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And sort of the posterbirds for this idea are the birds up there.
图片上的鸟可以证明这个观点。
On one side is a New Caledonian crow. And crows and other corvidae, ravens, rooks and so forth, are incredibly smart birds.
左边是一只新喀里多尼亚岛的乌鸦。像乌鸦，其它雅科，渡鸦，和秃鼻乌鸦那类的鸟，都非常的聪明。
They're as smart as chimpanzees in some respects. And this is a bird on the cover of science who's learned how to use a tool to get food.
它们在一些方面就像猩猩一样聪明。这只鸟登上了科学杂志的封面，它学会了如何用工具来取得食物。
On the other hand, we have our friend the domestic chicken. And chickens and ducks and geese and turkeys are basically as dumb as dumps.
另一张图片上的鸟，是我们的朋友家养鸡。鸡，鸭，鹅，火鸡，基本上可以说是笨得不能再笨。
So they're very, very good at pecking for grain, and they're not much good at doing anything else.
它们虽然很擅长啄食，但其它方面就不行了。
Well it turns out that the babies, the New Caledonian crow babies, are fledglings.
可这些幼鸟，我是说新喀里多尼亚岛的幼年乌鸦，它们刚长羽毛。
They depend on their moms to drop worms in their little open mouths for as long as two years, which is a really long time in the life of a bird.
在长达两年的时间里，它们完全依赖妈妈来喂它们虫子，而两年对于一只鸟的生命来说是非常长的一段时间。
Whereas the chickens are actually mature within a couple of months.
鸡相对来说要成长的较快，只需要几个月的时间。
So childhood is the reason why the crows end up on the cover of Science and the chickens end up in the soup pot.
乌鸦成为科学杂志封面的原因，是因为它们的童年，而鸡的下场是变成锅里的汤。
There's something about that long childhood that seems to be connected to knowledge and learning.
在它们两年的童年里，有某些因素似乎和知识与学习有关系。
Well what kind of explanation could we have for this? Well some animals, like the chicken, seem to be beautifully suited to doing just one thing very well.
原因究竟是什么呢? 像鸡这类的动物，好像只擅长把某一件事做好。
So they seem to be beautifully suited to pecking grain in one environment.
那件事就是在一个环境中啄食。
Other creatures, like the crows, aren't very good at doing anything in particular, but they're extremely good at learning about laws of different environments.
像乌鸦这种动物，不擅长做好某件事，但在适应不同的环境方面它们非常擅长。
And of course, we human beings are way out on the end of the distribution like the crows.
当然，我们人类在到了像乌鸦那种穷途末路时，我们比它们更能想到解决的办法。
We have bigger brains relative to our bodies by far than any other animal.
我们的大脑和四肢的比例，目前还没有任何动物能超过。
We're smarter, we're more flexible, we can learn more, we survive in more different environments, we migrated to cover the world and even go to outer space.
我们有更多的智慧和更强的适应性，可以学到更多知识，还能在更多不同的环境下生存，人类在地球各处居住，甚至上了外太空。
And our babies and children are dependent on us for much longer than the babies of any other species.
我们的孩子对我们的依赖的时间超过任何动物对父母的依赖，
My son is 23. (Laughter) And at least until they're 23, we're still popping those worms into those little open mouths.
我儿子现年23岁。在他们23岁之前，我们还会把食物送到他们的嘴里。
