原題：臉丢到國際上了：耶魯大學Stearns教授指責北大學生剽竊成風

To my students in Beijing, Fall 2007:

While grading papers today I encountered two more cases of plagiarism. One was sophisticated but serious. The other was so blatant that it was almost unbelievable. That makes a total of three students who have failed my courses because of plagiarism.

今天批閱論文的時候，我又遇到了兩例剽竊行爲。一例手法老練但是情節嚴重，另一例則是厚顔無恥得令人難以置信。這樣總計就有三名學生因爲剽竊而在我的課程中患案瘛?

If I had not warned you and given you the opportunity honestly to correct your essays, there would have been several more. I thank those of you who were honest and showed me what you had copied.

假如我前些時候沒有警告過你們，并給你們一次機會去誠實地改正你們的文章，這種事情還會多好幾例。有些同學誠實地告訴了我他們都抄襲了哪些部分，我向他們表示感謝。

Plagiarism disturbs me greatly, both because it corrodes my relationship with you as my students, and because it tells me things about China and Beida that neither you nor I want to hear.

這些剽竊行爲讓我非常苦惱，不但因爲它損害了你我之間的師生關系，也因爲它告訴了我一些關于北大、關于中國的事情，而這些事情是你我都不願意聽到的。

It corrodes my relationship with you because I work hard to be a good teacher, I take time to prepare good lectures, and I spend many hours providing detailed feedback on essays. It is hard work. You cannot imagine what it is like to correct the details of the 500th essay until you have done it yourself. I do that to help you learn to think more clearly, to express yourself convincingly, and to develop your intellectual power, your ability to understand the world. I also do it because I value you, I value your ideas, and I think the world will be a better place when you can all think clearly and behave intelligently. Later in life, some of you will be leaders with important positions. I want you to be competent and honest, for I have seen too often what terrible things can happen when leaders are incompetent and dishonest. Leadership aside, I want all of you to be able to create value in your lives, whatever you end up doing, and you cannot do that if you deceive.

它傷害了我們之間的關系，因爲我爲了當一名好老師而付出了許多努力。我花了許多時間準備課堂講授，又花了許多時間給你們的文章寫下詳盡的反饋。這些工作都很辛苦。你無法想象，當改到第500篇文章的細節的時候你是什麽感覺，除非你親身經曆。我做這一切，是爲了讓你們學會更清晰地思考問題，學會有說服力地表達自己的觀點，學會培養自己的理性，鍛煉自己理解世界的能力。我做這一切，也因爲我珍視你們，珍視你們的想法，而且我想，如果你們都能夠清晰地思考、明智地行動的話，這個世界也會變得更加美好。在以後的人生道路裏，你們當中有的人會成爲身居要位的領導，我希望你們能夠德才均備，因爲無德無才的領導者所能帶來的可怕災難，我已經見過太多了。就算不當領導，我也希望你們所有人都能在你們的生命中創造一些有價值的東西，無論你們最後從事什麽。而如果你欺騙的話，你是做不到這一點的。

When a student whom I am teaching steals words and ideas from an author without acknowledgment, I feel cheated, dragged down into the mud. I ask myself, why should I teach people who knowingly deceive me? Life is too short for such things. There are better things to do.

當我所教的學生從别人那裏偷竊話語和思想的時候，我感到受了欺騙，心情沉重如同跋涉泥沼。我會問自己，我爲什麽要給那些存心欺騙我的人上課呢？生命是如此的短暫，太不值得。有比這好得多的事情可以做。

Disturbingly, plagiarism fits into a larger pattern of behavior in China. China ignores international intellectual property rights. Beida sees nothing wrong in copying my textbook, for example, in complete violation of international copyright agreements, causing me to lose income, stealing from me quite directly. No one in China seems to care. I can buy DVDs in stores and on the street for about one US dollar. They cost $20-30 outside China; the artists who produced them are losing enormous amounts of stolen income, billions of dollars each year. China has become notorious for producing defective products that have to be recalled because the pose health threats to consumers. A recent cartoon in an American newspaper shows the Central Committee reacting to an accusation that they have violated human rights. The response? “Wait until they see what we put in their toothpaste next!” Corruption is a serious problem in a boomin g economy. For example, in the mining industry, about 5000 miners die each year and mine owners cut corners in violation of the law. The social fabric breaks when workers die because owners are greedy. The Mandate of Heaven is lost.

讓人不安的是，剽竊已經成爲整個中國行爲模式的一部分。中國忽視國際知識産權。比如說，複印我的書徹頭徹尾違反了國際版權協議，使我損失了收入，對我而言近乎直接的偷竊，然而北大人卻對此安之若素。再比如，我隻花大約一美元就能在街頭和店鋪買到DVD 光碟，這些碟片在别國要賣上二三十美元。創作它們的藝術家因此損失的大筆收入全是被偷走的，每年幾十億。因爲生産劣質商品對消費者造成潛在的健康威脅而不得不召回，中國已經是臭名昭著了。最近美國報紙上刊載的一幅漫畫描繪了中央委員會被指責侵犯人權。猜他們怎麽回答？“往他們牙膏裏擱點東西，看他們還敢吭聲不？”經濟繁榮的背後，腐敗已經成爲嚴重的問題。就拿礦業來說，每年大約有五千名礦工死去，就因爲礦主爲了省事爲了利潤而不惜違反法律。(譯注：cut corners 指貶義的抄近道，此爲意譯。) 礦主的貪婪導緻工人死去，象征着社會階層之間紐帶的斷裂。天道已喪。

China appears to have lost her way. Confucius said, do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you. He also said, a gentleman is honest. Honesty and reciprocity are the basis of trust and community. We cannot get along in a world filled with deceit and defection; such a world becomes a Hobbesian war of all against all, nasty and brutal. We cannot do science if we cannot trust what others publish. There is no reason to try to replicate a result if it cannot be trusted. It would not be worth the effort. Without replication there can be no shared knowledge that is tested and trustworthy - that is, no science. Without science, there can be no technology. And without technology, there can be no steady increase in productivity, economic growth, and a better life for al l.

中國似乎已經迷失了她的道路。孔子說過，己所不欲勿施于人。他還說過，人而無信不知其可。(直譯是君子有信，不過一時想不起原話是怎麽說的了。) 誠實互惠是信任與社群的基礎。在一個充滿欺詐和背叛的社會中，我們無法生存，這樣的世界成了霍布森(是他吧？哲概的東西快忘幹淨了)式的“每個人與每個人爲敵”的戰争，險惡而野蠻。若是我們不能相信别人發表的東西，我們就沒法做科研。誰都沒有理由去企圖重複一個不可信的結果，不值得費那功夫；而沒有重複就不會有經過驗證而可信靠、可共享的知識，也就沒有科學。沒有科學就不會有技術，沒有技術就不會有生産力的穩步發展，經濟水平的持續增長，也就不會給所有人都帶來更美好的生活。

The penalties for plagiarism that you will encounter later in life are very serious. If you do it as a graduate student, you can be expelled from university, and you will not get your degree. If you do it as a faculty member, you can lose your job. I know you may not believe that, for the sociology professor at Beida who translated an entire book into Chinese and published it with his name on it only lost his administrative positions but kept his professorship and salary. But things are not like that elsewhere . When plagiarism is detected in the United States, it can end the career of the person who did it. That is also true in Europe.

在你們今後的人生裏，剽竊将會遇到極爲嚴厲的懲罰。身爲研究生如果剽竊，就會直接開除，沒有學位。身爲教員如果剽竊，就會丢掉飯碗。我知道你們可能不信，因爲北大那位把整本書翻成中文就署上自己名字出版的社會學家 (這是誰啊…) 僅僅丢了行政職務，卻仍然保有教授之位和薪水。然而事情在别處并非如此。在美國如果發現有人剽竊，此人的職業生涯可以就此毀于一旦。歐洲亦然。

The fact that I have encountered this much plagiarism at Beida tells me something about the behavior of other professors and administrators here. They must tolerate a lot of it, and when they detect it, they cover it up without serious punishment, probably because they do not want to lose face. If they did punish it, it would not be this frequent.

我在北大遇見了如此之多的剽竊，這一事實說明了其它教授和行政官員的所作所爲。他們必然是對此頗爲容忍，而當發現有人剽竊時，他們未加嚴厲懲罰就遮掩過去，很可能是因爲他們不願丢臉。假如他們真的施以懲罰，剽竊決不會這麽猖獗。

I have greatly enjoyed teaching some of you. I have encountered young minds here that are as good as any in the world. Many of you are brave, most of you work very hard, most of you are honest, and some of you are brilliant. But I am leaving with very mixed feelings. It is quite sad that so many promising young Chinese think it is necessary to cheat to succeed. They damage themselves even more than the people from whom they steal and the people whom they deceive with stolen words.

給你們當中一些人上課的時候，我感受到了極大的喜悅。我在這裏遇到的年輕的頭腦，和世界上任何地方比起來都毫不遜色。你們當中許多人都很勇敢，大部分人都很努力，大部分人都很誠實，有些人相當聰明。然而當我離去時，心情是複雜的。這麽多前途無量的中國年輕人認爲要靠作弊才能成功，讓我十分傷心。比起那些被他們竊走思想的人，和那些被他們用竊來的的話語所欺騙的人，他們傷害得還要多的，是他們自己。

Sincerely, Steve Stearns

附：Stephen C. Stearns, Ph.D.

Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Yale University

Box 208106

Yale University

New Haven, CT 06520-8106 USA

phone: (203) 432 8452

email: stephen.stearns@yale.edu

Prof. Stearns specializes in life history evolution, which links the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology, in evolutionary medicine, and in evolutionary functional genomics. He came to Yale in 2000 from the University of Basel, Switzerland, where he had been professor of zoology since 1983 and held several administrative posts.

His books include "Evolution, an introduction" (Oxford, 2000) with Rolf Hoekstra, "Watching, from the Edge of Extinction" (Yale, 1999) with his wife Beverly Peterson Stearns, "The Evolution of Life Histories" (Oxford, 1992), and two edited volumes, "Evolution in health and disease" (Oxford, 1998) and "The Evolution of Sex and its Consequences."

A 1967 graduate of Yale College, Stearns earned a M.S. from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.

Prof. Stearns founded and has served as president of both the European Society for Evolutionary Biology and the Tropical Biology Association and was founding editor of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. He has been a vice president of the Society for the Study of Evolution and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.