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Books and Arts;Book Review;Deceit and self-deception；Suspicious minds
文藝；書評；欺人與自欺；疑心病
The Folly of Fools：The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. By Robert Trivers.
《傻瓜的傻事兒》，羅伯特·特里沃斯著。
Deceiving others has its advantages. Camouflage in nature is useful to the hunter and the hunted.The smarter the animal,the more likely it is to use (and detect) deception to its benefit. Humans are particularly good at exploiting trickery to get ahead—for more money, more power or a desired mate. Yet deception is difficult, regardless of intelligence. Lying often leaves us nervous and twitchy, and complicated fictions can lead to depression and poor immune function. And then there are the ethical implications.
欺騙他人是有好處的。自然界的偽裝對獵手和獵物都有用。動物越聰明，越有可能利用（察覺）欺騙為自己謀利。人類尤其善于利用欺騙以獲得成功——為了更多的錢財，更大的權力，亦或理想的伴侶?？墒遣还苣愣嗦斆鳎垓_都沒那么容易。撒謊讓我們神經(jīng)緊張，焦慮不安，復雜的謊言還導致抑郁及免疫力下降。其次還會牽涉到道德問題。
In “The Folly of Fools” Robert Trivers, an American evolutionary biologist, explains that the most effectively devious people are often unaware of their deceit. Self-deception makes it easier to manipulate others to get ahead. Particularly intelligent people can be especially good at deceiving themselves.
美國進化論生物學家羅伯特·特里沃斯在《愚妄人的愚昧》一書中解釋道，最狡詐的人通常都意識不到他們在欺騙。用自欺操縱別人，成功更顯輕而易舉。特別聰明的人可能也會特別善于欺騙自己。
Mining research in biology, neurophysiology, immunology and psychology, Mr Trivers delivers a swift tour of links between deception and evolutionary progress. Some of it is intuitive. The grey squirrel, for example, cleverly builds false caches to discourage others from raiding its acorns. Placebos are sometimes as effective as medication without the nasty side effects. Other illustrations require more head-scratching. Mr Trivers argues that competition between our maternal and paternal genes can create “split selves”, which try to fool each other on a biological level. Human memory often involves an unconscious process of selection and distortion, the better to believe the stories we tell others.
搜尋了生物學，神經(jīng)生理學，免疫學和心理學的研究后，特里沃斯先生簡要說明了欺騙和進化過程間的各種關系。有些關系是天生的。比如，灰松鼠會造假窩，以防止別人偷搶它的橡木果實；安慰劑有時和藥一樣有效，但卻沒有令人難受的副作用。其他的例子則相對費解。特里沃斯先生聲稱，從生物學角度，母體和父體遺傳基因間的競爭會引起“自我分裂”的說法欺騙了大家。人類記憶常常會有一個無意識的選擇與扭曲的過程，促使我們相信講給他人的假話。
All of this deceit comes at a price. Mr Trivers suggests that the most cunning people (whether conscious fibbers or not) tend to benefit at the expense of everyone else. He highlights the way overconfident Wall Street traders may hurt investors and taxpayers at little personal risk. Then there are politicians who spin stories of national greatness to bolster support for costly wars in which they will not be fighting.
欺騙都要一定的代價。特里沃斯先生指出，最狡猾的人（不管是不是睜眼說瞎話）往往會在其他所有人的代價之上得益。他強調(diào)過分自信的華爾街商人冒很小的個人風險就可能會傷害投資者和納稅人的利益。此外，也有政治家編造“國家偉大”的故事，大力支持他們不會參與但卻花費高昂的戰(zhàn)爭。
There is certainly no shortage of human folly to consider. Mr Trivers offers some fascinating evidence of our biological cunning, yet the science of self-deception often takes a back seat to his political views and scepticism of the social sciences. This book could probably do without his long digressions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq war. But by the time readers reach these last few chapters, they will be wary of taking any story at face value anyway.
書里當然還講了其他的人類蠢事。有關我們生物學上的狡猾，特里沃斯先生給出了一些很棒的證據(jù)，然而一談到政治見解和社會科學懷疑論，自欺科學就退而其次了。以色列-巴勒斯坦沖突和伊拉克戰(zhàn)爭的冗長講述有偏題之嫌，刪去也未嘗不可。但是等讀者讀到最后幾章，他們將變得謹慎，絕不再輕信謊言。
