passage3

Insight or evolution?

洞察力还是进化?

Two scientists consider the origins of discoveries and other innovative behavior

两位科学家探讨各种新发现和其他创新行为的源头

Scientific discovery is popularly believed to result from the sheer genius of such intellectual stars as naturalist Charles Darwin and theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. Our view of such unique contributions to science often disregards the person’s prior experience and the efforts of their lesser-known predecessors. Conventional wisdom also places great weight on insight in promoting breakthrough scientific achievements, as if ideas spontaneously pop into someone’s head – fully formed and functional.

科学发现被普遍认为是来自于那些智力明星绝对天纵奇才的思考产物，例如自然科学家查理·达尔文和理论物理学家阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦。我们对这些独特科学贡献的看法常常忽视了这个人此前的经历和之前那些并不那么知名的先行者们的努力。公众看法还非常推崇洞察力在推动突破性科学成就方面的作用，就好像创意是主动自发地跳进了某个人的脑中——完全成型并且功能齐备。

There may be some limited truth to this view. However, we believe that it largely misrepresents the real nature of scientific discovery, as well as that of creativity and innovation in many other realms of human endeavor.

这个观点也许在有限的程度上有正确之处。但是，我们认为它在很大意义上错误地呈现了科学探索的真实本质，也同样错判了人类努力求索的许多其他领域中的创意与创新的真相。

Setting aside such greats as Darwin and Einstein – whose monumental contributions are duly celebrated – we suggest that innovation is more a process of trial and error, where two steps forward may sometimes come with one step back, as well as one or more steps to the right or left. This evolutionary view of human innovation undermines the notion of creative genius and recognizes the cumulative nature of scientific progress.

姑且不论像达尔文和爱因斯坦这样的伟人——他们所做出的里程碑式的贡献已经得到了恰如其分的颂扬，我们认为创新其实更像是一个不断试错的过程，向前走两步有时候就可能伴随着要向后退一步，当然也有可能是向左或向右迈上一步或好几步。这种关于人类创新的进化论式的观点蚕食了认为创意天赐的理念，认可了科学进步的逐渐积累这个特性。

Consider one unheralded scientist: John Nicholson, a mathematical physicist working in the 1910s who postulated the existence of ‘proto-elements’ in outer space. By combining different numbers of weights of these proto-elements’ atoms, Nicholson could recover the weights of all the elements in the then-known periodic table. These successes are all the more noteworthy given the fact that Nicholson was wrong about the presence of proto-elements: they do not actually exist. Yet, amid his often fanciful theories and wild speculations, Nicholson also proposed a novel theory about the structure of atoms. Niels Bohr, the Nobel prize-winning father of modern atomic theory, jumped off from this interesting idea to conceive his now-famous model of the atom.

想一想这位名不见经传的科学家：约翰．尼科尔森，一位20世纪10年代的数学物理学家，他提出了在外太空存在着“太初元素”的假说。通过将这些太初元素的原子重量的数目叠加在一起，尼科尔森得以复原了在当时所知的元素周期表中所有元素的重量。这些成功之所以格外值得关注，是因为尼科尔森关于存在太初元素的看法是错的：它们实际上并不存在。然而，在他那些经常显得花里胡哨的理论和狂野的假想中，尼科尔森还提出了一个关于原子结构的新奇理论。尼尔．波尔，获得过诺贝尔奖的现代原子理论之父，就是从这个有趣的点子中汲取了灵感，从而构思出了如今广为人知的原子模型。

What are we to make of this story? One might simply conclude that science is a collective and cumulative enterprise. That may be true, but there may be a deeper insight to be gleaned. We propose that science is constantly evolving, much as species of animals do. In biological systems, organisms may display new characteristics that result from random genetic mutations. In the same way, random, arbitrary or accidental mutations of ideas may help pave the way for advances in science. If mutations prove beneficial, then the animal or the scientific theory will continue to thrive and perhaps reproduce.

我们该怎么看待这个故事呢?也许有人会得出这样一个简单的结论：科学是一项集体性、积累性的事业。真相也许确实如此，但是这其中也许还有一个更深刻的道理可使我们受惠。我们认为，科学是在持续不断发展进化中的，就像动物物种一样。在生物体系中，有机物也许会由于随机发生的基因突变而展现出新的特征。同样，随机、任意或偶发的观念变异也许有助于为科学前进铺路。如果突变确实是有益的，那么动物或科学理论将会持续兴旺繁荣，也许还能衍生换代。

Support for this evolutionary view of behavioral innovation comes from many domains. Consider one example of an influential innovation in US horseracing. The so-called ‘acey-deucy’ stirrup placement, in which the rider’s foot in his left stirrup is placed as much as 25 centimeters lower than the right, is believed to confer important speed advantages when turning on oval tracks. It was developed by a relatively unknown jockey named Jackie Westrope. Had Westrope conducted methodical investigations or examined extensive film records in a shrewd plan to outrun his rivals? Had he foreseen the speed advantage that would be conferred by riding acey-deucy? No. He suffered a leg injury, which left him unable to fully bend his left knee. His modification just happened to coincide with enhanced left-hand turning performance. This led to the rapid and widespread adoption of riding acey-deucy by many riders, a racing style which continues in today’s thoroughbred racing.

对这种行为创新的进化论式观点的支持证据来自于许多领域。想一想美国赛马中一个颇具影响力的创新事例。所谓的“左低右高”马镫设置，也就是骑手的左脚马镫放置得比右脚马镫低了25厘米，被认为在椭圆赛道上转弯时可以带来极大的速度优势。这一创意来自于一位相对并不知名的赛马骑手，名叫杰基·韦斯特罗普。韦斯特罗普是进行了方法调研或广泛看过录像记录，要以此精密计划赢过他的对手们么?他是预见到了这种左低右高的骑行方式将带来速度优势么?并不是。他饱受一处腿伤之苦，左膝没办法充分弯曲。他的调整改变只不过恰好吻合了左手转弯的比赛表现提升。这引发了许多骑手迅速而广泛地采用了左低右高的骑乘方式，这种骑赛风格一直沿用到了今天的纯种马赛中。

Plenty of other stories show that fresh advances can arise from error, misadventure, and also pure serendipity – a happy accident. For example, in the early 1970s, two employees of the company 3M each had a problem: Spencer Silver had a product – a glue which was only slightly sticky – and no use for it, while his colleague Art Fry was trying to figure out how to affix temporary bookmarks in his hymn book without damaging its pages. The solution to both these problems was the invention of the brilliantly simple yet phenomenally successful Post-It note. Such examples give lie to the claim that ingenious, designing minds are responsible for human creativity and invention. Far more banal and mechanical forces may be at work; forces that are fundamentally connected to the laws of science.

还有大量其他故事显示：新奇的进步可以来自于错误、不幸遭遇，又或是纯然的意外惊喜——一场美好的意外。比如，在20世纪70年代早期，3M公司的两个员工各自遇到了一个问题：斯宾塞·席尔瓦有个产品——一种只有少量黏性的胶水，但拿它没有用处，而他的同事亚特·弗莱当时正在思考如何把一些临时性的书签贴在他的赞美诗集里而不损毁书页。同时解决这两个问题的办法就是发明了简单到令人惊叹却也一举大获成功的便利贴。这样的例子容易令人误称：是那些天才的、善于设计的头脑承担了人类的创新和发明。其实也许是远为平淡无奇而机械的促动力在起作用；这些促动力在本质上就关联着一些科学定律。

The notions of insight, creativity and genius are often invoked, but they remain vague and of doubtful scientific utility, especially when one considers the diverse and enduring contributions of individuals such as Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Curie, Pasteur and Edison. These notions merely label rather than explain the evolution of human innovations. We need another approach, and there is a promising candidate.

关于洞察力、创造性和天赋才华的理念经常被援引，但它们依然是表述模糊的，其对科学研究的有用性也仍成疑，特别是当我们想到这样一些人所做出的多样而又持久的贡献：柏拉图、莱昂纳多·达芬奇、莎士比亚、贝多芬、伽利略、牛顿、开普勒、居里、巴斯德和爱迪生。这些理念仅仅只是标注了而非解释了人类创新的进化发展。我们需要另一个解释方法，而眼前就有一个颇可寻味的选择：

The Law of Effect was advanced by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1898, some 40 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work on biological evolution, On the Origin of Species. This simple law holds that organisms tend to repeat successful behaviors and to refrain from performing unsuccessful ones. Just like Darwin’s Law of Natural Selection, the Law of Effect involves an entirely mechanical process of variation and selection, without any end objective in sight.“

效果定律”由心理学家爱德华·桑代克在1898年提出，比查理·达尔文发表其关于生物进化的开天辟地著作《物种起源》晚了大约40年。这一简单定律认为：有机体倾向于去重复成功行为而避免重蹈不成功的覆辙。就像达尔文的自然选择定律一样，效果定律也提出了一套关于变化与选择的完全机械式的过程。其中并没有任何终极目标。

Of course, the origin of human innovation demands much further study. In particular, the provenance of the raw material on which the Law of Effect operates is not as clearly known as that of the genetic mutations on which the Law of Natural Selection operates. The generation of novel ideas and behaviors may not be entirely random, but constrained by prior successes and failures – of the current individual (such as Bohr) or of predecessors (such as Nicholson).

当然了，有关人类创新的起源需要更深入的研究。尤其是，效果定律可以作用于的原材料的源起之处还并未清晰地为人所知，不像自然选择定律所作用于的基因突变这个起源已经一清二楚。那些新奇的创意和行为也许并不完全是随机出现的，而有可能受到此前成功与失败——可以来自当前某个个体（例如波尔）或之前的先行者们（例如尼科尔森）——的制约局限。

The time seems right for abandoning the naive notions of intelligent design and genius, and for scientifically exploring the true origins of creative behavior.

是时候摒弃那些关于智慧设计和天赋才华的天真观念了，我们应该去科学地探究创意行为的真正起源。