sinz-bnw
七基因
While not exactly a top
selling book, The History and Geography of Human
Genes is a remarkable collection of more
than 50 years of research in population
genetics. It stands as the most extensive survey
to date on how humans vary at the
level
of their genes. The book's firm conclusion: once
the genes for surface features such as skin color
and height are
discounted,
the
are
remarkably
alike
under
the
skin.
The
variation
among
individuals
is
much
greater
than
the
differences
among
groups.
In
fact,
there
is
no
scientific
basis
for
theories
pushing
the
genetic
superiority
of
any
one
population over another.
The
book, however, is much more than an argument
against the latest racially biased
theory
. The prime mover behind the
project, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a
Stanford professor, labored with his colleagues
for 16 years to create nothing less than the
first genetic map of the world. The
book features more than 500 maps that show areas
of genetic similarity
—
much
as
places of equal altitude are shown
by the same color on other maps. By measuring how
closely current populations are
related, the authors trace the routes
by which early humans migrated around the earth.
Result: the closest thing we have to
a
global family tree.
The
information
needed
to
draw
that
tree
is
found
in
human
blood:
various
proteins
that
serve
as
markers
to
reveal
a
person's genetic makeup.
Using data collected by scientists over decades,
the authors assembled profiles of hundreds of
thousands of individuals from almost
2,000 groups. And to ensure the populations were
groups that were in their present
locations as of 1492, before the first major
movements fromEurope began
—
in effect, a
genetic photo of the world
when Columbus sailed for America.
Collecting blood, particularly from
ancient populations in remote areas, was not
always easy; potential donors were often
afraid to cooperate, or raised
religious concerns. On one occasion, when Cavalli-
Sforza was taking blood samples from
children in a rural region of Africa,
he was confronted by an angry farmer waving an
axe. Recalls the scientist:
him saying,
’
If you take the blood of
the children, I'll take
yours.
’
He was worried that
we might want to do some magic
with the
blood.
Despite the difficulties, the
scientists made some remarkable discoveries. One
of them jumps right off the book's cover: a
color map of the world's genetic
variation has Africa at one end of the range and
Australia at the other. Because Australia's
native people and black Africans share
such superficial characteristics as skin color and
body shape, they were widely
assumed to
be closely related. But their genes tell a
different story. Of all humans, Australians are
most distant from the
Africans
and
most
closely
resemble
their
neighbors,
the
Southeast
Asians.
What
the
eye
sees
as
racial
differences
—
between Europeans and Africans, for
example
—
are mainly a way
to adapt to climate as humans move from one
continent
to another
African
branch is the oldest on the human family genetic
maps also shed new light on the origins of
populations
that have long puzzled
scientists. Example: the Khoisan people of
southern Africa. Many scientists consider the
Khoisan a
distinct race of very ancient
origin. The unique character of the clicking
sounds in their language has persuaded some
researchers that the Khoisan people are
directly descended from the most primitive human
ancestors. But their genes beg
to
differ. They show that the Khoisan may be a very
ancient mix of west Asians and black Africans. A
genetic trail visible on
the maps shows
that the breeding ground for this mixed population
probably lies in Ethiopia or the Middle East.
The most distinctive members of the
European branch of the human tree are the Basques
of France and Spain. They show
unusual
patterns for several genes, including the highest
rate of a rare blood type. Their language is of
unknown origin and
cannot be placed
within any
standard classification. And
the fact that they live in a region next to famous
caves which
contain vivid paintings
from Europe's early humans, leads Cavalli-Sforza
to the following conclusion:
extremely
likely to be the most direct relatives of the Cro-
Magnon people, among the first modern humans in
Europe.
Europeans are thought to be a
mixed population, with 65% Asian and 35% African
genes.
In addition to telling us about
our origins, genetic information is also the
latest raw material of the medical industry, which
hopes to use human DNA to build
specialized proteins that may have some value as
disease-fighting drugs. Activists for
native populations fear that the
scientists could exploit these peoples:genetic
material taken from blood samples could be
used for commercial purposes without
adequate payment made to the groups that provide
the DNA.
Cavalli-Sforza stresses that
his mission is not just scientific but social as
well. The study's ultimate aim, he says, is to
conventional
notions
of
race
that
cause
racial
prejudice.
It
is
a
goal
that
he
hopes
will
be
welcomed
among
native peoples who have long struggled
for the same end.
八
Slavery Gave Me Nothing to
Lose
I remember the very day that I
became black. Up to my thirteenth year I lived in
the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It
is
exclusively
a
black
town.
The
only
white
people
I
knew
passed
through
the
town
going
to
or
coming
from
Orlando,
Florida.
The
native
whites
rode
dusty
horses,
and
the
northern
tourists
traveled
down
the
sandy
village
road
in
automobiles.
The
town
knew
the
Southerners
and
never
stopped
chewing
sugar
cane
when
they
passed.
But
the
Northerners were something else again.
They were peered at cautiously from behind
curtains by the timid. The bold would
come outside to watch them go past and
got just as much pleasure out of the tourists as
the tourists got out of the village.
The front deck might seem a frightening
place for the rest of the town, but it was a front
row seat for me. My favorite place
was
on top of the gatepost. Not only did I enjoy the
show, but I didn't mind the actors knowing that I
liked it. I usually spoke
to them in
passing. I'd wave at them and when they returned
my wave, I would say a few words of greeting.
Usually the
automobile or the horse
paused at this, and after a strange exchange of
greetings, I would probably
with them,
as we say in farthest Florida, and follow them
down the road a bit. If one of my family happened
to come to the
front of the house in
time to see me, of course the conversation would
be rudely broken off.
During this
period, white people differed from black to me
only in that they rode through town and never
lived there. They
liked to hear me
doing these things, which seemed
strange to me for I wanted to do them so much that
I needed bribing to stop. Only they
didn't know it. The colored people gave
no coins. They disapproved of any joyful
tendencies in me, but I was their Zora
nevertheless. I belonged to them, to
the nearby hotels, to the country
—
everybody's Zora
But changes came to the family when I
was thirteen, and I was sent to school in
Jacksonville. I left Eatonville as Zora. When
I got off the riverboat at
Jacksonville, she was no more. It seemed that I
had suffered a huge change. I was not
Zora of
Eatonville any more; I was now
a little black girl. I found it out in certain
ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I
became
a permanent brown
—
like the best shoe polish,
guaranteed not to rub nor run.
Someone
is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the
granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register
depression with me.
Slavery is
something sixty years in the past. The operation
was successful and the patient is doing well,
thank you. The
terrible war that made
me an American instead of a slave said
set!
look behind and weep.
Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and
the choice was not with me. No one on earth ever
had
a greater chance for
glory
. The world to be won and nothing
to be lost. It is thrilling to think, to know,
that for any act of
mine, I shall get
twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is
quite exciting to hold the center of the national
stage,
with the audience not knowing
whether to laugh or to weep.
I do not
always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the
unconscious Zora of that small village,
Eatonville. For instance, I
can sit in
a restaurant with a white person. We enter
chatting about any little things that we have in
common and the white
man would sit
calmly in his seat, listening to me with interest.
At certain times I have no race, I am
me. But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of
mixed items propped up against a wall.
Against a wall in company with other
bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the
contents, and there is discovered a pile of
small things both valuable and
worthless. Bits of broken glass, lengths of
string, a key to a door long since decayed away,
a rusty knife-blade, old shoes saved
for a road that never was and never will be, a
nail bent under the weight of things too
heavy for any nail, a dried flower or
two still with a little smell. In your hand is the
brown bag. On the ground before you is
the pile it held
—
so much like the piles in
the other bags, could they be emptied, that all
might be combined and mixed in a
single
heap and the bags refilled without altering the
content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass
more or less would not
matter. Perhaps
that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them
in the first place
—
who
knows?
九
Does this mean
that French men seeking work with the Disney
organization must shave offtheir moustaches too?
A
labor
inspector
took
the
Disney
organization
to
court
this
week,
contending
that
thecompany's
dress
and
appearance code
—
which bans moustaches,
beards, excess weight,short skirts and fancy
stockings
—
offends
individual
liberty and violates French
labor law.
The
case is an illustration of some of the delicate
cultural issues the company faces as itgets ready
to open its theme
park 20 miles (32
kilometers) east of Paris in five months' time.
The Disney
management, which is assembling what it calls a
employees, from bottle washers to the
president, are similar toactors who have to obey
rules about appearance. Anyway, a
company
spokesman
says,
noone
has
yet
put
his
moustache
before
a
job.
As
one
new
member
put
it:
mustbelieve
in
what
you
are
doing,
or
you
would
have
a
terrible
time
here.
what
do
people
think
of
Euro
Disney?
People everywhere are wondering
whetherEuropeans would like the American
recreation.
For
all
its
concern
about
foreign
cultural
invasion
and
its
defense
against
the
pollution
ofthe
French
language
by
English words,
France's
Socialist
government
has
been
untroubledabout
putting such
a
huge
American
symbol
on
the
doorstep
of
the
capital
and has
been
moreconcerned about
its
social
effect.
It
made
an
extraordinary
series
of
tax
and
financialconcessions to
attract the theme park here rather than let it go
to sunny Spain.
The theme park itself will be only part
of a giant complex of housing, office, and
resortdevelopments stretching far into
the next century, including movie and
television productionfacilities. As part of its
deal with the Disney organization, the
government
is
laying
on
andpaying
for
new
highways,
an
extension
of
Paris's
regional
express
railway
and
even
a
directconnection for the high speed TGV
railway to the Channel Tunnel. The TGV station is
being builtin front of the main
entrance of Euro Disneyland, and is
scheduled to come into service in 1994.
If Euro
Disneyland succeeds
—
where
theme parks already in France have so far failed
—
asecond and even a third
park is likely to be built by the end
of the century. Financial experts saythat Euro
Disneyland, the first phase of which is
costing an estimated $$3.6 billion, is
essentialto Disney's overall fortunes, which have
been hit by competition and declining
attendance inthe United States.
French
intellectuals have not found many kind things to
say about the project. The kids,however, will
probably never
notice. Sleeping Beauty,
Snow White, Peter Pan, and Pinocchio allcome from
European fairy tales or stories and are as
familiar to children here as they are
in theUnited States. To a French child Mickey is
French. To an Italian kid he is Italian.
The
Disney
management
is
stressing
this
tradition
in
an
apparent
response
tosuggestions
that
it
is
culturally
insensitive. Although the concept of
the theme park is closelybased on the original
Magic Kingdom in California and Walt
Disney World in Florida,
Officials
point
out,
for
example,
that
Sleeping
Beauty's
castle,the
central
feature
of
the
theme
park,
is
based
not
on
Hollywood,
as some might think, but onthe illustrations in a
medieval European book. Also, a 360-degree movie,
based on
theadventures of Jules Verne,
features well-known European actors.
Asked to describe other aspects of the
effort to make the park more European, aspokesman
mentioned that direction signs
in the
theme park will be in French as well asEnglish,
and that some performers will chat in French,
Spanish and English.
—
and at the same
time making it different,
On the
other hand,
this
effort is
not
being
taken
too
far.
Another
Disney
spokesman
saidearlier
that
the aim
of
the
theme park is
to
provide a basically
American
experience
for
thosewho
seek
it.
In
this way
,
he
said,
people
who might
otherwise have contemplated a
vacation inthe United States will be happy to stay
on this side of the Atlantic.
The Disney organization
does seem to focus a bit too much on hair.
promises, will feature an old time
—
and perhaps even
offending
mustaches.
One
differencefrom
California
or
Florida:
Parts
of
Main
Street
and
waiting
areas
to
get
into
the
attractions willbe covered over as a
concession to Paris's rainy weather.
Euro Disneyland's short distance to
Paris is a definite attraction. Anyone tiring of
Americanor fake European culture can
reach the Louvre art museum by express
railway in less than anhour
—
from Minnie Mouse to Mona
Lisa in a flash.
Communications figured
largely in the Disney organization's decision to
site its fourththeme park near Paris. The site
is within a two-hour flight of 320
million Europeans. Theopening of Eastern Europe is
another prize for the company, which
thinks that millions ofpeople will put
Disneyland at the top of a list of places to visit
on their first trip to WesternEurope.
一
An artist who seeks fame is
like a dog chasing his own tail who, when he
captures it, does not know what else to do but
to continue chasing it. the cruelty of
success is that it often leads those who seek such
success to participate in their own
destruction.
to a budding
artist who is trying hard to succeed. The
conquestof fame is difficult at best, and many end
up emotionally if
not
financiallybankrupttill,
impure
motivessuch
as
the
desire
forworshipping
fans
and
praise
from
peers
may
spur
the
artist on. Thelureof
drowningin fame's imperial glory is not easily
resisted.
hose who gain fame most often
gain it as a result of exploiting their talent for
singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc.
They develop a style that
agentsmarket aggressively to hasten popularity,
and their ride on the express elevatorto the top
is a blurMost would be hard-pressed to
tell you how they even got there. Artists cannot
remain idle, though.
When
the performer, painter or writer becomes bored
their work begins to show a lack of continuityin
its appeal and it
becomes difficult
tosustain the attention of the public.
After their enthusiasm has dissolved,
the public simply moves on to the next flavor of
the month.
Artists who do
attempt to remain current by making even
minutechanges to their style of writing, dancing
or singing, run a
significant risk of
losing the audience's favor.
The public simply discounts styles
other than those for which the artist has become
famous.
Famous
authors'
styles
—
a
Tennessee
Williams
play
or
a
plot
by
Ernest
Hemingway
or
a
poem
by
Robert
Frost
or
T.S.
Eliot
—
are easily
recognizable.
The same is true of
painters like Monet, Renoir, or Dali and
moviemakers like Hitchcock, Fellini, Spielberg,
Chen Kaige or
Zhang
Yimou.
Their
distinctstyles
marked
a
significant
change in
form
from
others
and
gained
them
fame and
fortune.
However, they paid for it by giving up
the freedom to express themselves with other
styles or forms.
Fame's spotlight can
be hotter than a tropical
ungle
—
a fraud is quickly
exposed, and the pressure of so much attention is
too much for most to endure. It takes
you out of yourself: You must be what the public
thinks you are, not what you really
are
or could be. The performer, like the politician,
must often please his or her audiences by saying
things he or she does
not mean or fully
believe.
One drop of fame will likely
contaminatethe entire well of a man's soul, and so
an artist who remains true to himself or
herself
is
particularly
amazing.
You
would
be
hard-pressed
to
<30>underline
many
names
of
those
who
have
not
compromised and still succeeded in the
fame game.
An
example,
the
famous
Irish
writer
Oscar
Wilde,
known
for
his
<31>uncompromising
behavior,
both
social
and
sexual, to which the public
<32>objected, paid heavily for remaining true
to himself.
The mother of a
young man Oscar was intimate with <33>accused
him at a <34>banquet in front of his friends
and fans of sexually influencing her
son.
Extremely angered by
her remarks, he <35>sued the young man's
mother, asserting that she had damaged his
name.
He should
have hired a better <36>attorney, though.
The
judge
did
not
<37>second
Wilde's
call
to
have
the
woman
pay
for
damaging
his
name,
and
instead
<38>fined Wilde.
He
ended
up
in
jail
after
refusing
to
pay,
and
even
worse,
was
permanently
<39>expelled
from
the
wider
circle
of
public favor.
When things were at their worst, he
found that no one was willing to risk his or her
name in his defense.
His
price for remaining true to himself was to be left
alone when he needed his fans the most.
Curiously enough, it is those who fail
that reap the greatest reward: freedom!
They enjoy the freedom to
express themselves in unique and original ways
without fear of losing the support of fans.
Failed artists may find
comfort in knowing that many great artists never
found fame until well after they had passed away
or
in knowing that they did not sell
out.
They
may
<40>justify
their
failure
by
convincing
themselves
their
genius
is
too
sophisticated
for
contemporary
-minded artists who continue their
quest for fame even after failure might also like
to know that failure has
motivated some
famous people to work even harder to succeed.
Thomas Wolfe, the American
<42>novelist, had his first novel Look
Homeward, Angel rejected 39 times
before it was finally published.
Beethoven
overcame
his
father,
who
did
not
believe
that
he
had
any
potential
as
a
musician,
to
become
the
greatest
<43>musician
in the world. And Pestalozzi, the famous Swiss
educator in the 19th century, failed at every job
he ever
had until he came upon the idea
of teaching children and developing the
fundamental theories to produce a new form of
education. Thomas Edison was thrown out
of school in the fourth grade, because he seemed
to his teacher to be quite dull.
Unfortunately
for
most
people,
however,
failure
is
the
end
of
their
struggle,
not
the
beginning.I
say
to
those
who
<45>desperately seek fame and
fortune: good luck.
But
<46>alas, you may find that it was not what
you wanted.
The dog who
catches his tail discovers that it is only a tail.
The person who achieves
success often discovers that it does more harm
than good.
So instead of
trying so hard to achieve success, try to be happy
with who you are and what you do.
Try to do work that you can be proud
of.
Maybe you won't be
famous in your own lifetime, but you may create
better art.
二
He was
born in
a
poor
area
of
South
London.
He wore
his
mother's
old
red
stockings
cut
down
for
anklesocks.
His
mother
was
temporarily
declared
mad.P1>Dickens
might
have
created
Charlie
Chaplin's
childhood.
But
only
Charlie
Chaplin could have created the great
<2>comic character of
creator
permanent fame.