中财网巫师3毒蛇学派代码:双语：研究发现迷信是进化的产物
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双语：研究发现迷信是进化的产物
http://www.sina.com.cn 2011年06月10日 12:02 环球时报How far will you go to avoid bad luck? Do you avoid walking underladders, carry lucky charms, or perhaps instead perform special ritualsbefore important meetings or sporting events?
If you do any of those things, hold your head up high and be proud,because researchers are finding evidence that superstitions may not beas pointless at all. By adopting a belief that you can - or cannot - dosomething to affect a desired outcome, you're among the cadre of beingsthat learn。
Superstition is an evolutionary surprise - it makes no sense fororganisms to believe a specific action influences the future when itcan't. Yet superstitious behavior can be recognized in many animals, notjust humans. Superstitions are not free - there are rituals andavoidances cost. The question becomes how can natural selection create,or simply allow for, such inappropriate behavior?
"From an evolutionary perspective, superstitions seem maladaptive,"said Kevin Abbott, biologist at Carleton University in Ottawa andco-author of a recent study published in Animal Behavior。
The study suggests multiple reasons for such anomalies to exist:perhaps superstition is adaptive as a placebo, or for social bonding. Ormaybe it really is maladaptive now, but is "the outcome of traits thatwere adaptive in ancestral environment," said Abbott。
为了避免厄运你能迷信到何种程度？不在梯子下面行走？佩戴幸运咒语？还是在重大会议或体育盛事之前搞些特殊仪式？
不管你做了上述事情中的哪一种，请骄傲地抬高头，因为研究人员正日渐发现，迷信并非毫无意义。你可以(或者不可以)做些事情来影响预期结果，这种信仰能让你成为会学习生物中的精英。
迷信可谓进化过程给人们带来的惊喜——相信某个特定行为可影响未来(实际并非如此)对有机系统并没有意义。但是迷信行为不仅在人类社会可见，动物也有。迷信行为也不是免费的——种种仪式和避讳都有成本。问题在于：自然选择怎么会创造(或者允许)这种不当行为的？
“从进化角度看，迷信似乎并不适应(进化理论)，”最近发表于《动物行为》的研究论文撰稿人之一、渥太华卡尔顿大学的生物学家凯文阿伯特说道。
该研究显示，这种异常现象存在的原因各种各样：作为安慰剂迷信“适者生存”，或者迷信的存在只是为了社会联系。或者现在它确实没什么意义，但却是“古代环境适应特征的结果，”阿伯特称。