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This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Steve Mirsky.
With a full month of the regular season to play, the 2019 New York Yankees had set a Major League Baseball record for injuries. That medical crisis led to what the online sports publication The Athletic reported on January 3rd as "sweeping changes" to their training and strength-and-conditioning programs. When I read that news, I thought, of course, of traffic cameras, which sometimes, and reasonably, get placed at sites that have a disproportionate number of accidents in a given year.
"The fact that there's a higher rate of accidents will be partly due to chance because it will fluctuate over the course of time. Sometimes it will be less; sometimes it will be high."
David J. Hand, on the Scientific American Science Talk podcast in 2014. He's emeritus professor of mathematics and senior research investigator at Imperial College London, where he formerly held the chair in statistics. He was on the podcast to talk about then new book The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day.
So what does the Yankees' revamped training staff potentially have in common with traffic cameras?
"Now if we look back at last year and identify the places which have particularly high rates of accidents, the high rate of those places will be due to a sum of two things: the natural degree of dangerousness of those places, plus the fact that that particular year just happens to be a bad year—there were more accidents than normal at that year. But because it is a high rate of accidents, we're now going to put a camera there."
Again, a particular year just happens to be a bad year.
"Now what happens next year? The natural dangerousness of the place hasn't changed; it's still the same corner or intersection or whatever. But the chance bit of the number of accidents there, well, it could be low just as easy as high next year. On average, it will be lower than the high rate we saw. So next year, the rate will come down. It won't be because of the camera, it will just be because of natural fluctuation, removing that sort of chance part. But it will look as if putting the cameras there has improved things."
Hand continued: "The fact is, however, the speed cameras do work. There is no question that they do reduce the rate of accidents but not as much as a superficial analysis failing to take into account the Law of Selection and Regression to the Mean makes it look like."
As a big Yankees fans, I hope they have no injuries at all in 2020—and that the new training staff is outstanding. But when the team's injury rate falls—as it's almost certain to do after a record-setting bad year—I'll keep in mind that at least part of the drop may be due not to Tinkers, nor to Evers, but to chance.
For Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky.
參考譯文
這裡是科學美國人——60秒科學系列，我是史蒂夫·米爾斯基。
常規賽賽程還有一個月，而2019年紐約洋基隊已經創下了職業棒球大聯盟的傷病紀錄。這場醫療危機導致在線體育刊物《The Athletic》在1月3日進行了報導，稱洋基隊的訓練和力量與調節項目發生了「徹底改變」。我看到這則新聞時，自然想到了交通攝像頭，它有時被合理地安裝在一年中事故數量不成比例的地點。
「事故發生率較高的部分原因是偶然性，因為事故會隨著時間的推移而波動。有時會少一些，有時會很高。」
這是大衛·漢德2014年做客《科學美國人》節目的「科學對話」播客時所說。他是倫敦帝國理工學院的名譽數學教授和高級研究調查員，此前他曾擔任該學院統計學專業負責人。他在播客上談到了當時出版的新書《不可能原理：為何巧合、奇蹟和罕見事件每天都會發生》。
那洋基隊改組後的訓練人員和交通攝像頭有何潛在共同之處？
「如果我們回顧一下去年，找出事故發生率特別高的地點，會發現事故發生率高的原因有兩個：這些地方的自然危險程度，以及那一年恰巧是個糟糕的年份，該年發生的事故比平常年份要多。但由於事故率很高，我們現在要在那裡安裝攝像頭。」
再說一次，某一年恰好是個糟糕的年份。
「那明年會怎樣？地點的自然危險程度並未改變，仍然是同樣的拐角或十字路口等地方。但是明年那裡發生事故的機率可能會很低，也可能會很高。平均而言，機率會低於我們看到的高發生率。所以，下一年的發生率會下降。但這不是因為攝像頭，而是因為自然波動，排除了那種偶然部分。不過，看起來安裝攝像頭能起到改善作用。」
漢德接著表示，「事實上，測速攝像頭確實起到了作用。毫無疑問，這些攝像頭確實降低了事故發生率，但降低程度並沒有表面分析顯示的那樣多，那些分析沒有考慮到選擇法和趨均數回歸。」
作為洋基隊的球迷，我希望他們在2020年不會受傷，新的訓練人員也很出色。但洋基隊的傷病率下降時——在創紀錄的糟糕一年後這是肯定會發生的事情——我會記住，至少有一部分下降可能不是因為Tinkers，也不是因為Evers，而是由於偶然性（Chance）（三者分別為20世紀初期小熊隊的遊擊手,二壘手,和一壘手）。
謝謝大家收聽科學美國人——60秒科學。我是史蒂夫·米爾斯基。
譯文為可可英語翻譯，未經授權請勿轉載！
重點講解：
1. have in common 共有的；相同的；
We should put aside our differences and discuss the things we have in common.
我們應當拋開分歧，討論一下我們的共同點。
2. happen to do sth. 碰巧；湊巧；
She happened to be out when we called.
我們打電話時她剛巧不在家。
3. on average 平均起來；按平均值；
American shares rose, on average, by 38%.
美國股票價格平均上漲了38%。
4. no question 毫無疑問地；毫無異議地；
There's no question she is the best comedienne in this country.
她無疑是該國最優秀的女喜劇演員。