How hip-hop helps us understand science | Danielle N. Lee

翻译人员: Mugai Hsiung 校对人员: Bighead Ge

How y'all doing?

大家好吗？

Good.

非常好。

I came here to give you a science lesson

今天我想给大家上一堂科学课，

about animal mating systems

关于动物交配体系，

and why defining monogamy has been a challenge for scientists.

以及为什么对科学家来说 定义一夫一妻制很难。

But you won't need a textbook or to download an online lecture.

这堂课你们不需要什么课本， 也不需要下载讲座视频。

All you'll simply need to do is revisit the song "OPP"

你们只需要重温一首歌， 歌名是《OPP》，

by Naughty by Nature.

创作者是“天生顽家”。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

It was released in 1991.

这首歌发行于1991年。

Now, "OPP" is a call-and-response song.

《OPP》是一首对唱形式的歌。

So throughout the talk, I'm going to put lyrics up on the screen,

所以在我今天的讲话中， 会将歌词放在屏幕上，

and I'm going to recite some

我会读一些，

and I'm going to prompt you

然后带动大家，

when it's your turn to do the response, OK?

到你们的时候 给我一些回应，好吗？

(Cheers)

（欢呼）

Now, I know some people in this audience know this song,

好的，我知道在座的 有些朋友听过这首歌，

so I need you to lead the way with the tempo and the rhythm,

所以我需要听过 这首歌的朋友带动节拍，

if that's alright, OK?

可以的话，就这样做，好吗？

Right, y'all ready?

好的，准备好了吗？

You down with OPP?

丹妮尔：你对OPP无法自拔吗？

Audience: Yeah, you know me!

观众：是啊，你懂的！

DNL: You down with OPP?

丹妮尔：你对OPP无法自拔吗？

Audience: Yeah, you know me!

观众：是啊，你懂的！

DNL: You down with OPP?

丹妮尔：你对OPP无法自拔吗？

Audience: Yeah, you know me!

观众：是啊，你懂的！

丹妮尔：完美。

DNL: That was perfect.

Thank you.

感谢大家。

"OPP, how can I explain it?

（歌词）“我该怎么解释OPP呢？

I'll take it frame by frame it.

请让我逐字逐词说明。

To have y'all jumping shout and singing it

直到大家全都一起唱跳。

O代表‘其它’，P代表‘人们’， 大家思考一下。

O is for other, P is for people. scratch your temple.

The last P, well, that's not that simple."

最后一个P嘛，可没那么单纯。”

Now, in the song, the MC hints that it's a five-letter word,

在这首歌里，饶舌歌手暗示 这是一个五个字母的单词，

but to keep it rated PG,

但由于涉及成人内容，

he simply refers to it as "property."

作者简单地把它 称为资产（property）。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

The song is about cheating on your significant other.

这首歌是关于出轨的。

Now, around the time that this song was in heavy rotation,

在这首歌特别流行的时候，

biologists were in deep discussion about whether bird species,

生物学家们深刻讨论了鸟类，

notably songbirds and waterfowl were actually monogamous or not.

特别是夜莺和水禽类 是否真的是一夫一妻制。

See, for decades, generations of science students

几十年来，一代又一代的 科学专业学生们

were taught that well over 90 percent of the bird species were monogamous.

学到的观念是： 超过90%种类的鸟是一夫一妻制。

A male and female mating faithfully for life.

一雌一雄彼此一生忠贞不渝。

That was until the late 1980s,

直到二十世纪八十年代末，

when a new laboratory technique came on the scene,

一项新的实验技术问世了。

which could copy DNA from a small tissue or fluid sample

这项技术能够从少量组织 或液体样本中复制DNA，

and decode the genetics of individuals.

然后解码个体的基因。

Now, before that technique,

在这项技术出现之前，

we were never ever certain about,

我们从来都不百分百确定，

100 percent, who the parents of baby birds were.

鸟宝宝的父母到底是谁。

All we had were our field notes.

我们那时所有的证据 只有现场考察的笔记。

And we would know which adults lived in a nest

根据这些笔记，我们知道了 哪些成年鸟住在鸟巢中，

and which ones fed the baby birds.

哪些喂养鸟宝宝。

Well, come to find out, study after study kept coming in

后来越来越多的研究表明，

and we found so much evidence of infidelity --

我们发现了大量出轨的证据——

(Laughter)

（笑声）

among bird species,

存在于鸟类之间，

particularly these songbirds

尤其是鸣禽之间，

that we thought were the pinnacle of monogamy.

而我们以为鸣禽 是最践行一夫一妻制的种类了。

It would have made Maury Povich jealous for the ratings.

（如果公开结果）这是让莫里·波维奇 （美国脱口秀名人）都嫉妒的收视率。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

It rocked biology and ornithology so hard,

这一事实深刻地震撼了 生物学和鸟类学界，

we had to modify and expand the entire definition of monogamy.

我们不得不修正和扩大 一夫一妻制的整个定义。

Now, it was so bad that this was the headline

这件事情的影响如此广泛，

of the "New York Times" science section,

使它成为了《纽约时报》 1990年8月刊

August, 1990.

科学板块的头条。

"Mating for Life? It's not for the Birds or the Bees."

“终身厮守？ 鸟类和蜜蜂才不适用。”

(Laughter)

（笑声）

We had to come up with new definitions.

我们需要想出一个新的定义。

The situation where an individual would change partners,

鸟类换掉他们的伴侣，

either between breeding seasons

要么是发生在交配的季节，

or just simply because they didn't like their partner anymore?

要么仅仅只因为 他们不再喜欢各自的伴侣。

We now call this "serial monogamy."

我们现在把它称作 “系列一夫一妻制”。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

I didn't know it was going to be this funny.

我不知道这个发现这么有趣。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

The situation where we know the male and female pair together

我们知道雌雄配对在一起，

and all the babies belong to both partners?

那么所有的鸟宝宝都属于这对父母，

We call that "genetic monogamy."

我们把它称作“遗传性一夫一妻制”。

And we now recognize that it only holds true

然而我们现在认识到这个数据，

for about 14 percent of the songbird species,

在鸣禽种类中只有14%是正确的，

which we were very certain were truly monogamous.

而我们曾经确信 这些鸟类是严格的一夫一妻制。

And with this reclassification,

随着这次修正，

we realized that in a lot of those field observations

我们意识到 在野外观察的大多数事例中，

where we saw a male and female sharing a nest,

我们看到的雌雄鸟同居，

comaintaining a territory, even provisioning offspring together,

共同捍卫自己的领土， 甚至是共同养育后代，

often included a few baby birds that did not belong to the male partner.

这些幼鸟中通常有几个 不是雄鸟的后代。

We call this "social monogamy."

我们把这种情况称为 “社会性一夫一妻制”。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And the mechanism responsible?

其演化机制呢？

Extra-pair copulation.

”额外配对“。

"It's OPP, time for other people's what you get it

（歌词）“OPP就是你眼前的人 已经属于其他人，

there's no room for relationship, there's just room to ..."

（歌词）没有机会发展恋爱关系， 只有机会发展…”

Audience: "Hit it!"

观众：性关系！

"How many brothers out there know just what I'm getting at?

（歌词）“有多少仁兄知道我在说什么？

Who thinks it's wrong because I was splitting and cohitting that.

（歌词）有谁觉得我劈腿是不对的？

Well if you do, that's OPP"

（歌词）如果你这样做， 这就叫OPP。”

Actually, that's EPC

事实上，这是EPC，

Which is the abbreviation for extra-pair copulation.

额外配对（extra-pair copulation）的缩写。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Now, we define extra-pair copulation as the mating outside of a pair bond.

我们将额外配对定义为： 同原配之外的交配行为。

And just like we were discovering via science,

同科学发现的结果一样，

it can lead to babies that don't belong to the male partner.

额外配对会导致 鸟宝宝属于不同的雄性伴侣。

Alright?

对吧？

Now, I first learned about EPCs years later,

我多年后才了解到额外配对，

after all the science news broke while I was in graduate school.

是在许多科学研究出现之后， 那时候我还是研究生。

And as we were taking a class,

我和我的同学们在上课，

talking about current discoveries and mating systems,

刚好讨论到 当时有关交配机制的一些发现。

this topic comes up.

这个话题就出现了。

And as my professor's going through the definition

当我的老师正讲述这些定义，

and recounting all the dramatic turns of events

以及分析所有这些戏剧性的事例

that lead to these new revelations,

导致了这些新发现时，

I'm sitting in class and a familiar song starts bopping in my head.

我坐在教室里， 一首熟悉的歌在我脑海中响起。

I'm like, "You down with OPP?

我开始默唱： “你对OPP无法自拔吗？

Yeah, you know me!"

是啊~你懂的！”

(Laughter)

（笑声）

I mean, that's exactly what that song was about:

我想说，这首歌非常准确地描述了

EPCs.

额外配对。

And what I recognized

而且我开始明白，

is that this gives us an opportunity to revisit this song.

这给了我们一个机会 来重新探讨这首歌。

Let's switch the lyrics up.

我们来换一下歌词。

So say EPC.

说EPC！

Audience: EPC.

观众：EPC！

DNL: Say it, EPC!

丹妮尔：说EPC！

Audience: EPC!

观众：EPC！

"I like to say it with pride

（歌词）“我喜欢自豪地说出来。

now, when you do it, do it well, and make sure that it counts.

（歌词）如果你要偷情， 就尽情地去吧，好好享受

You're not down with a discount."

（歌词）这其中的激情全没半点折扣。”

你对EPC无法自拔吗？ 观众：是啊，你懂的！

You down with EPC?

Audience: Yeah, you know me!

你对EPC无法自拔吗？ 观众：是啊，你懂的！

Now, I had always been playing songs in my head

我上科学课的时候，

while I was in science class,

脑海里总是在唱歌。

kind of tapping into this index of pop culture and hip-hop songs.

好像流行文化和嘻哈歌曲的 引导更有利于我学习，

But when I would share my analogies with my science professors,

但是每当我向我的 科学老师分享我的比喻时，

all of whom were older white men,

我的老师都是较为年长的白人，

I often got blank and confused stares as responses.

我得到的回应通常是 困惑和不解的眼神。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

But when I would share this with people from communities like mine,

但是当我将这些与我背景相同的人们，

or other colleagues -- so, diverse communities --

或背景不同的同事们分享时，

this hip-hop science remix was a hit.

这种嘻哈与科学的混搭真的很受欢迎。

That's because I was either talking to people who looked and sounded like me,

这是因为我交谈的人们 要么与我长相特征或口音相似，

or at the very least, you know, listened to some of the same songs.

或者至少， 我们听的是同一种类的歌曲。

We were sharing a common cultural lexicon.

我们拥有相同的文化词汇。

And with that lexicon, I was able to bring new science terms to them,

正是拥有这些词汇，我才能 向他们解释新的科学术语，

and together, we were sharing a new comprehension of science for the culture.

算起来，我们也是在分享 一种对文化的新的科学理解。

Now, hip-hop song references

对于教导嘻哈文化背景下，

are a really good tool for teaching content to students from hip-hop culture

或城市社区背景下的学生，

or urban communities.

嘻哈的确是个绝佳的工具。

And I use it intentionally to connect to those students,

我也特地用这种方法 来加强和学生的交流。

tapping into vocabulary that they already know

利用他们已知的词汇，

and systems that they already comprehend.

和他们已经理解的机制。

And what it does in that process is it ratifies them, us, our culture

这种方法在教学过程中的作用是， 作为知识提供者，它改变了学生们，

as knowledge purveyors.

我们以及我们的文化。

I use hip-hop to frame and communicate science

我用嘻哈来建构和传播科学，

because I'm intentionally communicating science to broader audiences

因为我旨在 将科学传播给更广泛的群体。

that public science outreach has traditionally overlooked.

在科学传播中这类群体 往往是被忽略的一部分人。

And in the process,

在这个过程中，

I am affirming the genius

我也十分确信天才

that thrives in the young minds of people from every hood everywhere.

会是在街头闲逛的某个兜帽青年。

So let me ask you one last time,

所以让我最后再问你们一次，

you down with EPC?

你对EPC无法自拔吗？

Audience: Yeah, you know me!

观众：是啊，你懂的！

DNL: You down with EPC?

丹妮尔：你对EPC无法自拔吗？

Audience: Yeah, you know me!

观众：是啊，你懂的！

DNL: You down with EPC?

丹妮尔：你对EPC无法自拔吗？

Audience: Yeah, you know me!

观众：是啊，你懂的！

丹妮尔：谁对EPC无法自拔？

DNL: Who's down with EPC?

Audience: All the homies!

观众：所有兄弟！

Thank you.

谢谢大家。

(Applause and cheers)

（掌声与欢呼声）