作者：A.J. Smuskiewicz

I never used to think much about the races or ethnicities of people 20 or 30 years ago. I’ve always just looked at people as individuals. But within the past several years, I find that I am constantly bombarded with race, in the news, in TV commercials, in product displays at stores, in conversations with people, in my work with clients as a freelance writer—just about everywhere. I can’t escape it.
Along with today’s American societal obsession with race, which almost seems to be promoting African descent as some kind of special, superior identity, there seems to be a lot of anti-white racism going on these days.
As whiteness is slammed and blackness is promoted, black Americans apparently continue to have more problems than other racial groups in the United States—with education, employment, crime, and other societal issues—despite decades of government, corporate, and charitable programs designed to help them, and despite other ethnic “minority” groups, including those that are rather new to this country, surpassing them in achievement.

二三十年前，我从来没有想过人们的种族问题。我总是把人作为个体来看待。但在过去的几年里，我发现我不断地被种族问题轰炸，在新闻中，在电视广告中，在商店的产品展示中，在与人们的对话中，在我作为自由撰稿人与客户的工作中——几乎无处不在。我逃不掉。
随着当今美国社会对种族的痴迷，几乎是在把非洲人后裔视为某种特殊的、优越的身份，这些天似乎有很多反白人的种族主义在发生。
尽管政府、企业和慈善机构数十年来一直在帮助黑人，尽管其他“少数民族”群体，包括那些刚刚来到这个国家的人，在成就上超过了他们，但在教育、就业、犯罪和其他社会问题上，美国黑人显然仍然比美国其他种族群体有更多的问题。

Why is this? “Systemic” racism, we are told. Really?
These racial problems have created serious problems for American society as a whole. So, I finally got around to thinking about race, and I have developed a theory that I think might partially explain our societal situation. My theory is grounded in my previous career as a biologist (from the mid-80s to early-90s), my current 30-year-long career as a writer specializing in science and medicine, my decades of observations of American society and world events, and my personal studies of history and world cultures. The theory focuses on the development over time of human racial groups and their possible corresponding general intellectual capacities—with intellectual capacity defined as the “ability to think, learn, plan, and execute with discipline.”

为什么会这样?我们被告知，种族主义是“系统性的”。真的吗?
这些种族问题给整个美国社会造成了严重的问题。所以，我终于开始思考种族问题，我提出了一个理论，我认为这个理论可以部分解释我们的社会状况。我的理论是基于我以前的生物学家生涯(从80年代中期到90年代初)、我现在30年的科学和医学作家生涯、我对美国社会和世界事件的数十年观察，以及我对历史和世界文化的个人研究。该理论侧重于人类种族群体的长期发展及其可能对应的一般智力能力——智力能力被定义为“思考、学习、计划和有纪律地执行的能力”。

I propose that the development, or evolution, of the general intellectual capacities of the different racial groups is directly related to the chronological and geographical distance of the racial groups’ development from the evolutionary origin of humankind. I know that some other people have advocated similar ideas before, but I don’t think they have articulated them in the way I am doing here.
By the way, I realize that many scientists reject the very idea of biological “races” as a “social construct.” But I think that their rejection flies in the face of common sense and observed reality, as does much of what passes for “science” these days.

我认为，不同种族群体一般智力能力的发展或进化，与种族群体从人类进化起源发展的时间和地理距离直接相关。我知道有些人以前也提出过类似的观点，但我认为他们没有像我在这里所做的那样明确地表达出来。
顺便说一句，我意识到许多科学家拒绝将生物学上的“种族”视为一种“社会结构”。但我认为，他们的拒绝公然违背常识和观察到的现实，就像如今许多被称为“科学”的东西一样。

Evolution of species
Humans (species within the Homo genus) evolved from ape-like ancestors (Australopithecus genus) in Africa. Although estimated dates vary according to the source, fossil evidence indicates that the first Australopithecus appeared sometime about 4 million years ago, and the first known Homo (H. habilis) appeared about 2.5 million years ago. Homo species (such as H. erectus) apparently began migrating out of Africa, into Europe and Asia, around 1.8 to 1.5 million years ago.
The first convincing archeological evidence of the human use of fire and stone tools is found in what is now Israel, from about 780,000 years ago. The earliest firm evidence of human-made shelters (wooden huts) is found in Japan from about 500,000 years ago.

物种的进化
人类(属内的物种)从非洲猿类祖先(南方古猿属)进化而来。尽管估计的日期因来源不同而有所不同，但化石证据表明，第一个南方古猿出现在大约400万年前的某个时候，而第一个已知的人(能人)出现在大约250万年前。人类物种(如直立人)显然在大约180万到150万年前开始从非洲迁徙到欧洲和亚洲。
关于人类使用火和石器的第一个令人信服的考古证据是在现在的以色列发现的，距今约78万年前。人类建造住所(木屋)的最早确凿证据是在大约50万年前的日本发现的。

The most evolutionarily advanced humans up to that time—Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis)—are first seen in the fossil record across Europe and the Middle East—from Britain to Iran—about 230,000 years ago. Neanderthals dominated this vast region until they were supplanted by modern-type humans (H. sapiens sapiens) around 28,000 years ago—probably through a combination of interbreeding and competition, and maybe even warfare or genocide. The reasons for Neanderthal extinction are speculative. But it is known with certainty that Neanderthals had larger brains than modern-type humans, and that modern-day Europeans and Asians share some of their genes with Neanderthals.

当时进化最先进的人类——尼安德特人(尼安德特人或智人尼安德特人)——在大约23万年前首次出现在欧洲和中东地区——从英国到伊朗——的化石记录中。尼安德特人统治着这片广阔的地区，直到大约28000年前，他们被现代人(智人)所取代——可能是通过异种繁殖和竞争的结合，甚至可能是战争或种族灭绝。
尼安德特人灭绝的原因是推测性的。但可以确定的是，尼安德特人的大脑比现代人类更大，而且现代欧洲人和亚洲人的一些基因与尼安德特人相同。

Signs of the first-known H. sapiens sapiens have been found in Africa (just like the first Homo), from between 160,000 and 100,000 years ago. This species (our species) then migrated outward, to Europe and the Middle East and to eastern Asia and Australia. Where exactly outside of Africa they arrived first is uncertain. Evolutionary scientists had long thought that fully modern-type humans were in Europe thousands of years before Asia. But recent evidence indicates that they may have been in China as early as 80,000 years ago, compared to about 45,000 years ago in Europe. All humans today—of all races—are H. sapiens sapiens.

已知的第一个智人的迹象在非洲被发现(就像第一个人一样)，大约在16万到10万年前。这个物种(我们的物种)后来向外迁徙，到欧洲、中东、东亚和澳大利亚。他们首先到达非洲以外的确切地点是不确定的。进化科学家长期以来一直认为，完全现代的人类出现在欧洲，比亚洲早了几千年。但最近的证据表明，它们可能早在8万年前就出现在中国，而欧洲大约在4.5万年前。今天所有的人类，所有的种族，都是智人。

By around 12,000 years ago, humans had crossed a land bridge over what is now the Bering Sea to migrate from northern Asia into North America. They then gradually worked their way down through what is now Canada and the United States, into Central and South America.
Biological evolutionary changes, as well as cultural advancements, are driven by environmental changes. As the various groups of humans settled into their various new geographical regions, each with different environmental conditions, the racial groups that we know today evolved over time to match their particular environments. In addition, different cultures developed to suit different environmental situations. Evolutionary and cultural progress both occurred.

大约在12000年前，人类已经穿过横跨现在白令海的大陆桥，从亚洲北部迁移到北美。然后，他们逐渐穿过现在的加拿大和美国，进入中美洲和南美洲。
生物进化的变化，以及文化的进步，都是由环境变化所驱动的。随着不同的人类群体定居在各自新的地理区域，每个区域都有不同的环境条件，我们今天所知道的种族群体随着时间的推移而进化，以适应他们特定的环境。此外，不同的文化发展适应不同的环境。进化和文化都取得了进步。

Development of civilization
Archeological evidence of the development of advanced forms of human culture begins with cave art, first known in France from about 33,000 years ago. Agriculture—the domestication of crops and livestock—arose in the Near East and Middle East between about 12,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The first known civilization, with people settled down in cities, consisted of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 6,000 years ago, in the fertile Tigris-Euphrates River region of what is now Iraq. Civilization then soon developed elsewhere in the Middle East, as well as in Europe and East Asia—including the Minoans on Crete and the Egyptians in North Africa, both some 5,000 years ago, and the first dynasty in China, about 4,000 years ago.

文明的发展
人类先进文化形式发展的考古证据始于大约3.3万年前在法国首次发现的洞穴艺术。农业——农作物和牲畜的驯化，大约在12000年到10000年前出现在近东和中东地区。已知的第一个人类在城市定居的文明，是大约6000年前美索不达米亚地区的苏美尔人，位于肥沃的底格里斯河-幼发拉底河地区，也就是现在的伊拉克。随后，文明很快在中东其他地方以及欧洲和东亚发展起来，包括克里特岛上的米诺斯人和北非的埃及人，都是在大约5000年前，中国的第一个王朝大约在4000年前。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The first civilization did not emerge in sub-Saharan Africa until after the Egyptians conquered the region there that they called Nubia (modern-day Sudan). The independent Kush civilization arose there following the withdrawal of Egyptian forces in the 1000s BC, when the Kush people inherited the existing Egyptianized civilization. When Europeans began to occupy and colonize much of Africa in the 1800s, they nicknamed it the “dark continent” because of the continued predominant absence of civilization.
In North America, people mostly remained in hunter/gatherer or agricultural societies until after the European conquests of the Americas, which began in earnest during the 1500s. However, there were a number of settled civilizations in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans, including the Cahokia Mounds settlement in Illinois (which flourished from about 950 to 1350) and the Teotihuacan civilization of Mexico (which flourished during the first 500 years of the Common Era, or AD). I have visited both of those places and found them absolutely fascinating.

第一个文明出现在撒哈拉以南的非洲，直到埃及人征服了他们称之为努比亚(现在的苏丹)的地区。公元前1000年，随着埃及军队的撤离，独立的库施文明在那里兴起，当时库施人继承了现有的埃及化文明。当欧洲人在19世纪开始占领和殖民非洲大部分地区时，他们给非洲起了个绰号“黑暗大陆”，因为那里的文明仍然普遍缺乏。
在北美，人们大多停留在狩猎/采集或农业社会，直到欧洲人在16世纪正式开始征服美洲之后。然而，在欧洲人到来之前，美洲已经有了一些定居的文明，包括伊利诺伊州的卡霍基亚土丘定居点(大约从950年到1350年繁荣)和墨西哥的特奥蒂瓦坎文明(在公元的前500年繁荣)。这两个地方我都去过，觉得非常迷人。

Consider these things
That’s your basic lesson on human evolution and the history of civilization. Now, please consider this history, along with the development of the technology, science, medicine, art, architecture, literature, philosophy, government systems, and other “things” that characterize modern civilization. Almost all such human technological, cultural, and societal advancements have originated in Europe or Asia—and later America. From papermaking to printing to gunpowder to microscopes, telescopes, telephones, electricity, automobiles, airplanes, computers, space rockets, the Internet, etcetera, etcetera…. All inventions of Europeans, Asians, or white Americans.

考虑这些事情
这是关于人类进化和文明史的基本课程。现在，请考虑这段历史，以及技术、科学、医学、艺术、建筑、文学、哲学、政府制度和其他现代文明特征的“事物”的发展。几乎所有这些人类技术、文化和社会进步都起源于欧洲或亚洲，后来又起源于美洲。从造纸到印刷到火药到显微镜，望远镜，电话，电力，汽车，飞机，计算机，太空火箭，互联网，等等。所有都是欧洲人、亚洲人或美国白人的发明。

Now add to your consideration such modern-day matters within the multiracial U.S. society as exam scores (with black people, on average, scoring way below whites and Asians); violent crime rates (with black offenders responsible for a disproportionately large amount of crimes, taking into account the relative population sizes of blacks and whites); income (with blacks always at the bottom of all racial groups and with Asians at the top); and joblessness (with the black rate perpetual higher than the general population); as well as the smorgasbord of special programs set aside by the government and private organizations to assist black people over the decades. The programs have not solved the problems, nor has anything else apparently. The problems remain.

现在，再考虑一下美国这个多种族社会中的现代问题，比如考试成绩(黑人的平均成绩远低于白人和亚洲人);暴力犯罪率(考虑到黑人和白人的相对人口规模，黑人罪犯要为不成比例的大量犯罪负责)；收入(黑人在所有种族群体中总是垫底，亚洲人在顶端)；失业率(黑人失业率永远高于总人口)；还有政府和私人组织在过去几十年里为帮助黑人而设立的各种特别项目。这些计划并没有解决问题，其他任何事情显然也没有解决问题。问题依然存在。

The ongoing serious problems among black Americans have long been conventionally and commonly attributed to white racism or “systemic” racism—white-established societal factors that are unfairly holding blacks back on purpose. Those are convenient excuses, aren’t they? A few, more honest, commentators have blamed deep cultural ills within the black communities themselves. I’m sure there is a lot of truth to that argument. But could there be any other factors at play? One is not supposed to ask this, but might there be at least some inherent biological, cognitive factors at play?

长期以来，美国黑人中持续存在的严重问题一直被传统上和普遍地归咎于白人种族歧视或“系统性”种族歧视——白人确立的社会因素，这些因素不公平地故意阻碍了黑人的发展。这些都是很方便的借口，不是吗? 一些较为诚实的评论人士将其归咎于黑人社区本身根深蒂固的文化弊病。我相信这个观点有很多道理。但还有其他因素在起作用吗?人们不应该问这个问题，但是否至少有一些内在的生物和认知因素在起作用?

Our American society is very afraid to ask that question. But perhaps an honest consideration of the question with honest answers would help explain part of the reason why the very multiracial population of the United States always trails the less multiracial populations of Europe and Asia in statistics of average academic achievement. Could certain groups be dragging down the averages?
American white people (and Asians and others) are entitled to consider and discuss such questions before they are forced by the government to fork over “reparations” because of their alleged sin of slavery (which was happening in America when my ancestors were poor farmers in Eastern Europe) or because of the alleged enduring white-caused hardships that are still making the black population suffer.

我们的美国社会非常害怕问这个问题。但是，诚实地考虑这个问题并给出诚实的答案，也许可以部分解释为什么美国的多种族人口在平均学术成就统计数据上总是落后于欧洲和亚洲不那么多种族人口的原因。某些群体是否会拖累平均水平?
美国白人(以及亚洲人和其他人)有权利在他们被政府强迫支付“赔款”之前考虑和讨论这些问题，因为他们被指控犯有奴隶制罪(当我的祖先是东欧贫穷的农民时，这种情况就发生在美国)，或者因为所谓的白人造成的苦难仍在使黑人遭受苦难。

Main tenets of theory
So, considering all of the factors I have so far discussed, allow me to now spell out the three main tenets of my theory:
1) The further a racial group’s origin is from the origin of the human species (Africa)—in both chronological time and geographical distance—the more advancement that racial group has evolved in terms of intellectual capacity (that is, cognitive, reasoning abilities versus emotional, undisciplined instincts).
2) Therefore, people of sub-Saharan African descent… (I mean “descent” in historical times; when considering pre-historical times, we are all of African descent, of course)… So, in a comparison of all racial groups, people of sub-Saharan African descent generally have the least developed intellectual capacity of the racial groups.

理论的主要原则
所以，考虑到我到目前为止讨论的所有因素，现在允许我阐明我的理论的三个主要原则:
1. 一个种族群体的起源离人类物种的起源(非洲)越远——无论是在时间上还是在地理上——这个种族群体在智力能力(即认知、推理能力相对于情感、无纪律的本能)方面进化得越先进。
2. 因此，撒哈拉以南非洲人的后裔 (我指的是历史上的“后裔”;当考虑到史前时代，我们当然都是非洲人的后裔)……所以，在所有种族群体的比较中，撒哈拉以南非洲人的后裔通常是种族群体中智力最不发达的。

3) And therefore, people of European or Asian (eg, Middle Eastern, Indian, Chinese) descent generally have the most developed intellectual capacity of the racial groups. Furthermore, in my opinion, the natural intellectual capacity of people of Asian descent is generally greater than that of people of European descent.
But what about American Indians, or Native Americans? They are the most separated racial group in time and distance from human origins. So, according to my theory, shouldn’t they have the greatest intellectual capacity of all racial groups? Shouldn’t they have developed the most technologically and culturally advanced of all civilizations?
Well, obviously, American Indians did not develop the most technologically advanced civilization, and they were eventually virtually wiped out by white people in a massive genocide. So, is this where my theory collapses? Perhaps, but I don’t think so.

3)因此，欧洲或亚洲(如中东、印度、中国)血统的人通常在种族群体中具有最发达的智力能力。此外，在我看来，亚洲血统的人的天然智力能力一般比欧洲血统的人更突出。
但是美洲印第安人呢?他们是距离人类起源时间和距离最远的种族群体。那么，根据我的理论，他们不应该是所有种族中智力能力最强的吗?难道他们不应该发展出所有文明中技术和文化最先进的吗?
显然，美洲印第安人并没有发展出最先进的技术文明，他们最终在大规模种族灭绝中被白人灭绝。这就是我的理论崩溃的地方?也许吧，但我不这么认为。

Numerous indigenous tribes in North America developed highly original cultures that were fundamentally different from any previous human cultures. They were not based at all on technology. Rather, they were based on the most advanced spirituality systems ever developed. These unique systems were nature-centered, psychologically profound, and totally encompassing of all aspects of the individual and the community. There was no division between the spiritual world and the “real” world. There was no division between nature and man. The spiritual beliefs of the indigenous Americans were more advanced and complex than the relatively simplistic beliefs of the African indigenous cultures.

北美的许多土著部落发展出了高度原创性的文化，从根本上不同于任何以前的人类文化。它们根本不是基于技术。相反，它们是建立在有史以来最先进的灵性系统(nature-centered,一个印度学者对印第安人特征的诠释)之上的。这些独特的系统以自然为中心，具有深刻的心理意义，完全涵盖了个人和社区的各个方面。在精神世界和“现实”世界之间没有边界。在自然和人类之间没有分野。与相对简单的非洲土著文化信仰相比，美洲土著的精神信仰更为先进和复杂。

Looking at them this way, I propose that American Indians may indeed have had the most evolved and advanced society ever. And I suspect that these people, when living in their traditional cultures, may have possessed a type of combined intellectual/spiritual capacity that cannot be properly uated from our modern-day perspectives. Unfortunately, many of the descendants of these mystically perceptive people have probably lost this special gift of spirituality as it became warped and twisted by the overwhelmingly powerful impact of the modern technological anti-nature society—just as the American Indian tribes fell victim to the technologically advanced weaponry of the white invaders.

从这个角度来看，我认为美洲印第安人可能确实拥有有史以来最进化、最先进的社会。我怀疑，当这些人生活在他们的传统文化中时，他们可能已经拥有了一种智力和精神的综合能力，而这种能力无法从我们现代的角度得到正确的评估。不幸的是，这些具有神秘洞察力的人的许多后代可能已经失去了这种特殊的精神天赋，因为它被现代技术反自然社会的压倒性强大影响扭曲了——就像美洲印第安部落成为白人入侵者技术先进武器的受害者一样。

Another point that might be raised against my theory is in regard to brains scans, such as electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. If people of different racial groups really differ in intellectual capacity, shouldn’t such differences be revealed in brain scans? Why haven’t such differences been recorded? Well, the truth is that these imaging technologies are very limited as to what they can show us about the brain, which is far too complex for any human-invented technology to fully grasp. So, brain scans cannot be used as an argument to refute my theory.

另一个可能反对我的理论的观点是关于大脑扫描，如脑电图和功能性磁共振成像。如果不同种族的人在智力上真的存在差异，这种差异不是应该在脑部扫描中显示出来吗? 为什么这些差异没有被记录下来?事实是，这些成像技术在向我们展示大脑方面是非常有限的，这对于任何人类发明的技术来说都太复杂了，无法完全掌握。所以，大脑扫描不能用来反驳我的理论。
（未完待续）