By being here,

恭喜。

listening, alive,

能在這裡，

a member of a growing species,

能夠聽，能活著，

you are one of history's greatest winners --

身為一個不斷成長之物種的一員，

the culmination of a success story four billion years in the making.

你就是歷史上最偉大的贏家之一，

You are life's one percent.

花了四十億年形成之成功故事高點。

The losers,

你是生命的前 1%。

the 99 percent of species who have ever lived,

輸家們，

are dead --

其餘 99% 曾經存在過的物種

killed by fire, flood, asteroids,

都死了；

predation, starvation, ice, heat

死因包括大火、洪水、小行星、

and the cold math of natural selection.

掠食、饑荒、冰、熱，

Your ancestors,

以及物競天擇的冷酷數學。

back to the earliest fishes,

你們的祖先，

overcame all these challenges.

回推到最早的魚類，

You are here because of golden opportunities

克服了各種挑戰。

made possible by mass extinction.

你們會在這裡，

(Laughter)

是因為大滅絕所帶來的黃金機會。

It's true.

（笑聲）

The same is true of your co-winners and relatives.

是真的。

The 34,000 kinds of fishes.

對你的共同贏家、 親戚們而言也是如此：

How did we all get so lucky?

三萬四千種魚類。

Will we continue to win?

我們怎麼會這麼幸運？

I am a fish paleobiologist who uses big data --

我們能繼續贏下去嗎？

the fossil record --

我是魚類的古生物學家，

to study how some species win and others lose.

用大數據，化石記錄，

The living can't tell us;

來研究為什麼有些物種能贏， 其他的則輸了。

they know nothing but winning.

還活著的無法告訴我們；

So, we must speak with the dead.

他們對「贏」一無所知。

How do we make dead fishes talk?

所以我們必須與已死的對話。

Museums contain multitudes of beautiful fish fossils,

我們要如何讓死魚說話？

but their real beauty emerges

博物館有許多美麗的魚化石，

when combined with the larger number of ugly, broken fossils,

但要讓它們真正的美浮現，

and reduced to ones and zeros.

要把它們與更多醜陋、 破碎的化石結合，

I can trawl a 500-million-year database for evolutionary patterns.

然後再縮減為一和零。

For example,

我可以在一個五億年 資料庫中搜尋演化模式。

fish forms can be captured by coordinates

比如，

and transformed to reveal major pathways of change

魚的形式可以用座標來表示，

and trends through time.

然後轉換來揭示

Here is the story of the winners and losers

隨時間發生的主要改變路徑和趨勢。

of just one pivotal event I discovered using fossil data.

以下是個關於贏家和輸家的 關鍵事件的故事，

Let's travel back 360 million years --

是我用化石資料發現的。

six times as long ago as the last dinosaur --

讓我們回到 3.6 億年前──

to the Devonian period;

比最後一隻恐龍在世的時間 還要往回推六倍的時間──

a strange world.

回到泥盆紀；

Armored predators with razor-edge jaws dominated

一個奇怪的世界。

alongside huge fishes with arm bones in their fins.

下巴有剃刀邊緣的武裝掠食者

Crab-like fishes scuttled across the sea floor.

和魚鰭中有手臂骨的大魚是主宰者。

The few ray-fin relatives of salmon and tuna

像螃蟹的魚類沉在海底。

cowered at the bottom of the food chain.

鮭魚和鮪魚的少數輻鰭親戚

The few early sharks lived offshore in fear.

畏縮地待在食物鏈的最底層。

Your few four-legged ancestors, the tetrapods,

少數早期的鯊魚，恐懼地住在近海。

struggled in tropical river plains.

你們的四隻腳祖先，即四足動物，

Ecosystems were crowded.

在熱帶河流邊的平原上掙扎求生。

There was no escape,

生態系統很擁擠。

no opportunity in sight.

無處可逃，

Then the world ended.

眼前也沒有機會。

(Laughter)

接著世界末日了。

No, it is a good thing.

（笑聲）

96 percent of all fish species died

不，這是好事。

during the Hangenberg event, 359 million years ago:

所有魚種中的 96% 都死亡了，

an interval of fire and ice.

這是 3.59 億年前的 泥盆紀後期滅絕事件：

A crowded world was disrupted and swept away.

這是段火與冰的時期。

Now, you might think that's the end of the story.

擁擠的世界被中斷、被徹底泯滅了。

The mighty fell, the meek inherited the earth,

你們可能認為故事就到此為止。

and here we are.

強大者陣亡，溫順者繼承了地球，

But winning is not that simple.

我們就在這裡了。

The handful of survivors came from many groups --

但，要贏並沒有那麼簡單。

all greatly outnumbered by their own dead.

許多族群的少量生存者──

They ranged from top predator to bottom-feeder,

這些族群都是死亡數遠高於存活數。

big to small,

從最上層的掠食者到最下層的都有，

marine to freshwater.

從大到小都有，

The extinction was a filter.

從海洋到淡水都有。

It merely leveled the playing field.

滅絕是一種過濾。

What really counted was what survivors did over the next several million years

它只是把遊樂場給變平等了。

in that devastated world.

真正重要的是在接下來的數百年間，

The former overlords should have had an advantage.

生存者在那荒蕪的世界中做了什麼。

They became even larger,

先前的最高統治者應該會有優勢。

storing energy,

牠們變得更大了，

investing in their young,

儲存能量，

spreading across the globe,

投資在孩子身上，

feasting on fishes,

散佈到全球，

keeping what had always worked, and biding their time.

享用魚類，

Yet they merely persisted for a while,

保持向來的運作，等待牠們的時機。

declining without innovating,

但，牠們只堅持了一下子，

becoming living fossils.

沒有創新而衰落，

They were too stuck in their ways

變成了活化石。

and are now largely forgotten.

牠們太執著在自己的方式，

A few of the long-suffering ray-fins, sharks and four-legged tetrapods

現在大多已被遺忘。

went the opposite direction.

少數長期遭受苦難的輻鰭魚類、 鯊魚和四足動物，

They became smaller --

走的路則完全相反。

living fast, dying young,

牠們變小了──

eating little and reproducing rapidly.

生命過得很快，很早逝，

They tried new foods,

吃得少，繁殖快。

different homes,

牠們嘗試新食物，

strange heads and weird bodies.

不同的家園，

(Laughter)

奇怪的頭和怪異的身體。

And they found opportunity, proliferated,

（笑聲）

and won the future for their 60,000 living species,

牠們找到機會，增殖，

including you.

為牠們六萬個現存物種贏得了未來，

That's why they look familiar.

包括你們。

You know their names.

那就是為何牠們很眼熟。

Winning is not about random events

你們知道牠們的名字。

or an arms race.

要贏的重點

Rather, survivors went down alternative, evolutionary pathways.

不是隨機發生的事件或軍備競賽。

Some found incredible success,

而是倖存者走向 替代道路、演化的路徑。

while others became dead fish walking.

有些找到了極大的成功，

(Laughter)

其他的則是「行屍走魚」。

A real scientific term.

（笑聲）

(Laughter)

這是真的科學術語。

I am now investigating

（笑聲）

how these pathways to victory and defeat repeat across time.

我現在在研究

My lab has already compiled thousands upon thousands of dead fishes,

這些通往勝利和失敗的路徑 如何隨時間而重覆發生。

but many more remain.

我的實驗室已經收集了 數以千計的死魚，

However, it is already clear

但還有很多其他的。

that your ancestors' survival through mass extinction,

然而，已經能清楚知道，

and their responses in the aftermath

你們祖先在大滅絕中存活下來，

made you who you are today.

而牠們在事件後的反應，

What does this tell us for the future?

造成了現在的你們。

As long as a handful of species survive,

這告訴我們什麼關於未來的訊息？

life will recover.

只要還有少數物種存活，

The versatile and the lucky will not just replace what was lost,

生命就會恢復。

but win in new forms.

能隨機應變的、運氣好的物種， 不只會取代已失去的，

It just might take several million years.

還會以新形式來贏。

Thank you.

只是會花上數百萬年。

(Applause)

謝謝。