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赢得英国国家福利彩票的概率非常小——大概只有1400万分之1。所以,要是下次你听说有谁中了头奖,会认为他玩了猫腻吗?可千万别这么想。这种未正确考虑概率而做出的荒谬推论在司法界被称作“检察官谬误”(the prosecutor’s fallacy),它是许多错误定罪的元凶。以著名的萨莉·克拉克(Sally Clark)案为例,她因两个孩子先后由于婴儿猝死综合症夭折而被控谋杀。庭审过程中,专家证人告知陪审团,一个家庭出现两个孩子非意外死亡的概率极低,只有7300万分之1。这在很大程度上影响了案情走向,陪审团在1999年对克拉克做出了有罪判决。
The probability of winning a British national welfare lottery is very small - only about 1 in 1400. So, if next time you heard someone who won the jackpot, would you think he played a trick? Do not think so. This absurd inference, which fails to properly account for probabilities, is called the “prosecutor’s fallacy” in the judiciary and is the culprit of many false convictions. In the case of the famous Sally Clark, she was accused of murdering two children who died due to sudden infant death syndrome. During the trial, expert witnesses informed the jury that the probability of a non-accidental death of two children in one family was extremely low, only 1 in 73,000. This largely affected the merits of the case and the jury made a guilty verdict on Clark in 1999.