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Science and technology
科學技術
The science of justice
司法的學問
I think it's time we broke for lunch…
該吃午餐了
Court rulings depend partly on when the judge last had a snack
法庭判決結果一定程度上取決于法官上一次吃點心的時間
AROUND the world, courthouses are adorned with a statue of a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales and a sword:
世界各地的法院都裝飾有一尊女子的雕像，這個女人被蒙住雙眼，手持一架天平和一把劍。
Justice personified.
她是正義的化身。
Her sword stands for the power of the court, her scales for the competing claims of the petitioners.
劍代表著法庭的權力，而天平代表著上訴人的競爭性權利主張。
The blindfold represents the principle that justice should be blind.
眼罩代表著司法的盲目性原則。
The law should be applied without fear or favour, with only cold reason and the facts of the case determining what happens to the accused.
也就是說應用法律應該毫無畏懼和偏袒之心，只有冷靜的推理和案件事實才能決定如何處理被告。
Lawyers, though, have long suspected that such lofty ideals are not always achieved in practice, even in well run judicial systems free from political meddling.
然而，律師們一直以來都懷疑在實踐中這種崇高的理想是否總能實現，就連在那些不受政治干涉、運轉良好的司法體系里都是如此。
Justice, say the cynics, is what the judge had for breakfast. Now they have proof.
犬儒主義者說：司法就是法官的早餐。而且現在他們有了證據。
A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes how Shai Danziger of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and his colleagues followed eight Israeli judges for ten months as they ruled on over 1,000 applications made by prisoners to parole boards.
美國國家科學院學報一篇文章描述了內蓋夫本-古里安大學的舍夷?丹齊格和他的幾個同事追蹤8位以色列法官10個月的事情，在這10個月里法官們裁判了囚犯向假釋裁決委員會提出的1000多分申請。
The plaintiffs were asking either to be allowed out on parole or to have the conditions of their incarceration changed.
申請人要么請求準許假釋要么請求改善獄中居住條件。
The team found that, at the start of the day, the judges granted around two-thirds of the applications before them.
調查小隊發現，早晨法官所閱申請的約2/3得到了批準。
As the hours passed, that number fell sharply, eventually reaching zero.
而隨著中午的臨近，批準的數量急劇減少，最終接近于0。
But clemency returned after each of two daily breaks, during which the judges retired for food.
但是在每天的兩餐休息時間過后，仁慈又重新降臨。
The approval rate shot back up to near its original value, before falling again as the day wore on.
批準率回到了接近于早晨的水平，并隨著時間的消逝再次下跌。
To be sure, mealtimes were not the only thing that predicted the outcome of the rulings.
當然，用餐時間并非預測判決結果的唯一因素。
Offenders who appeared prone to recidivism were more likely to be turned down, as were those who were not in a rehabilitation programme.
那些看起來容易再犯的犯人更可能被拒，那些沒有參與罪犯改過自新項目的也是一樣。
Happily, neither the sex nor the ethnicity of the prisoners seemed to matter to the judges.
而令人高興的是，據一個司法專家組成的獨立小組評定，
Nor did the length of time the offenders had already spent in prison, nor even the severity of their crimes.
法官似乎不考慮罪犯的性別、種族、入獄時間長短甚至是他們罪行的嚴重程度。
But after controlling for recidivism and rehabilitation programmes, the meal-related pattern remained.
剔除了累犯和改過自新計劃這些因素之后，與就餐相關的模式依然存在。
The researchers offer two hypotheses for this rise in grumpiness.
研究人員就這種暴躁情緒的產生給出了兩種假設。
One is that blood-sugar level is the crucial variable.
其一是血糖濃度是關鍵的變量，
This, though, predicts that the precise amount of time since the judge last ate will be what matters.
可是這樣就有人會猜測距法官上一次用餐的準確時間是重要的因素。
In fact, it is the number of cases he has heard since his last break, not the number of hours he has been sitting, which best matches the data.
而事實上，與調查數據最匹配的不是法官坐在那兒工作的時間長短，而是他上一次休息用餐后所審理的案件數量。
That is consistent with a second theory, familiar from other studies, that decision making is mentally taxing and that,
這就和第二種假設一致起來，即決策是一項耗費心神的勞動，
if forced to keep deciding things, people get tired and start looking for easy answers.
如果人們被迫一直做決定，那他們會變得疲憊而開始尋找簡單的解決辦法，這是其他研究也得出的結論。
In this case, the easy answer is to maintain the status quo by denying the prisoner's request.
既然如此，那簡單的解決辦法就是拒絕犯人的申請，維持現狀。
Two further findings buttress the idea that it is the psychological load of decision making which matters.
還有另外兩個發現可以支持這種精神負擔作用的觀點。
First, the average unfavourable decision took less time to arrive at than the average favourable one.
首先，通常作不利的決定比作有利的決定花費的時間短，前者約為5.2分鐘，后者約為7.4分鐘。
Second, it also took more time to explain.
其次，后者所花費的解釋時間也更長。
Written verdicts in favourable rulings averaged 90 words, compared with just 47 for unfavourable ones.
有利決定的書面判決通常有90個單詞，而不利判決書只有47個單詞。
In truth, these results, though disturbing, are unsurprising.
事實上，盡管這些調查結果令人不安，卻是意料之中的事。
Judges may be trained to confine themselves to the legally relevant facts before them.
法官接受的訓練是將自己限制在面前的法律事實范圍內。
But they are also human,
但他們也是凡人，
and thus subject to all sorts of cognitive biases which can muddy their judgment.
因而也會讓各種認知偏見模糊了他們的判斷力。
Other fields are familiar with human imperfectibility, and take steps to ameliorate it.
人性的弱點在其他領域也很常見，人們會采取措施改進這一點。
Pilots, for instance, are given checklists to follow, partly in order to combat the effects of fatigue.
例如飛行員需要遵循一些清單，其部分原因是為了抵抗疲勞。
Lorry drivers in the European Union are not allowed to drive for more than four and a half hours without taking a break.
歐盟也不允許卡車司機連續駕駛4.5小時以上。
Dr Danziger's co-author, Jonathan Levav of Columbia University in New York, wonders whether the law should consider similar arrangements.
丹齊格教授的合著者哥倫比亞大學的喬奈森·勒瓦夫設想司法界是否也能考慮作類似的安排。
Some, of course, already do.
當然，有些地方已經這樣做了。
English judges, legendary for their prandial proclivities, are way ahead of him.
英國的法官早就想到了這點，所以他們因愛好吃飯而聞名。
