39. 现在人人都在作弊吗？

我希望我让你感觉难受了，史蒂文。

I hope I've made you feel bad, Steven.

并没有。

Not very.

嘿，我是安吉拉·达克沃斯。

Hey. I'm Angela Duckworth.

我是史蒂文·杜布纳。您正在收听《没有愚蠢的问题》。

I'm Steven Dubner. And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

今天节目的话题是：作弊纯粹是一种道德决定吗？

Today on the show, is cheating purely a moral decision?

我就是那种人，考试时写答案的时候

I'd be the guy who, when I was writing in the test You

你会用胳膊肘

would put your elbow you

知道这个操作吗？还有，是不断学习新技能更好，还是深入钻研你擅长的领域更好？

know that move? Also, what's better, to keep learning new skills or to go deep on what you're good at?

她一直在挖走一对又一对。史蒂文，前几天我和我女儿露西聊天，我很担心，因为她告诉我现在作弊现象非常普遍。

She's just been poaching one pair after the other. Steven, I was talking to my daughter, Lucy, the other day, and I'm very worried because she was telling me that cheating is epidemic right now.

因为虚拟教育。

Because of virtual education.

是的。学生们在家参加微积分考试。所以我在想，你个人有没有这方面的经历？比如，你有没有在微积分考试或其他任何考试中作弊，愿意在节目中承认的？

Yeah. Students are at home taking their calculus exams. So I'm wondering, is this something that you have any personal experience with? Have you ever cheated, for example, on a calculus test or anything else you admit to on the air?

嗯，在我年轻的时候，我们没法通过在线教育作弊。

Well, back when I was a young man, we couldn't cheat with the online education.

那些新奇的在线玩意儿。它

Those newfangled online. It

这个话题我很感兴趣，因为我有两个孩子都在上大学，他们也一直在跟我谈论每个人都在作弊的情况。

is a topic of interest to me because I have two kids who are both in college, and they've also been talking to me about how everybody's cheating.

他们差不多就是这么说的。他们会说，哦，是啊，每个人都在作弊。

That's kind of the way they phrase it. They're like, oh, yeah. Everybody's cheating.

是的。我想我确实有些想法。我记得是W. C. Fields曾经说过，值得拥有的东西就值得为之作弊。

Yeah. I guess I do have some thoughts. I think it was W. C. Fields who once said, a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

所以我们现在谈论的是一种原始行为。显然，这种行为从时间之初就伴随着我们。首先，直接回答你的问题，我得承认，我从来不是一个爱作弊的人。我在学校没有作弊，我想是因为我本来就是个相当不错的学生，说实话。所以我没必要作弊。

So we are talking about a primordial act here. This has been obviously with us since the beginning of time. First, just to answer your question directly, I have to admit, I was never much of a cheater. I didn't cheat at school, I think, because I was a pretty good student, honestly. So I didn't have to cheat.

你没有那么大的需求或动机。

You didn't have as much of a need or incentive.

而且我要告诉你，这让我想起了一些不愉快的回忆，特别是两件事。一件是有人想抄我的答案，而我觉得我对此反应过于激烈了。我觉得我当时处理得很混蛋。

And I will tell you, this brings back some unpleasant memories, two in particular. One is there were people who wanted to cheat off of me, and I think I disliked it too intensely. I think I was a jerk about it.

你说处理得很混蛋是什么意思？他们可是想抄你的啊。

What do you mean being a jerk about it? They're trying to cheat off of you.

我知道。但我会是那种人，比如，当我在考试中答题时，你

I know. But I'd be the guy who, like, when I was writing in the test You

你会用胳膊肘做那个动作吗？

would put your elbow you know that move?

我知道那个动作。整个肩膀都要用上。

I know that move. Your whole shoulder.

然后你把页面翻上去。你做过这种事吗？

And then you flip up the page. Have you ever done that?

当然做过。我对此并不自豪。

Of course. I'm not proud of this.

你说不自豪是什么意思？史蒂文，那个人是在作弊。得了吧。

What do you mean you're not proud of it? Steven, that person was cheating. Come on.

我当时很矛盾。我告诉自己，我很幸运这对我来说很容易，而他们不行。但我并没有大方到让他们作弊。后来高中时发生了一件事，我被指控在数学考试中作弊。我想是三角学考试，我并没有作弊，我气坏了。

I was conflicted. I told myself, I'm lucky that this is easy for me, and they're not. But I wasn't so charitable as to let them cheat. Then there was one incident in high school where I was accused of cheating on a math test. I think it was trig, and I hadn't, and I was livid.

他们怎么会认为你作弊？因为你的答案看起来可疑地正确？

How did they think you were cheating? Because your answers look suspiciously correct?

直到今天，我依然不知道原因。那位老师之前教过我所有的哥哥姐姐。我是八个孩子中最小的一个。我们在学校表现大多不错，成绩并不差。我记得那次考试我得了98分。

To this day, I do not know. It was a teacher who had taught all of my brothers and sisters before me. I was the youngest of eight. We mostly did pretty well in school, so it wasn't like we were making crap grades. I think I got a 98 on this test.

她让我课后留下来，对我说了类似这样的话：'我认为你这个成绩来得不诚实，真的不诚实，我要你明天单独在这个教室重考。'我当时更多的是震惊，因为信不信由你，那时候我数学其实相当好。然后她让我第二天重考，我记得得了99分。她从未道歉，这对我来说是一次非常特别的经历，因为——说来惭愧——我确实对她怀恨在心。

She asked me to come up afterwards, and she said something to the effect of, I don't think you came by this grade honestly, honestly, and I want you to take the test alone tomorrow in this room. And I was more flabbergasted than anything because I was actually pretty good at math, believe it or not, way back when. And then she made me take the test again the next day. I think I got a 99. She never apologized, and it was a really interesting experience for me because, first of all, I'm ashamed to say I held the grudge against her.

后来我开始写书后，这位数学老师有一次出现在我的读书会上，想让我给她的书签名。

This math teacher once showed up at a book reading after I'd started writing books, wanted her book signed.

然后你拒绝了？

And you said no?

你知道，我是个有礼貌的人。我可能展现了自己最有礼貌版本中的最不礼貌一面——我签了名，但没在签名旁画笑脸。

You know, I'm a polite person. I was probably the most impolite version of polite that I can be, so I signed it, but I didn't put a smiley face on the signature.

哦，不错。你让她见识到了。不过，你也应该有些同理心才对。

Oh, good. You showed her. You know, you also should have some empathy though.

零同理心。

Zero.

不，得了吧。我认识一位教授，他告诉我上学期有个学生交的期末书面作业明显存在大量抄袭，甚至可能是全文抄袭。对这位教授来说，处理这种违规行为真是件麻烦事。那个学生还请了律师。

No. Come on. I know a professor who told me that last semester, they had a student who turned in a final written assignment and clearly plagiarized much, if not all of it. And it was such a pain in the you know what for this professor to prosecute this infraction. The student hired a lawyer.

现在这件事还要上诉，要开很多很多会议，还要见系主任。我得说，对你那位年长的数学老师有点同情心吧。作为一名教师，即使只是关心这些事情都需要很大的勇气和正直品格。

Now it's gonna go to appeal and many, many meetings and deans. And I have to say, have some sympathy for your old math teacher. It takes a lot of courage and integrity to even care about these things as a teacher should.

你让我对这个刻薄的老师产生了一丁点儿微乎其微的同情心碎片。

You've given me a fraction of an iota of a shard of empathy for this mean teacher.

我是说，我希望我让你感到愧疚了，史蒂文。

I was saying I hope I've made you feel bad, Steven.

不太愧疚。没有。听着，我看过心理学等领域的研究，说我们大多数人都会稍微作弊一点，但我们会用'我大体上是个好人，这只是可接受的程度'来合理化自己的行为。

Not very. No. So listen. I've seen research from psychology and elsewhere saying that most of us cheat just a little bit, but we rationalize it by saying that I'm mostly a good person, and this is an acceptable level of it.

嗯，你看。我觉得我当学生时没有作弊。当然，我现在希望自己不是在像大多数人那样，只是给自己塑造一个相对诚实的形象。因为存在所有这些边界案例，灰色地带，你可以把自己做的事解释为不是作弊。丹·艾瑞里已经记录了不诚实行为背后的动机确实是我们想给自己一点优势，同时创造一个'我不是那么坏的人'的叙事。

Well, look. I think that I didn't cheat when I was a student. I'm now, of course, hoping that I'm not just doing what most people do, which is creating an image of themselves as a reasonably honest person. Because there are all these border cases, the gray zone where you could interpret what you did not as cheating. And Dan Arieli has documented the motivation behind dishonesty really is that we can give ourselves a little edge and create a narrative where we're not such a bad guy.

所以对我来说，有趣的问题是在特定情况下，一个人为什么会作弊或不作弊？我认为原因有很多。我们在第一本和第二本《魔鬼经济学》书中写过不同类型的作弊行为。你提到了睁一只眼闭一只眼的学校老师，我们还写过那些实际上通过作弊来提高学生考试成绩的老师。

So to me, the interesting question is why does one cheat or not cheat in a given circumstance? And I think there are a lot of reasons. So we wrote a bit in our first and second Freakonomics books about different kinds of cheating. You mentioned school teachers who look the other way. We wrote about school teachers who actually did the cheating to make their students' test scores higher.

哦，是的。我记得读过那篇文章。

Oh, yes. I remember reading that.

我们写过日本相扑选手作弊的事情。后来在《超级魔鬼经济学》中，我们还写了另一件事，可能很多人不觉得那是作弊，但我认为确实是。我们写了一些声称证明利他主义的实验室实验。这些实验围绕最后通牒游戏和独裁者游戏设计，研究对象通常是大学生，他们会得到一些钱，然后可以选择将部分钱转给陌生人或不转，而他们通常都会转。这形成了一种普遍认知，认为人的本性是利他主义的。

We wrote about sumo wrestlers in Japan who cheated. And then we also wrote in Super Freakonomics about something that might not strike many people as cheating, but I would argue that it was. We wrote about these lab experiments that purported to show altruism. These were experiments built around the ultimatum and dictator games where the research subjects, who were usually college students, were given some money, and then they had an option to pass along some of that money to a stranger or not pass along, and they usually did. And this informed a conventional wisdom that people are at baseline altruistic.

但后来包括约翰·利斯特在内的新一代研究人员发现，这种看似利他的行为实际上是受到监督的结果，这些研究对象之所以更愿意给钱，是因为他们知道自己被观察，并且在意自己的声誉。我们知道监督确实能抑制作弊行为。所以你可以认为这是一种通过提升声誉甚至自尊心来作弊的形式。

But then a later generation of researchers, including John List, showed that what looked like altruism was in fact the product of scrutiny, that these research subjects were more likely to be giving money because they knew they were being observed, and they had some concern about their reputation. And we know that scrutiny certainly constrains cheating. So you might consider that a form of cheating to boost your reputation or maybe even your self esteem.

哦，你是说在这种情况下捐钱，或者甚至不抄袭答案，因为你认为有人在看着你，并会对你的品格下结论，或者

Oh, you mean giving away the money in that case or even not copying answers because you think people are watching you and gonna come to conclusions about your character or

诸如此类。没错。

whatever. Exactly.

嗯，你看。从定义上讲，我认为作弊可以定义为为了自身利益而采取的不诚实行为。所以我认为这不符合不诚实的要求。如果我不作弊是因为我觉得有人在看，或者我因为有人看而做了某件事，那其实不算作弊。

Well, look. Definitionally, I think cheating could be defined as dishonesty in the service of self benefit. And so I think that fails the requirement that it's dishonesty. If I don't cheat because I think people are watching or if I do do something because people are watching, that's not really cheating.

好吧。但假设你去教堂，募捐篮传过来时，你放了一张20美元的钞票。也许别人看到了，也许没有，等等等等。然后教堂活动一结束，你去商店买东西，找零时他们多给了你20美元。

Okay. But let's say that you go to church and the collection basket comes around and you put a $20 bill in the collection basket. Maybe other people see it, maybe they don't, etcetera, etcetera. And then right after church, you go to the store and buy something and you get your change, and they give you an extra $20 bill.

这两件事我都经历过，史蒂文。

Both of these things have happened to me, Steven.

所以我猜你把那20美元还回去了。

So I'm assuming that you returned the 20.

是的。这事发生在麦当劳，我走出几个街区后才意识到。我当时就想

I did. This happened to me at McDonald's, and I figured it out blocks away. And I was like

所以你开车返回了好几个街区？

So you drove back many blocks?

呃，我只能走回去。

Well, I had to walk back.

我们这位小亚伯拉罕·林肯——我猜当时下着雪，而且很冷吧？

Our little Abraham Lincoln here was it snowing, I'm guessing, and really cold?

是啊。来回都是上坡路。开玩笑的。不过我当时确实觉得唉。而且我可能还带着点可笑的道德优越感，因为不得不重新排队。

Yeah. Uphill both ways. No. But I did feel like oy. And I probably did feel some sense of ridiculous moral righteousness because I had to stand in line again.

确实非常不方便。

It was really inconvenient.

所以你排队然后说，不好意思。这是你的钱。

So you stand in line and say, excuse me. This is your money.

是的。我当时说，你多找了我20块。然后，实际上那天我学到了点东西，因为他们说，哦，谢谢你。我猜可能是因为这些收银机的工作方式，至少这家麦当劳是这样，如果交班时金额不对，差额会从那个收银员的口袋里扣。

Yeah. I was like, you gave me a 20 back. And then, actually, I learned something that day because they're like, oh, thank you. Because I guess the way these registers work or at least this particular McDonald's, it comes out of that cashier's pocket. If you don't make the right amount when you turn in your tray, guess what?

得由他们自己掏钱补上。

You're paying for it.

这很有意思，因为我原本以为你可能会遇到一个委托代理问题，即收钱的人并不真的在意。但如果他们确实在意，那是件好事。你明显帮了他们一个大忙。

It's interesting because I was assuming that you might have run into a principal agent problem there where the person who was accepting the money didn't really care. But if indeed they did care, that's a good thing. You did them a solid plainly.

而且，你知道，关于诚实和作弊，我认为这与Ariely等人的研究相当一致。当我们认为没人在看时，我们更有可能在边缘地带，四舍五入或做任何有利于自身利益的事情。通常，Ariely等人发现我们不会做太过分的事，真的就是处在边界线上。对吧？

And, you know, here's the thing about honesty and cheating that I think is pretty consistent with research by Ariely and others. When we don't think anybody is looking, we're more likely to, on the edges, round up or down or do whatever it is that advances our own self interest. Usually, I think Arieli and others find that we don't do egregious things. It really is on the border. Right?

我们不会直接闯进别人的卧室拿走他们所有的钱，但我们可能会在对方多找20块时选择睁一只眼闭一只眼。所以对我来说问题是，如果我们知道在被监视时会更诚实，那么我们能否对自己施加更强的监督呢？

We don't just, like, go into somebody's bedroom and take all their money, but we might look the other way when we get back $20 extra. So the question for me is, if we know that we're more honest when we are being watched, then are we able to impose upon ourself greater surveillance?

这确实很有趣，因为疫情的原因。技术已经大大改变了考试的管理方式。比如说ProctorU，你熟悉ProctorU吗？你们使用它吗？

It is really interesting because of the pandemic. Technology has changed a lot with how tests, in particular, are administered. For instance, ProctorU are you familiar with ProctorU, and do you use it?

我不熟悉。那是什么？

I'm not. What is it?

它是一个在线监考服务。据我理解，他们的工作是设置考试，让你可以或多或少地控制作弊的机会，然后实际观察并确认是否发生了作弊行为。他们收集了2020年6月到2020年12月的一些数据，也就是疫情最严重的时候。疫情之前，他们抓到的作弊人数不到他们监考考试的1%，但之后这个比例上升到了8%以上。

So it is a online proctoring service. Their job is to set up tests, as I understand it, in a way that you can make more or less opportunity for cheating available and that you can then actually observe and confirm if there has been cheating. And they gathered some data from June 2020 to December 2020, so kinda heart of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, they caught people cheating on fewer than one percent of the exams that they administered, but then the rate rose to above eight percent.

哇。八倍的增长。这简直是一场流行病了。

Wow. An eightfold increase. Now that's an epidemic.

虽然你可能会说，嗯，8%。还不到十分之一。这不算太糟。

Although you may say, well, eight percent. That's fewer than one in ten. That's not bad.

92%的人没有作弊。

Ninety two percent of people aren't cheating.

但关于这一点，我有两点要说。一是这些学生知道他们正在被监视。所以你可以想象在其它情况下作弊率会高得多。一位研究作弊和监控的学者唐纳德·麦凯布，收集了关于大学本科生和研究生的广泛证据。他的证据表明——这是调查数据，所以我不知道它的可靠性有多强——但他的证据显示，39%的本科生承认在考试中作弊。

But I should say two things about that. One is these are students who know they are being watched. So you could imagine circumstances in which the cheating is much, much higher. A scholar of cheating and surveillance, Donald McCabe, collected evidence across a wide span about undergraduate students in college and graduate students in college. And his evidence argues this is survey data, so I don't know how strong it is, but his evidence shows that thirty nine percent of undergraduates admit to cheating on tests.

哇。

Wow.

顺便说一下，这是疫情前很久的数据，有62%的学生承认在书面作业中作弊。

This is way pre pandemic, by the way, and sixty two percent admit to cheating on written assignments.

所以大多数学生都承认在书面作业中作弊。

So the majority of students admit to cheating on their written assignments.

那些是本科生。你觉得研究生的数据会是什么样子？

Those are undergraduates. Now what would you suspect the numbers would look like for graduate students?

我猜会更低，因为他们更有内在动力。

I'm gonna go with lower because they're more intrinsically motivated.

确实更低。研究生中承认考试作弊的比例约为17%，而本科生是39%，所以不到一半。承认在书面作业中作弊的比例是40%对62%。

And they are indeed lower. So it's about half the percent of graduate students who admit to cheating on tests is seventeen percent versus thirty nine, so less than half. And the share who admit to cheating on written assignments, forty percent versus sixty two percent.

仍然比我希望的要高。

Still higher than I would like.

这确实触及了一个有趣的问题：为什么特定的人在特定情况下会选择作弊。我们在《魔鬼经济学》中写到的作弊教师数据中，老师们作弊的方式是：他们组织考试，收上学生的答题卡，然后直接擦掉错误答案，填上正确答案。

It does get at the interesting question about the reason for why a given person in a given circumstance is going to cheat. The cheating school teacher data that we wrote about in Freeconomics, the way that the teachers cheated was they would give an exam, they would collect the score sheets from the kids, and then they would literally erase wrong answers and fill in correct ones.

哦，这完全不属于灰色地带了。

Oh, that is not in the gray zone.

确实很恶劣。但当史蒂夫·列维特分析最可能和最不可能这样做的教师特征时，他的发现非常引人入胜。最可能作弊的是那些最差的老师——听到这个结论的瞬间你就会觉得合理。他们作弊的原因是

It's pretty bad. But then when Steve Levitt analyzed the characteristics of the teachers who were most and least likely to do that, what he found was fascinating. It was the worst teachers who were most likely to cheat, which the minute you hear that, it makes sense. The reason they are cheating

他们能获得更多好处。

They have more to gain.

没错，他们需要作弊是因为教学效果太差。

Well, they need to cheat because they're doing poorly.

这和你学生时代的经历正好相反。比如你不需要作弊是因为你会做三角函数。而这些老师是潜在获益更大的人。所以尽管表面看是道德和品格问题，但深层次来说——我想这很列维特，很魔鬼经济学——其实存在成本收益计算。不过我仍然认为，真正最诚实的人根本不会做任何算计。

This is the opposite of your schoolboy experience. Like, you didn't need to cheat because you knew how to do trig. These are teachers who stood to benefit more. So even though it seems like the domain of morality and character that underneath it all, and I guess this is very Levitt, very Freakonomics, there's a cost benefit. I still think, though, that the people who are truly the most honest people are not making any kind of calculations.

他们不会这样想：我能获得多少收益？概率有多大？这就是为什么人们都说，品格是无人注视时的行为表现。

They're not thinking like, well, what's the probability that I will gain, and how much will I gain? And this is why they all say character is what you do when nobody's looking.

我也认为，不仅要看某人在特定情况下作弊的原因，还要看他们是在欺骗谁或伤害谁，这一点很重要。在体育运动中，为获胜而作弊并不被视为不良行为。什么？好吧。作弊有不同的程度。

I also think it's important to look at not just the reason that a particular person is going to cheat in a particular circumstance, but who they are cheating against or who they are hurting. So in sports, cheating to win is not considered bad form. What? Okay. There are different degrees of cheating.

但假设你观看一场NFL传球进攻，进攻线卫几乎总是有阻挡犯规，但很少被吹罚。这也是一种作弊形式。每个外接手试图摆脱角卫时都在尝试推人，每个角卫都在试图抓球衣。在体育中为获胜而作弊通常不被视为不良行为。

But let's say if you watch a given NFL play, a passing play, there is almost always a hold on an offensive lineman that is rarely called. So that is a form of cheating. Every receiver that tries to get free of a cornerback is trying to push off. Every cornerback is trying to grab the jersey. Cheating in the service of winning in sport is generally not considered bad form.

然而，如果在体育中，你作弊是为了输球，比如打假球、操纵比赛

However, if in sport, you cheat to lose, if you throw a game, if you fix a match

哦，这很有意思。

Oh, that's interesting.

就像1919年的芝加哥黑袜队，或者著名的CCNY篮球队，我记得大概是1951年左右。如果你那样做，你将永远被钉在体育界的耻辱柱上。在团队运动中，人们某种程度上期望你尽可能扩大优势。棒球运动员马克·格雷斯据说曾讲过，如果你不作弊，说明你不够努力。所以在这种情况下，你是在努力获胜，这是一场零和游戏。这与，比如说，你我的孩子现在正坐在线上课堂里的情况，真的非常不同。

Like the 1919 Chicago Black Sox or the famous CCNY basketball team, I think it was in 1951 or something, If you do that, you will be forever consigned to a deep circle of sporting hell. In team sports, you're kind of expected to push your advantage as far as you absolutely can. And if you don't go at least a little bit over the line Mark Grace, a baseball player, once reportedly said, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. So there, you are trying to win, and it's a zero sum game. That's really different than, let's say, your kids or my kids sitting now in online classes.

所以，我作为教授向你提问：在这种情况下，谁赢了？谁输了？

So here's my question to you as a professor. Who's winning? Who's losing in that circumstance?

我暂且不谈'作弊是否几乎是竞争精神中的预期行为'这个问题，因为这在我看来非常不对。不过话说回来，我从未真正参与过体育运动，所以我知道什么呢？但直接回答你的问题，谁获益，谁受损？我想，考试作弊时谁获益是相当清楚的——是你，因为你得到了更好的成绩。

I'm gonna leave aside this question of whether cheating is almost expected in the spirit of competition because that just sounds very wrong to me. Then again, I've never really played a sport, so what do I know? Answering your question directly, though, who stands to gain and who stands to lose? I guess who stands to gain when you cheat on a test is pretty clear. You because you get a better grade.

谁会吃亏呢？我猜有些人可能作弊，认为没人会吃亏。对吧？因为你没有直接伤害另一个人。你得了98分并不意味着他们就得72分。

Who stands to lose? I guess some people probably cheat and think nobody stands to lose. Right? Because you're not directly injuring another person. Just that you got a 98 doesn't mean that they got a 72.

你可以得98分，他们也可以得98分。

You could get a 98, and they could get a 98.

但你接受这种推理吗？

But do you accept that reasoning?

嗯，我认为肯定有

Well, I think that for sure, there

是

is

某种代价，比如信任的侵蚀，而且总会有一些比较。所以，你知道，你把自己的分数虚报到98分，现在让别人的成绩不那么有价值了。但说实话，史蒂文，我认为这不是重点。这是功利主义和义务论道德之间的区别。功利主义者会说，让我们把成本和收益加起来。

some cost in the sense that, like, there's an erosion of trust, and there is always some comparison. So, you know, the fact that you inflated your score to a 98 now makes the other person's grades not as worthwhile. But, honestly, Steven, I think it's beside the point. This is the difference between utilitarian and deontological morality. The utilitarians would say, let's add up the cost and the benefits.

让我们乘以概率。也许有时候作弊结果是正确的做法。也许有时候结果是错误的做法。让我们看看数学怎么说。而义务论推理说，有些事情在原则上是错误的，你永远不应该做它们。

Let's multiply them to our probabilities. Maybe sometimes cheating comes out as the right thing to do. Maybe sometimes it comes out as the wrong thing to do. Let's see what the math says. And deontological reasoning says there are certain things that on principle are wrong, and thou shalt never do them.

而且我不想听什么成本效益分析。我必须说，诚实和上交不是你做的工作，这在我看来完全属于原则问题，而不是功利主义的算计。

And I don't wanna hear about costs and benefits. And I have to say that honesty and turning in work that you didn't do, this to me feels very much in the realm of principle as opposed to, utilitarian calculus.

你刚才精彩地描述了让很多人不喜欢经济学家的那种二分法。因为当你用功利主义的视角看待一切时，你可能会有点脱离人性中的人文部分，我非常理解这两种观点之间的摩擦。

You have just beautifully described the dichotomy that makes a lot of people not like economists. Because when you look at everything through a utilitarian lens, you can kinda lose touch with the human part of the human being, and I very much empathize with the friction between those two views.

我想为经济学家辩护一下。你听说过词典序偏好吗？

I wanna defend economists just for a moment. Have you heard of lexicographic preferences?

没听说过。

I haven't.

你知道经济学家怎么思考时间偏好吗？就是你如何折现未来相对于今天的价值？

You know how economists think about time preference, the discount at which you value things in the future versus today?

双曲线贴现之类的。

Hyperbolic discounting and all that.

双曲线贴现。然后是风险偏好。所以有所有这些偏好，时间偏好、风险偏好、休闲偏好。实际上，这是三大偏好。但经济学中还有一个不太广为人知的概念，叫做词典序偏好。

Hyperbolic discounting. Then there's risk preference. So there are all these preferences, time preference, risk preference, leisure preference. Actually, those are the big three. But there is this notion in economics not as widely known called lexicographic preferences.

这些偏好无法进行成本效益分析，因为没有任何数量的商品可以交换另一种。所以你可以问，你愿意用多少条面包换一个冰淇淋甜筒？好吧，经济学家理解这个。或者，今天的一个冰淇淋甜筒与一个月后的两个冰淇淋甜筒，你选哪个？

These are preferences where there is no cost benefit analysis because there's no amount of any good that would be traded for another. So you could say, how many, you know, loaves of bread would you trade for one ice cream cone? Okay. Economists understand that. Or how about one ice cream cone today versus two ice cream cones in a month?

但词典式偏好就像是，你愿意用什么来交换你的女儿安雅？

But a lexicographic preference is like, what would you trade for your daughter Anya?

我会说10个冰淇淋甜筒。

I would say 10 ice cream cones.

我本来想说20个。她是个很棒的孩子。

I was gonna go with 20. She's a great kid.

是的，她确实是。

Yeah. She is.

所以你看，经济学虽然可能不是最经典、最规范或最广泛使用的概念，但我认为在经济理论的深处，存在着一种可能性：人们会基于原则去做某些事情。

So look. Economics, although maybe not the kind of classical and the canonical and the most widely used notions, but I think somewhere deep in the bowels of economic theory is the possibility that there are some things that people do on principle.

我想我把作弊视为伟大三巨头中的一部分。

I guess I consider cheating just one part of the great triumvirate.

什么是三巨头？

What's the triumvirate?

欺骗、撒谎和偷窃。它们似乎总是相伴相随，经常相互交织或混合。所以我要说，我对其中任何一个都不太感冒。不过，我认为撒谎可能是最常见且最可原谅的，因为我们为了维持社交关系会撒很多小谎。比如某天你可能会对我说：'史蒂文，你今天问的问题真棒'，而实际上你觉得那是个垃圾问题。

Cheating, lying, and stealing. They seem to really co travel and often intermingle or interbreed. So I will say, I'm not a big fan of any of them. I do think, however, that lying is perhaps the most common and forgivable, because there are a lot of small lies we tell to maintain social ties. So you might tell me one day, Steven, that was a great question you asked me today, when in fact you think it was a garbage question.

但通过不冒犯我，我们维持了社交关系，也保留了下次我问你一个好问题的可能性。

But by not offending me, we maintain our social ties, and we preserve the possibility that the next time, I will ask you a good question.

在《没有愚蠢的问题》节目后续内容中，史蒂文和安吉拉将讨论学习新技能如何影响老化的大脑。

Still to come on No Stupid Questions, Steven and Angela discuss how learning a new skill may affect the aging brain.

做完数独游戏后，几乎没有人的人生会变得更好。嘿，安吉拉。嗨，史蒂文。

After you do Sudoku puzzle, pretty much nobody's life is better. Hey. Hey, Angela. Hi, Steven.

我一直在读一本你可能会爱不释手，也可能会深恶痛绝的书，我想知道会是哪一种。

I have been reading a book that you might love or you might hate, and I would like to find out which one.

好吧，我很好奇。

Alright. I'm intrigued.

作者是汤姆·范德比尔特。这本书名为《初学者：终身学习的乐趣与变革力量》。我应该说明，范德比尔特是一位非虚构作家，而非科学家。在书中，他亲自尝试了多项新活动——国际象棋、唱歌、冲浪、绘画和杂耍。但他提出的更宏大论点是，他写道，技能学习就像对你大脑进行高强度间歇训练。

The author is Tom Vanderbilt. The book is called Beginners, The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning. I should say Vanderbilt is a nonfiction author, not a scientist. In the book, he pursues a number of new activities himself chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. But the larger argument is that skill learning, he writes, is like high intensity interval training for your brain.

所以即使在我们这样相对高龄的阶段，安吉拉，或者更年长时，这就是他的论点。

So even at a relatively advanced age like ours, Angela, or even much older, that's the argument.

我可是高龄人士了。

I'm advanced.

乍看之下，你会觉得很难反驳持续培养新爱好、运动等任何活动这个总体理念。但我很好奇坚毅女士对此有何看法。因为某种程度上，不断追求新活动可能会以牺牲那个需要坚韧不拔的重大追求为代价。

And at first glance, you'd think it's hard to argue against this idea generally of continuing to take up new hobbies, sports, whatever. But I am curious to know what Madam Grit has to say about this. Because in a way, the constant pursuit of new activities may come at the expense of that one big gritty pursuit.

史蒂文，我知道这听起来有点像是攀比心理，但我确实收到了汤姆·范德比尔特的这本书。那么坚毅女士对此怎么说呢？我认为我们的直觉是，随着步入中年，我们的学习能力确实会大幅下降。他的观点是，学习永远不嫌晚，而且可能比你想像的能学到更多。

Now, Steven, I know this sounds a little bit like I'm trying to keep up with the Joneses, but I have received a copy of this book by Tom Vanderbilt. And what does Madame Grit have to say about this? I mean, I think our intuitions are that our ability to learn really diminishes considerably as we march on through our middle age. His point is that you're never too old to learn and to maybe learn more than you think.

请告诉我们关于大脑和可塑性的知识。成年大脑的可塑性真的远不如年轻大脑吗？如果是这样，会带来什么影响？

So tell us what you can about brains and plasticity. Is it true that adult brains are much less plastic than younger brains? And if so, what are the ramifications?

嗯，我不是神经科学家。

Well, I'm not a neuroscientist.

加油，你能行的。不，我不是。你

Come on. You can do it. No. I'm not. Did you

知道吗？我其实分别拥有神经生物学的本科和神经科学的硕士学位。

know that I have actually an undergraduate and master's degree in neurobiology and neuroscience respectively?

你知道我其实早就知道这件事吗？

Did you know that I did know that?

我不知道你竟然知道。我不

I didn't know that you did know. I don't

知道哪个事实更令人惊讶，是你有神经科学学位，还是我知道你有这个学位。我觉得我的情况肯定比你的更令人印象深刻。

know which fact is more surprising, that you have a neuroscience degree or that I know that you have one. I think mine is certainly more impressive than yours.

好吧，算你厉害。说得对。而且这些学位是我几十年前获得的，所以我学到的所有知识都已经过时了。但我读了很多相关文献，比如艾莉森·高普尼克就写过关于终身可塑性和学习的文章。

Okay. Well, there you go. Touche. And these are degrees that I acquired decades ago, so everything I learned is out of date. But I read a lot about it, and Alison Gopnik has written, for example, about plasticity and learning over the life course.

她指出，确实，在很多情况下，孩子学得更快，而成年人似乎不太能更新知识或掌握新技能。但我认为重要的是，如果你明白其中的原因，或许就能改变这种状况。随着年龄增长而学习能力下降并非必然，根据高普尼克的说法，实际上有抑制性神经递质会干扰可塑性，而这些递质随着年龄增长更易释放。所以，理解了这一点，就为阻断这种变化提供了可能性。

And she points out that, yes, in many contexts, children learn faster, whereas adults seem to be less able to update their knowledge or acquire some new skill. I think the important thing, though, is if you understand why that is, then you might be able to change that. It's not necessarily inevitable that we learn less as we get older, but there's actually inhibitory neurotransmitters according to Gopnik that actually interfere with plasticity, and these are more likely to be released as we get older. And so if you understand that, that opens the possibility of actually interrupting that change.

我读到过你可以通过，我不知道该怎么称呼它，思维练习来打断那些抑制因素，但也许用化学物质更容易。比如，咖啡因本质上就执行这个任务。

I've read that you can interrupt those inhibitors with, I don't know what to call it, thought exercise, but maybe easier with chemicals. Like, caffeine essentially performs that task.

是的。我认为一般来说，大脑化学的工作方式是：有一组神经递质执行x功能，但还有一组神经递质会抑制那些神经递质。所以通常存在一种可能性，你可以通过抑制过程本身来对抗正在进行的任何过程。而且我认为，甚至比药物方式增强大脑可塑性更重要的是，我们应该尝试理解为什么随着我们成熟，可能存在这种程序化的变化。这个总体论点在逻辑上对我很有吸引力，即我们在生命初期是知之甚少的生物。

Yeah. I think in general, the way brain chemistry works is that there's a set of neurotransmitters that do x, but then there's a set of neurotransmitters which inhibit those neurotransmitters. So there's often the possibility that you can counter whatever the process is going on by them inhibiting the process itself. And I think maybe even more than pharmacological ways of enhancing brain plasticity, we should try to understand why it is that as we mature, there may have been this programmed change. The general argument has a lot of appeal to me logically, which is that we are at the beginning of life creatures who don't know a lot.

所以我们处于探索模式，更新我们的信念和改变我们的突触等对我们很有好处。随着我们获得知识和技能，当然，仅仅抹去我们所知道的并重新开始是有一些缺点的。事实上，我们具有利用已有知识和技能的优势。所以这通常被称为探索与利用的权衡，并且这种计算会随着我们从年轻到年老而改变。

So we are in exploration mode, and it serves us well to update our beliefs and to change our synapses, etcetera. As we acquire knowledge and skill, then, of course, there is some downside to just erasing what we know and starting over. And in fact, we have advantage to exploit the knowledge and skills that we already have. So this is often called the exploration exploitation trade off, and the calculus of this changes as we go from young to old.

这很有道理。事实上，范德比尔特的书中有一些内容就体现了这种探索与利用的动态。你知道，我开始思考一个富有成效的初学者和一个业余爱好者之间有什么区别？这就是为什么我想把这个问题带给你，因为你可以想象，你从一个新活动跳到另一个新活动，却没有在任何一项上发展出专业知识，甚至没有从中获得乐趣，也许没有坚持足够长的时间来理解学习过程是如何运作的。但后来我想，嗯，你也可以提出相反的观点。

That makes a lot of sense. In fact, there's something in the Vanderbilt book that plays to that exploration exploitation dynamic. You know, I got to be thinking about what's the difference between a productive beginner and a dilettante? And that's why I wanted to bring this question to you because you can imagine that you flit from new activity to new activity without developing any expertise in one or even enjoyment in one and maybe not staying with things long enough to even understand how the learning process works. But then I thought, well, you could argue the opposite.

你可能会说存在潜在的雪球效应，即更多的学习导致更多的学习，并且你学会了如何更好地学习。范德比尔特在某处引用了一个我喜欢的对比，据说是数学家理查德·汉明提出的，他描述了工程师和科学家之间的区别。我认为这实际上是一种区分，介于探索和执行之间，或者如你所说，探索与利用之间。

You could say there's potentially a snowball effect, that more learning leads to more learning, and you learn how to learn better. And at one point, Vanderbilt includes a comparison that I love. It's attributed to the mathematician Richard Hemming, who was describing the difference between engineers and scientists. And it's really a division, I think, between exploration and execution, or as you call it, exploration exploitation.

哦，我更喜欢‘执行’这个说法。让我们改变所有进化心理学的所有术语吧。

Oh, I like execution better. Let's change all the language of all of evolutionary psychology.

你这么说很有趣，因为‘利用’这个词对我来说总是带有一点负面含义。

It's funny you say that because exploitation has always carried a little bit of a negative for me.

是啊。有一点。很多方面。听起来很糟糕。天哪。

Yeah. A little bit. A lot of it. Sounds terrible. Oh my gosh.

我们刚刚编辑了一版很棒的进化心理学更新内容。

We've just edited an updated evolutionary psych that's great.

那么，告诉你的心理学家同行们，这个词汇的改变可得感谢我。

Well, tell all your fellow psychologists that they can thank me for this change in vocabulary.

我要站在山顶上大声宣告这件事。

I'm gonna shout it from the mountaintops.

总之，理查德·海明说过——这话被汤姆·范德比尔特的书引用过——在科学领域，如果你知道自己在做什么，你就不应该去做。在工程领域，如果你不知道自己在做什么，你就不应该去做。工程师接受训练来建造、修复、创造系统等等，你最好相信我们希望他们几乎零失误。而科学家则是探索者，像你这样的人。你们在那里深入人们的心理，去发现我们尚未知晓的东西。

So, anyway, Richard Heming says, as quoted in Tom Vanderbilt's book, in science, if you know what you are doing, you should not be doing it. In engineering, if you don't know what you are doing, you should not be doing it. Engineers are trained to build, fix, create systems, and so on, and you better believe that we want them to be pretty close to errorless. Scientists, however, are the explorers, people like you. You're out there poking things into people's psyches to figure out what we don't know yet.

我认为这种平衡对任何人来说都令人陶醉，真的。这就是为什么我对成人学习这个概念感到兴奋，即使它只是朝着纯粹爱好的技能发展。因为在学习像爱好这样简单的东西时，你可能会获得一种不同的看待世界的方式，这可能会以更重大的方式带来回报。

And that balance, I think, is what's intoxicating for anyone, really. And that's why I was excited about this notion of adult learning even if it's going toward skills that are really nothing more than a hobby. Because in learning something as simple as a hobby, you may gather a different way of looking at the world that may pay off in much larger ways.

你知道，我和大卫·爱泼斯坦聊过，他是《体育画报》的前撰稿人。

You know, I had a conversation with David Epstein, the former writer for Sports Illustrated.

你现在要讨论涉猎广度了，对吧？

You're gonna talk about range now. Right?

没错。我认为某种程度上，你可以把涉猎广度看作是对坚毅精神的补充，因为他大量探讨了尝试多种事物、培养多元兴趣以及不过早专攻某一领域的好处。而且，即使在专业化之后，跨界融合也大有裨益——比如培养一个能为你的主业带来灵感的爱好。我读过《范围》这本书，也和戴维交流过，实际上我认为他提出了很好的观点。尽管表面上看我们可能意见相左，但实质上我们完全一致。

Correct. And I think in a way, you could argue that range is a counterpoint to grit because he talks a lot about the benefits of doing lots of things and having multiple interests and not committing or specializing too early to any one thing. And, also, even after you have specialized, the benefits of cross fertilization of having a hobby, for example, that could provide inspiration for your main vocation. And I read Range, and I talked to David, and I think, actually, he raises good points. I think we actually violently agree even though it seems superficially that we might not.

当你观察真正专家的成长轨迹时，他们并非从小就是四岁的专家。实际上他们人生中有一段时期是在进行大量尝试和探索。但关键是在某个阶段必须发生转变——我想戴维·爱泼斯坦也不会反对——我认为若没有经过长期专注的练习，就不可能在任何领域达到卓越。

When you look at the lifetime of a true expert, they don't start off as really small four year old experts. There's actually a period in their life where they're doing a lot of sampling and exploration. The thing that has to happen at some point, though, and I don't think David Epstein would disagree, is that I just don't think can get excellent at anything without some extended dedicated practice.

那么对于成年初学者来说，问题在于：如果你选择不断学习新技能，目的是什么？是为了消磨时间、自娱自乐，还是为了让他人快乐？比如我母亲晚年孩子们都长大成人后，就成了连续尝试新技能的成年人。虽然我是最后一个在家的孩子，但她总是跑去社区中心或社区大学学习书法、插花，还有踢踏舞。

I guess the question then to ask of, let's say, adult beginners in particular, if you're choosing to take up skill after skill after skill, what's the purpose? Are you doing it just to fill in time, just to entertain yourself, or are you doing something that will make other people happy? Like, mom was a serial adult beginner toward the end of her life when all the kids were raised. I was the last one at home, but she was constantly traipsing off to some local community center or community college to learn calligraphy and then flower arranging and then tap dancing.

为什么？她的目的是什么？

Why? What was her purpose?

我觉得她会说这是纯粹的自我实现。她非常非常享受这些事，非常享受掌握技能的过程。她这一生确实精通了很多事物。

I think she would say that it was a combination of pure self fulfillment. She really, really enjoyed these things. She really enjoyed mastery. She was someone who had mastered a lot of things over the course of her life.

或者她可能只是享受学习过程？因为如果说要成为世界顶尖大师——尝试这么多不同事物可能达不到，但她喜欢的是学习成长的过程。

Or she enjoyed maybe learning. Right? Because mastery in the sense of, like, oh, now I'm the world's best. Maybe not if she's trying lots of things, but she liked the learning curve.

嗯，我用的是小写的精通。就像，不是世界顶尖的那种。

Well, I'm using mastery with a very lowercase m. Like, not the world's best.

或者说掌握，就像变得更好。

Or mastering, like getting better.

没错。我不确定她是否那么享受学习过程。我认为她更享受那种成就感，并且喜欢把这种成就用于其他目的。比如，当她学会插花后，你会拿到那块绿色的泡沫材料，学会如何以特定角度插入花枝，然后用锡纸或包装纸包起来。所以她学会之后，就会采一堆花，把它们晾干、布置好、包装起来，然后送给那些不便出门的老人。

Sure. I don't know if she enjoyed the learning so much. I think she enjoyed the feel of the accomplishment, and she liked putting that accomplishment to use for other purposes. For instance, when she learned how to arrange flowers, you get that green piece of foamy stuff, and you learn how to stick things in at angles, and then wrap it in some foil or paper. So once she learned that, she would pick a bunch of flowers, dry them out, arrange them, wrap them up, and then, like, deliver them to old housebound people.

书法也是，她会做同样的事。学会写漂亮的书法后，就会给人们写些温馨的便条。

Calligraphy, she would do the same thing. She would learn to write this beautiful calligraphy then write these nice notes to people.

这比数独好多了，对吧？做完数独游戏后，几乎没人因此生活变得更好。

So much better than Sudoku. Right? After you do Sudoku puzzle, pretty much nobody's life is better.

但你能想象用漂亮的书法写数独吗？那该是多大的双赢啊？

Can you imagine doing Sudoku in beautiful calligraphy, though? How much of a win win is that?

然后送给年长的邻居？我相信他们会很喜欢的。听起来你母亲非常有动力去做那些能学到新东西、不断提升的事情，而且这些事还会产生某种有用的成果，特别是可能对他人有用的成果。

And then gifting it to an elderly neighbor? I'm sure they would love it. It sounds like your mother was very motivated to do things where she could learn something new and get better at it and that there would be some product of it that would have some use and in particular, maybe use to other people.

并不总是这样。比如，她确实在六十多岁时学会了踢踏舞。我妈妈曾是芭蕾舞者，所以她跳舞跳得非常非常好。

Not always. Like, she did learn tap dancing in her sixties. My mom was a ballerina, so she was a very, very good dancer.

我之前不知道这个。真酷。

I did not know that. Very cool.

没错。她曾是芭蕾舞者和护士，也是犹太人，后来成了纽约上州的农民，皈依天主教，学会了所有关于养一大群自由放养的孩子、务农等等的事情。所以她是个终身学习者。

True. She was a ballerina and a nurse and a Jew, and then she became a Catholic farmer in Upstate New York and learned everything there was to know about raising a boatload of free range kids and farming and on and on. So she was a lifelong learner.

你知道，我母亲还健在。她85岁了，最近学会了如何炖梨。她对自己掌握这项新技能感到非常非常兴奋，一直在不停地炖梨。我确实认为，无论年龄多大，能在85岁或任何年纪尝试一些在认知上全新且具有挑战性的事情，是一件很棒的事。以前做不到，现在可以了。

You know, my mother is still alive. She's 85, and she has recently learned how to poach pears. She's really, really excited that she has learned this new skill and has just been poaching one pair after the other. And and I I do think that it is a wonderful thing to be 85 or however old you are and to try something that's cognitively new and challenging in some ways. And you couldn't do it before, and now you can.

也许作为一个额外的奖励，大脑似乎也能从这种锻炼中受益。

And maybe even as a just a bonus, the brain seems to benefit from that kind of exercise.

那么，有没有证据表明，从事这些新的爱好和追求确实能改善认知功能？

So is there any evidence that picking up these new hobbies and pursuits that it does actually improve your cognitive function?

是的。有说法认为，进行新颖且认知要求高的任务能让大脑保持灵活和敏捷。关于这一点有实证证据。有趣的是，并非任何旧的活动都有效。研究表明，例如社交活动，虽然在其他方面可能很棒，但并不能提供同样的益处。

Yes. This claim that doing novel cognitively demanding tests keeps the brain supple and spry. There is empirical evidence about that. And what's interesting is that it's not just any old activity. The research suggests that, for example, social activities, which may be great in other ways, don't provide the same benefit.

所以当我们被告知随着年龄增长需要做所有这些大脑锻炼时，比如解谜、猜谜和玩游戏，这些是有用的，还是仅仅为了好玩？

So when we're told about all this brain exercise stuff we're supposed to do as we age, puzzles and riddles and games, useful, yes, or just fun?

实际上，关于那些可以训练大脑的应用或网站，证据是混杂的。但更普遍地说，如果你谈论的是大脑是否用进废退，认知功能是否用进废退，研究表明，我们做某件事越多，就越有能力做那件事，答案是肯定的。

There is actually mixed evidence on some of those apps or websites that you can go to to train your brain. But I think more generally, if you talk about, like, is the brain use it or lose it, is cognitive functioning use it or lose it, the more we do something, the more we are able to do that something, the research says yes.

我也看到过研究认为，年轻时接受的正规教育越多，晚年认知功能就越强。这是真的吗？

I've also seen research arguing that the more formal education you have when you're younger, the stronger your cognitive function is in your later years. Is that true?

是的，这是真的。如果我想的是同一篇论文，埃利奥特·塔克-德罗布的研究，发现是教育对后期的认知功能有益。所以你接受的教育越多，随着年龄增长，回报就越大。然而，这并不是因为它能延缓衰退。

Yeah. That is true. This is if I'm thinking the same paper, work by Elliot Tucker Drobe, and the finding is that education is good for cognitive functioning later. So the more education you get, that pays off as you're aging. However, it's not because it forestall's decline.

更多的是你只是达到了更高水平的功能，所以在某种程度上你有更多的储备。所以如果你看曲线，教育给你一个提升，你或多或少能保持住，但你并没有真正延缓衰退本身。

It's more that you just get this higher level of functioning, so you have more of a reserve in a way. So if you look at the curves, education gives you a boost, which you get to more or less keep, but you don't forestall decline per se.

对于那些，比如说，没有完成高中或大学学业的人，他们到了50岁，然后说，我真的想学某某东西。他们会感到处于劣势吗？如果是，如何克服？

And what do you say to someone who, let's say, didn't finish high school or didn't finish college, and they hit 50, and they're like, I really want to learn x y z. Are they going to feel at a handicap for that? And if so, how do you overcome?

我认为，真的，无论你多大年纪，唯一相关的比较对象终究是你自己。所以，是的，去当地社区大学报个班，或者下载个应用学一门新语言吧。

I think, really, no matter how old you are, the only relevant comparison is you and yourself anyway. So, yeah, go sign up for some class at the local community college or download some app to learn a new language.

我很高兴你提到这一点。最近我越来越多问自己的一个问题是：与什么相比？因为如果分母选错了，那问题本身就错了。所以当我思考如何提升/成长/拓展自己时，把自己和拥有四个高等学位的人比较完全是浪费时间。

I'm so glad you brought that up. A question I try to ask myself more and more these days is compared to what? Because if you have the wrong denominator, then you're asking the wrong question. So if I'm thinking about what do I want to do to improve slash grow slash broaden myself, comparing myself to someone who's got four advanced degrees is a waste of time.

我认为2021年的史蒂文应该与2020年的史蒂文比较。

I think Steven two thousand twenty one should be comparing himself with Steven two thousand twenty.

首先我长高了不少，这点我可以肯定。

I'm much taller for one. I'll tell you that.

广告之后，我们将对今天的对话进行事实核查。

Coming up after the break, a fact check of today's conversation.

而且

And

现在开始今天对话的事实核查。首先，我们要纠正上周事实核查的一个错误。我此前提到瑞典父母每人享有240天育儿假，总计480天，但必须至少休90天，不分性别。这个说法不完全准确。90天是专门分配给每位父母的额度，但并非强制要求。

now here's a fact check of today's conversations. First, we have a fact check to last week's fact check. I noted that Swedish parents are entitled to two forty days of parental leave each, or four eighty days total, but that they're required to take a minimum of ninety days, regardless of gender. This is not entirely correct. Ninety days are earmarked for each parent, but they're not required.

如果某位父母决定不使用这90天，这些天数就会从其240天的总假期中完全扣除。但剩余的150天仍然可以转让给另一方。因此如果父亲选择不休假，母亲仍然可以享受自己的240天加上父亲的150天，总共390天的产假。在今日节目中讨论体育作弊时，史蒂文提到了两个著名丑闻：1919年芝加哥黑袜事件和1951年纽约市立学院篮球队丑闻。作为自称的非体育爱好者，我对这两个事件都不熟悉，想必有些听众也是如此。

If someone decides not to take them, those ninety days just disappear entirely from that parent's two forty day total. But the remaining one hundred and fifty days are still transferable to the other parent. So if a father chooses not to take any time off, a mother could still take her two forty days plus his remaining one hundred and fifty days for a total of three ninety days of maternity leave. In today's episode, during the discussion about cheating in sports, Steven references two infamous scandals, the 1919 Chicago Black Sox and the 1951 City College of New York basketball team. As a self identified nonsportsperson, I was unfamiliar with both events and figured some listeners were as well.

芝加哥白袜队的八名成员被指控在1919年世界大赛中故意输给辛辛那提红人队，以换取赌博集团约10万美元的报酬，因此获得了'黑袜队'这一不光彩的绰号。在后续丑闻中，来自七所大学的32名篮球运动员承认在1947至1950年间收受赌徒贿赂，操纵了17个州的86场比赛。这些罪行得以曝光，是因为曼哈顿学院的中锋朱尼厄斯·凯洛格——该校首位获得奖学金的黑人运动员——向教练报告有人出价1000美元让他在对德保罗大学的比赛中放水。在关于神经递质如何影响大脑可塑性的讨论中，史蒂文斯提到他读到咖啡因等化学物质可能有助于增强可塑性。但据宾夕法尼亚大学心理学家迈克·卡哈纳称，尚未有证据表明咖啡因能持续改善认知功能。

Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the nineteen nineteen World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for a payout of around $100,000 from the gambling syndicate, hence the dark nickname, the Black Sox. In the later scandal, 32 basketball players from seven colleges admitted to taking bribes between 1947 and 1950, also from gamblers, to fix 86 games in 17 states. The crimes came to light after Manhattan College center Junius Kellogg, the school's first Black scholarship athlete, informed his coach that he had been offered a $1,000 bribe to shave points off of a game against DePaul. In the discussion about how neurotransmitters affect brain plasticity, Stevens says he read that plasticity might be aided by chemicals like caffeine. According to University of Pennsylvania psychologist Mike Kahana, caffeine has not been shown to consistently improve cognitive function.

文献中充斥着显示无效、负面效果和正面效果的研究，通常效应量都非常小。然而在认知衰退领域，科学家已开始使用电刺激作为治疗性调节大脑功能和行为的手段。脑刺激疗法现已被证明能有效治疗帕金森病和癫痫。通过更复杂的算法，科学家已获得初步证据表明脑刺激可以增强记忆力，宾夕法尼亚大学的一个团队正在研发基于刺激的疗法，用于治疗脑损伤和神经退化相关的记忆丧失。最后，斯蒂芬将用于支撑花艺造型的基材称为绿色泡沫材料。

The literature is full of studies showing non effects, negative effects, and positive effects, usually of very small effect sizes. However, when it comes to cognitive decline, scientists have begun to use electrical stimulation as a tool to therapeutically modulate brain function and behavior. Already, brain stimulation has been proven to be an effective treatment for Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. With more sophisticated algorithms, scientists have obtained preliminary evidence indicating that brain stimulation could boost memory, and a group at the University of Pennsylvania is pursuing the development of stimulation based therapies that could be used to treat memory loss associated with brain injury and neural degeneration. Finally, Stephen refers to the form used as a base to structure flower arrangements as green foamy stuff.

他所说的材料实际上是湿花泥，也称为奥塞斯。该产品于1954年由花艺公司Smithers Oasis创始人V·L·斯密瑟斯在俄亥俄州肯特市发明。除了固定花材结构，奥塞斯还能吸水延长其支撑的鲜花寿命。

The material he's thinking of is actually wet floral foam, also known as an oasis. The product was invented in Kent, Ohio in 1954 by V. L. Smithers, founder of the floristry company Smithers Oasis. In addition to structuring arrangements, the oasis absorbs water and prolongs the life of the flowers that it supports.

该公司目前销售近400种不同尺寸和形状的奥塞斯，用户可用其制作心形、球形甚至'MOM'字样等造型的花艺。事实核查环节到此结束。《没有愚蠢的问题》由Freakonomics Radio和Stitcher联合制作。本期节目由我——丽贝卡·李·道格拉斯制作。《没有愚蠢的问题》是Freakonomics Radio网络频道的一部分。

The company currently sells nearly 400 different sizes and shapes of oases that allow users to build arrangements in the shape of hearts, spheres, and even the word mom. That's it for the fact check. No stupid questions is produced by Freakonomics Radio and Stitcher. This episode was produced by me, Rebecca Lee Douglas. No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network.

我们的团队成员包括艾莉森·克雷格洛、格雷格·格里芬、马克·麦克拉斯基、詹姆斯·福斯特和艾玛·特雷尔。主题曲是Talking Heads乐队的《And She Was》。特别感谢大卫·伯恩和华纳查普尔音乐。如有问题想在未来节目中探讨，请发送邮件至nsq@Freakonomics.com。若您听到史蒂文或安吉拉提及想深入了解的研究、专家或书籍，可访问freakonomics.com/nsq查看本期所有主要参考资料链接。

Our staff includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Griffin, Mark McCluskey, James Foster, and Emma Terrell. Our theme song is And She Was by Talking Heads. Special thanks to David Byrne and Warner Chappell Music. If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to nsq@Freakonomics.com. And if you heard Steven or Angela reference a study, an expert, or a book that you'd like to learn more about, you can check out freakonomics.com/nsq, where we link to all of the major references that you heard about here today.

感谢收听。

Thanks for listening.

我所在的高尔夫俱乐部有个作弊者。他们还没把他赶出去。

There is one cheater at the golf club where I play in. They haven't kicked him out.

我在迷你高尔夫里这么干过。比如，把球从风车底下移开。

I've done that in miniature golf. Like, moved it from under the windmill.

《魔鬼经济学》广播网络，揭示万物隐藏的一面。

The Freakonomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything.

Stitcher。

Stitcher.