But over the years, I have loved seeing generations of Yale College students embrace the opportunity to think broadly and study widely. You’ll also develop as flexible thinkers and clear communicators. These foxlike attributes will serve you well no matter what you do after graduation.

　　多年来，我很高兴看到一代又一代的耶鲁本科学生抓住机会，广泛地思考与学习。你们也将锻炼你们灵活思考和清楚交流的能力。无论你们毕业后从事什么样的工作，这些长项都能够对你们有所帮助。

　　In fact, there are good reasons to believe that learning to think like a fox may pay important dividends. As many of you know, I am a psychologist. And my research and teaching have focused in the field of social psychology. And there is a social psychologist named Philip Tetlock at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the ability of foxes versus hedgehogs – the human kind – to predict and prepare for the future. (Tetlock completed his doctoral work here at Yale in our Department of Psychology, by the way.)

　　实际上，我们有理由相信像狐狸一样思考有很多好处。你们可能知道，我是一个心理学家。我的研究范围和教学领域都集中在社会心理学方面。在宾夕法尼亚大学，有一位名叫菲利普·泰特洛克(Philip Tetlock)的社会心理学家，他研究了人类中的“狐狸”与“刺猬”的能力，来推测和筹备未来。(对了，泰特洛克的博士研究也是在耶鲁心理学系完成的。)

　　Tetlock’s research is focused on political judgment – the accuracy with which politicians, experts, pundits, and others predict outcomes in the world and how various actions might affect these outcomes. So, for example, would a hardline foreign policy by the United States with respect to North Korea weaken Chairman Kim’s iron-clad grip on that country? Yes or no? How likely? Will President Assad’s regime in Syria fall in the next year? Yes or no? How likely?

　　泰特洛克的研究重点是政治判断，就是评估政治家、专家和其他人对世界大势的预测准确性，以及各种行为会如何影响世界大势。比方说，美国对朝鲜的强硬外交政策是否会削弱金正恩对朝鲜的控制?明年，阿萨德政权在叙利亚是否会垮台?

　　Tetlock studied 284 prognosticators, experts who are paid to offer answers to questions in which they must predict the future about various world events. He analyzed 82,361 probability estimates made by these individuals in response to 27,450 forecasting questions, studying as well how they came to these judgments, and how they reacted when they were wrong, whether they revised their forecasts in response to new evidence.

　　泰特洛克选取了284名预测者进行有偿调研，调研中他们必须对未来的全球事件作出预测。泰特洛克分析了针对27,450个预测问题做出的82,361个概率估计，并研究了他们是如何做出这些判断、在发现错误时做出何种反应以及他们是否会根据新的证据修改预测结果。

　　He found that specialists in making predictions about such situations are about as accurate as you or I would be. Consider that: highly-trained, well-paid experts are no more likely to be correct when predicting future events than ordinary people. Well-established talking heads are worst of all. They often stubbornly and overconfidently adhere to their original theories – the ideas most associated with them – even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are wrong. Like hedgehogs, they stick with the point of view that made them famous and are dismissive of new information that contradicts their beliefs. They roll up into a ball.

　　他发现，这些预测者在这种情况下做出的判断与你我做出的结果一致。请大家注意这一点：在预测未来事件时，这些训练有素且高薪的专家，也并不能作出比普通人更准确的预测。那些经常发表空开言论的人则更固执。他们常常对自己之前的理论和观点过于自信和执拗，即使面对压倒性的证据，他们也不愿意相信自己是错误的。如同刺猬一样，他们坚持自己的观点，不屑于了解与自己观点相悖的新信息。

　　However, Tetlock did find some individuals who were better at predicting the future. As he describes them, these are “thinkers who know many small things (tricks of the trade).” They “are skeptical of grand schemes,” and they are willing to “stitch…together diverse sources of information.” Perhaps most important, they are not overly confident in “their own forecasting prowess….” In other words, they are humble, critical, well-informed, and flexible thinkers; in short, they are foxes. Foxes are the best prognosticators.

　　但是同时，泰特洛克确实发现了一些能够很好预测未来的人。泰特洛克将他们称为“了解很多小事情的思想家”。他们对一些宏观计划保持怀疑态度，并且愿意将各种信息拼凑在一起。或许更重要的是他们对自己的预测能力不够自信。换句话说，他们是谦虚、批判、消息灵通且思维灵活的思想家。简单地说，他们就是狐狸。狐狸就是最好的预言家。

　　So, what does the fox say? (So you’re going to explain to your parents what that’s all about, right? That’s always between us, and 680 million people who have viewed that YouTube video.) The fox says, (fox doesn’t say ‘hide in a hole’, what it says on the video,) what the fox says is “I want to listen carefully, engage, explore, use my natural curiosity, and perhaps – in the end – outwit the others!” Foxes don’t get information only from sources with which they agree. When confronted by contrary ideas, the fox says, “bring it on.” Foxes are resilient. And they not only respond better to challenges – they may even be able to predict what challenges they will face down the road better than their hedgehog friends.

　　那么，狐狸说什么呢?(这个问题，你们可以用现代话语解释给你们的父母)狐狸说：“我想去仔细倾听，去参与、去探索，充分利用我的好奇心，最终超越别人!”狐狸不仅从他们认同的观点中获取知识和信息，对于一些他们不同意的观点，狐狸也会说“来吧，没问题。”狐狸是灵活的，他们不仅可以在面对挑战时做出更好地反应，甚至可以预测到将来可能会遇到的困难。

　　All around us, we are surrounded by foxes who have shaped our lives and our world. In the last few days, some of you moved into one of Yale’s two new residential colleges, Pauli Murray or Benjamin Franklin. I am thrilled that we can offer a Yale College education to 15 percent more students in each cohort, starting with you – the Class of 2021. And it’s amazing how lovely and “Yale-like” the new colleges are; and yes, you can still create Gothic architecture in 2017. Others of you are the first to live as freshmen in Grace Hopper College; you are also part of something new and exciting. Benjamin Franklin, Pauli Murray, Grace Hopper – our three new college namesakes – they share some common attributes. All three were curious individuals who never stopped learning new things. And all of them were exemplary foxes.

　　我们的周围充满了“狐狸”，他们塑造了我们的生活和世界。前几天，你们中的一些人搬进了耶鲁今年新设立的两所寄宿学院——保利·默里(Pauli Murray)学院和本杰明·富兰克林(Benjamin Franklin)学院(耶鲁大学针对本科生实施学院住宿制，耶鲁大学的住宿学院系以其著名校友命名，目前共有15所住宿学院)。我很高兴两所学院的设立让更多学生来到耶鲁，成为2021届学生们的一员。新学院充满“耶鲁”风，而且在2017年，你们同样可以入住哥特式建筑中。你们当中有人成为入住格雷斯学院(Grace Hopper College)的第一批新生。本杰明·富兰克林(Benjamin Franklin)、保利·默里(Pauli Murray)和格蕾丝·霍珀(Grace Hoppe)——我们的新学院以他们命名，他们三个人有着共同的特质——充满好奇心，从未停止学习新事物。 他们都是典型的狐狸。

　　It’s probably obvious to you that Ben Franklin had a foxlike intellect, which he drew upon as an inventor, a statesman, a writer. His response to seemingly insurmountable challenges? Invent something. And so Franklin, witnessing the destructive power of electricity, develops the lightening rod; has difficulty seeing both near and far in middle age and so invents bifocals; needs a source of indoor heating less smoky than a fireplace and therefore builds what we now call the Franklin stove. And I don’t even want to know what problem he was trying to solve when he invented the flexible catheter!

　　显而易见，作为一名发明家、政治家兼作家，本杰明·富兰克林(Ben Franklin)有着狐狸般的才智。面对看似无法克服的挑战，他总是通过发明东西来应对。富兰克林意识到电的破坏力，因此发明了避雷针;到中年视力受阻，于是发明了双光眼镜;当人们需要一种比壁炉更少烟味的室内采暖工具时，富兰克林发明了所谓的“富兰克林炉”。我甚至不想知道他在发明软导管时想要解决什么问题!

　　As a diplomat, Franklin’s contributions to international relations were characterized less by ideology (the hedgehog’s approach) and more by flexible statesmanship (a foxlike strategy). He gained the support of France for the cause of American independence by articulating Enlightenment ideas to an appreciative audience, endearing himself and his insights to his French counterparts. Moreover, Franklin was perfectly willing to change his mind, as evidenced by his embrace of the abolitionist cause later in his life.

　　作为一名外交官，富兰克林对于国际关系的贡献在意识形态方面(刺猬的方法)较少，而更多表现为一个灵活的政治家(狐狸般的策略)。在美国独立战争期间，他通过向群众传播启蒙思想，通过表达自己的深刻见解，赢得了法国政府的支持。此外，富兰克林非常愿意改变他的想法，比如晚年他接受废奴主义。

　　Two centuries hence, Pauli Murray arrived at Yale to complete a doctorate in law. By this point, she was already an accomplished attorney and a civil rights pioneer. While Murray was at Yale, her friend Eleanor Roosevelt tapped her to serve on the President’s Commission on the Status of Women. It was during this time that Murray developed the novel approach of using the 14th Amendment to combat sex discrimination, doing the research to support her ideas right here in Sterling Library. Legal scholars up until that time had viewed this amendment as providing due process and equal protection under the law regardless of race, religion, or heritage, but Murray saw in it another path…she saw in it another path for the advancement of civil rights. A short time later, while working on her thesis in New Haven, Murray wrote a memorandum that helped ensure the inclusion of protections on the basis of sex in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

　　两个世纪后，保利·默里(Pauli Murray)来到耶鲁大学完成法学博士学位。当时她已经是一位很有成就的律师和民权先锋了。默里就读耶鲁期间，她的朋友埃莉诺·罗斯福(Eleanor Roosevelt)鼓励她到总统妇女地位委员会(the President’s Commission on the Status of Women)任职。正是在那段时间，默里提出了使用第十四修正案来反对性别歧视的新方法，并广泛的进行研究以支持她的观点。当时法律学者认为这项修正案是在法律框架下提供正当程序说明和平等保护，但在默里看来，这恰恰是促进公民权利的另一条道路。不久之后，默里撰写了一份备忘录，确保在1964年《民权法》中纳入基于性别的保护。

　　Pauli Murray was many things: a poet, a writer, an attorney, a legal scholar, an advocate for racial justice, and one of the founders of the National Organization for Women. She never stopped learning or trying new things. At the age of 62, she entered General Theological Seminary in New York and three years later, became the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Throughout her life, she listened, learned, and adapted to new challenges with astonishing success.

　　默里有多重身份：诗人、作家、律师、法律学者、种族平等的倡导者以及国家妇女组织(the National Organization for Women)的创始人之一。她从未停止学习，一直在不断尝试新事物。在她62岁时，她进入纽约圣公会总会神学院(General Theological Seminary)，三年后成为第一位非裔女性圣公会牧师。在她的一生中，她善于倾听、学习、适应新的挑战，最终取得了惊人的成功。

　　Finally, Admiral Grace Hopper. She epitomizes the fox’s flexible intellect. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale, and after Pearl Harbor, she enlisted in the Navy, where she was assigned to work on one of the world’s first computers. Although her preparation in mathematics was important, Hopper had to think beyond what she had learned in school. Yale had not taught her to be a computer scientist – in fact, the profession didn’t even exist yet – but she had learned to think and solve problems. Hopper loved to say, “The most damaging words in the English language are, ‘It’s always been done that way.’” So, a lifelong maverick, Grace Hopper relied on her curiosity and her willingness to take risks, and in the process, she transformed the way we use computers, influencing all our lives.

　　最后，我们讲的是有着狐狸般智慧的格雷斯·霍珀少将(Grace Hopper)。她在耶鲁大学获得数学博士学位，珍珠港事件后加入了海军，被分配参加了世界上第一台计算机的发明工作。在数学方面的知识储备固然重要，但霍珀不得不超越课堂知识进行思考。耶鲁没有教她如何成为一名计算机科学家，这个职业在那时甚至不存在，但她已经学会了思考如何解决问题。霍珀常说，“英语中最具破坏性的一句话就是，‘它就是这样。’”因此，作为一个终身特立独行的人，格蕾丝·霍珀(Grace Hopper)凭借她的好奇心和冒险精神，最终改变了人类使用电脑的方式，影响了我们的生活。

　　Members of the Class of 2021: I am proud and delighted that you’ll be able to pursue an education here at Yale. Like Franklin, Murray, Hopper, and a host of other foxes, you will develop your intellect in broad and flexible ways. You will learn to be careful thinkers, suspicious of easy answers and received wisdom. You will hone these skills so that you may work effectively with others – in the words of Yale’s mission statement – you’ll work with others to “…improve the world today and for future generations….” I know that you will experience great pleasure in becoming foxes yourselves.

　　2021届的学生们：我为你们能在耶鲁大学接受教育而感到自豪和高兴。像富兰克林、莫里、霍珀和许多其他的狐狸一样，你们将以广泛而灵活的方式开拓思维，将学会成为谨慎的思考者，具备批判的思维并获得知识。你们将接受磨练，学会有效地与他人合作。正如耶鲁的愿景：“改善当今世界和未来。”我相信，在变成狐狸的过程中你们会收获巨大的幸福和成就。