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What would you say is the deadliest animal on earth—the most dangerous, brutal, destructive? The wolf? The tiger? The great white shark? Nope. The best answer is the species known as Homo sapiens—human beings.
你認為世界上最致命的物種是什么——最危險，最殘暴，最具毀滅性的物種？狼？老虎？大白鯊？全都不是。最正確的答案是被稱為智人種的人類。
Not only do we kill members of other species at a rate unparalleled in the history of the planet, but we do something which is singular in the animal world: we make a point of killing each other, too.
人類不僅以前所未有的速度殺害其它物種，而且也自相殘殺，這種所作所為在動物界中堪稱獨一無二。
That is, this kind of behavior was thought to be singular until just a few decades ago. It was 1974 when the first hard evidence of intra-species murder was documented in animals other than man—that is, animals going out of their way to find a member of their own species and kill it without immediate provocation.
直到幾十年以前，這種行為仍被認為是獨特的。1974年第一起證據確鑿的種內謀殺案件被記錄在案，這次案件的兇手是動物而不是人。換而言之，動物用自己的方式尋找同類敵人，在沒有直接挑釁的情況下殺掉它。
The species witnessed committing these murders was the chimpanzee, a close relative to human beings. Further observation of primate behavior has discovered that not only is intra-species murder common, so are such brutalities as rape, battering of females and infanticide.
那些被目睹犯下謀殺罪行的物種便是猩猩，一個人類的近親物種。更進一步地觀察靈長類動物的行為，就會發現在這個種群里內不僅種內謀殺很常見，連強奸，重傷雌性猩猩，殺嬰這類暴行也時有發生。
It seems that the worst traits in human behavior started developing long before human beings per se existed; as primates we have a very nasty evolutionary inheritance. Does this mean that war, crime and violence among humans is unavoidable?
這似乎說明在人類開始進化很久以前，這種最糟糕的特質本就存在：作為靈長類動物，我們進化遺傳了這種丑惡的特質。那么這意味著人類發起戰爭，犯罪還有暴力事件是不可避免的嗎？
It would not be fair to go that far; but the evidence of violence in those species most closely linked to our own does suggest that humanity will have to work very hard indeed at overcoming its genetic inheritance, if we are going to live in peace—or continue to live.
事態還沒有嚴重到這種地步；但這種與每個人都戚戚相關的暴力證據暗示著人們，要想和平相處，繼續活下去的話，就得非常努力地克服自身的基因缺陷。
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