女性人数不断下降的原因之一，就是更能意识到危险的女性请求英国国家医疗服务体系（NHS）采取优先措施，并据此行动。男性可没有此类需求。

It is just one more piece of evidence that men and women are supposedly hardwired to think and behave differently – and on this occasion men are the losers. Men’s brains are more segmented, runs the argument, and their thinking is concentrated and focused in the right hemisphere of the brain given over to calculus and reasoning.

另一个证据就是，一般认为男性与女性的思维方式和行为习惯天生不同，在这一方面，男性是输的一方。男性的大脑结构分工更明确，善辨，思维集中，常用右半脑，擅长计算和说理。

By contrast, the story continues, women’s left and right brain hemispheres are more interconnected, with much more traffic in the cerebral cortex. These “spaghetti” brain structures are hardwired to link the creative and emotional dimensions of the brain with its rational thinking element, enhancing women’s linguistic and empathetic capabilities, helping them better understand people. They feel more, crucial when nurturing the young and shaping communities in the human evolutionary story. Men intrinsically are better at mathematics and building dams; women are intrinsically better at English and building homes.

我们继续来看，相比之下，女性的左右半脑内在连接性更强，大脑皮层上有更多的信息容量。她们的大脑结构就像“意大利面”一样，天生就能将创新、情感、理性与思考结合在一起，提高了女性在言语和情感上的表达能力，帮助她们更好地理解他人。人类进化历程中，在养育下一代和组建社区方面，女性感到自己尤为重要。从本质上来说，男性更擅长数学和修筑大坝；女性则更擅长英语以及组建家庭。

Thus the pattern of different income, employment and opportunity for women, indeed, day-to-day interaction, does not flow from prejudice and male sexism, although both are inexcusable and must be stamped on. Women’s lower lifetime earnings for similar jobs, the fact that they hold fewer top jobs, the time they spend on child rearing and in the home, and their tendency to avoid science and technology are not because of sexism – perish the thought – but because they are different.

因此，女性在收入、就业和机遇上的境况不同，实际上，日常交际中女性的不同处境，并不是缘于偏见或性别歧视，当然，这两者都不可原谅，应该抵制。在类似工作中女性的收入较低，担任高层职位的女性较少，女性花在抚养孩子和照顾家庭的时间更多，以及她们对科学和技术不感兴趣，所有的这些并不是因为性别歧视，快打住这种想法吧。之所以如此，是因为女性与男性不一样。

But what if the whole intellectual edifice supporting these claims were wrong? Enter the scientist Cordelia Fine, whose Testosterone Rex, winner of the 2017 Royal Society prize for popular science writing, convincingly debunks the entire thesis.

但是如果支持以上观点的这座“智慧大楼”全盘错误呢？让我们走近科学家科莉迪亚·法恩，她的《睾丸激素》荣获了2017年度英国皇家学会科学图书奖，有力地破除了这个命题。

For every study demonstrating the hypothesis that women’s brains are less compartmentalised than men’s, there is another knocking it down. There is no conclusive evidence that there is more traffic in women’s cerebral cortexes; no evidence that testosterone starts to separate out boys’ brain hemispheres in the womb; no evidence that more highly compartmentalised brains allow more system thinking and no evidence that the resulting shorter brain circuits mean better brains.

对每一份曾论证“女性大脑各区域的分工不如男性明确”假说的研究而言，这本书是又一记打击。没有任何明确的证据表明女性大脑皮层上的信息流量更多；没有证据证明当男性还是子宫中的胎儿时，睾丸激素就开始将他们的左右脑分隔开来；没有证据表明高度分隔化的大脑会让想法更系统全面，同样也没有证据证明，因分区而导致脑回路较短就是更好的大脑。

It is bunkum, from top to bottom, she argues, a form of “neurosexism”. The greater truth is that we hardly understand what is going on in the brain. Instead, science is being infected by sexist stereotyping of men and women, causing categories and inferences to be invented that don’t exist – and justify women’s continued subordination.

科莉迪亚·法恩驳斥说，那个假说就是胡话，彻彻底底的胡话，是“神经性别歧视”。更准确的事实是我们几乎无法搞明白大脑是怎么一回事。然而，科学正在被性别歧视者对男性和女性的常规观念所影响，创造出根本不存在的类别和推理，并用这种诡辩来解释为什么女性一直以来地位低。

Fine’s critics – and she has a few – accuse her feminism of trumping her science. For example, evolutionary theory, which she does not contest, is built on the truth of sexual selection established by Darwin: the species has to be reproduced and advanced by coupling between the two genders. That in turn means the winning of mates and achieving arousal by being attractive to each other. The nature of the attraction is complex and elusive, but it does imply basic gender behaviours that are different.

也有些人反对法恩的研究结论，他们认为是她的女权主义在她的科学研究中占了先锋。比如，法恩对绝对进化论毫无异议，可那正是达尔文基于性别选择的事实建立的：物种通过两性之间的配对繁衍进化。事实上，要赢得配偶并达到兴奋状态，需要互相吸引。异性间的自然吸引是复杂的，捉摸不透的，但是这种吸引的确暗示了基本的性别行为是不同的。

Moreover, if male and female brains are as identical as Fine suggests, how come autism is vastly more a male disease and the distribution of both genius and idiocy is more pronounced in men than women?

此外，如果按法恩所言，男性与女性的大脑相同，为什么自闭症更多是男性疾病，为什么不管是天才还是白痴，在男性中的比例都明显多于女性呢？

But even the toughest critics concede she is right to push back on the role of testosterone, its influence on brain function and the allegedly deep neural differences between men and women. The science, they agree, does not back any of it. Reading and listening to Fine, I would go further – the science abounds in neurosexism. Nor does selection theory challenge her position. It is perfectly possible for men and women’s brains to work identically with equal power – perhaps men are not from Mars nor women from Venus, but from the same planet after all – even while they behave in ways to attract each other, as Darwin would predict.

然而，就是最苛刻的批评家也承认，法恩重回到睾丸激素，关注其对大脑功能的影响，以及所谓的男女性的深度神经差异，这一做法是正确的。他们一致认为科学无法支持以上观点。在读过法恩的书，听取了她的观点后，我进一步理解到，科学充满着神经性别歧视。自然选择学说也无法撼动法恩的立场。男人和女人的大脑完全有可能用同样的方式工作——可能男人并不是来自火星，女人也不是来自金星，毕竟它们都是在同一星球上— 尽管他们会以各种方式互相吸引，一如达尔文所预测的那样。

What is driving men’s mortality rate from prostate cancer is not masculine brain structures – it’s the NHS spending half as much money on communication and treatment as it does for breast cancer.

那么是什么造成前列腺癌男性死亡率节节攀升？不是因为男性大脑结构所致，而是英国国家医疗服务体系（NHS）用于沟通与治疗（前列腺疾病）的经费，只有用于乳腺癌的一半那么多而已。

“I think I would have said that theEuropean Union is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be, and I would have taken a tougher stand in getting out. I have a lot of problems with the European Union.”

“我会说欧盟并未发展出应有的样子，（如果换做是我）我的脱欧立场会更强硬。我与欧盟之间存在很多问题。”

A century ago, scientists warned that winning the vote would put such neurological pressure on the challenged female brain there would be a 25% rise in female insanity. Today, surely, we can see parallel statements for what they are: pernicious sexism. The Chinese proverb is right: men and women hold up the sky equally. It’s time for everyone to act on that fundamental truth.

一百年前，科学家就警告说，赢得选举权会给本来就有缺陷的女性大脑带来神经上的压力，女性神经错乱的可能性将上升25%。如今，很显然，类似的言论又冒出来了：致命的性别歧视。中国有句谚语是对的，“男女各顶半边天”，每个人都要按照这一基本事实行动起来。

来源：The Guardian

作者：Will Hutton

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