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【原文】
The human thirst for knowledge is the driving force behind our successful development as a species. But curiosity can also be dangerous, leading to setbacks or even downfalls. Given curiosity’s complexity, scientists have found it hard to define.
While pinning down a definition has proven tricky, the general consensus is it’s some means of information gathering. Psychologists also agree curiosity is intrinsically (内在地) motivated.
Curiosity covers such a large set of behaviors that there probably isn’t any single “curiosity gene” that makes humans wonder about and explore their environment. That said, curiosity does have a genetic component. Genes and the environment interact in many complex ways to shape individuals and guide their behavior, including their curiosity.
Regardless of their genetic makeup, infants have to learn an incredible amount of information in a short time, and curiosity is one of the tools humans have found to accomplish that gigantic task.
Hundreds of studies show that infants prefer novelty. It’s what motivates non-human animals, human infants and probably human adults to explore and seek out new things before growing less interested in them after continued exposure.
But curiosity often comes with a cost.
In some situations, the stakes are low and failure is a healthy part of growth. For instance, many babies are perfectly proficient crawlers, but they decide to try walking because there’s more to see and do when they stand upright. But this milestone comes at a small cost. A study of 12- to 19-month-olds learning how to walk documented that these children fell down a lot. Seventeen times per hour, to be exact. But walking is faster than crawling, so this motivates expert crawlers to transition to walking.
Sometimes, however, testing out a new idea can lead to disaster. For instance, the Inuit people of the Arctic regions have created incredible modes to deal with the challenges of living in northern climates, but what we forget about are the tens of thousands of people that tried and failed to make it in those challenging landscapes.
【翻译】
人类对知识的渴望是我们作为一个物种成功发展的动力。但好奇心可能也是危险的，它会导致挫折甚至失败。鉴于好奇心的复杂性，科学家们发现很难对其定义。
While pinning down a definition has proven tricky, the general consensus is it’s some means of information gathering. Psychologists also agree curiosity is intrinsically (内在地) motivated.
虽然确定定义很难，但普遍的共识是，这是一种信息收集的方式。心理学家也认为好奇心是有内在动机的。
好奇心涵盖了大量的行为，可能没有任何一个“好奇心基因”能让人类好奇和探索他们的环境。也就是说，好奇心确实有遗传成分。基因和环境以许多复杂的方式相互作用，塑造个体并指导他们的行为，包括他们的好奇心。
不管他们的基因构成如何，婴儿必须在短时间内学习大量的信息，而好奇心是人类完成这一艰巨任务的工具之一。
数百项研究表明，婴儿喜欢新奇的东西。这是促使非人类动物、人类婴儿甚至人类成年人探索和寻找新事物的动力，在不断接触这些事物后，他们会对这些事物失去兴趣。
但好奇心往往是有代价的。
在某些情况下，风险很低，失败是成长中健康的一部分。例如，许多婴儿都是熟练的爬行者，但他们决定尝试走路，因为当他们直立时，有更多的东西可以看和做。但这一里程碑的代价很小。一项针对12至19个月大的婴儿学习走路的研究表明，这些孩子经常摔倒。准确地说，每小时17次。但是走路比爬行快，所以这促使爬行专家转变为走路。
然而，有时，测试一个新想法可能会导致灾难。例如，北极地区的因纽特人创造了令人难以置信的模式来应对在北方气候条件下生活的挑战，但我们忘记了成千上万的人在这些具有挑战性的环境中尝试过，但都失败了。

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