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Imagine a future cat-topia where both cats and people are applying to the physics and astronomy departments.
想象一下未来的猫托邦，猫和人都在申请物理系和天文学系。
In astronomy, 2 cats are accepted and 2 are rejected, while 1 human is accepted and 1 is rejected.
在天文学中，2只猫被接受，2只被拒绝，而1名人类被接受，1名被拒绝。
In physics 1 cat gets in and 2 don't, while 2 humans get in 4 don't.
在物理课上，1只猫可以进去，2只猫不能进去，而2个人可以进去，4个人不能进去。
So, overall at the university, 3 cats are accepted and 4 rejected for a 43% acceptance rate, while 3 humans are accepted and 5 rejected for a 38% acceptance rate.
总体而言，在这所大学里，3只猫被录取，4只被拒绝，录取率为43%；而3名人类被录取，5只被拒绝，录取率为38%。
Is the university discriminating against humans in its application process?
这所大学在申请过程中是否歧视人类？
Possibly not.
可能没有歧视。
That's because if each department reviews its own applications, then the numbers show that the astronomy department lets in 50% of cats and 50% of humans, which seems fair,
这是因为如果每个系都审查自己的申请，那么数字显示天文学系招收50%的猫和50%的人类，这似乎是公平的，
and the physics department lets in 33% of cats and 33% of humans, which again seems fair.
物理系招收33%的猫和33%的人类，这又一次看起来是公平的。
The reason, then, for the apparent unfairness at the university level is the imbalance in how many cats and humans apply to each department:
那么，大学层面明显不公平的原因是每个系的猫和人申请人数的不平衡：
more of the cats applied to the astronomy department, which happened to let in more applicants (regardless of species), while more of the humans applied to physics, which let in fewer applicants.
更多的猫申请天文学系，而天文系碰巧招收了更多的申请者(无论是什么物种)，而更多的人类申请了物理学，物理系招收的申请者更少。
This situation is another illustration of Simpson's statistical paradox,
这种情况是辛普森统计悖论的另一个例证，
and something like it actually happened at Berkeley in the 1970s, which realized it was letting in 44% of men applying to the graduate school, but only 35% of women.
类似的事情实际上发生在20世纪70年代的伯克利，当时伯克利意识到申请研究生院的男性有44%被录取，但只有35%的女性被录取。
Careful analysis was able to show that women tended to apply more to departments that had less funding and fewer places, like English, and men tended to apply more to less competitive departments, like engineering.
仔细的分析可以显示，女性倾向于更多地申请资金较少、名额较少的专业，比如英语，而男性更倾向于申请竞争不那么激烈的专业，比如工程学。
Thus within each department (which was the level at which applications were evaluated), there wasn’t obvious evidence of gender discrimination among applicants – if anything, women were favored.
因此，在每个系(这是申请被评估的水平)，没有明显的证据表明申请者中存在性别歧视-如果说有什么不同的话，那就是女性受到了青睐。
And yet, the unequal distribution of women and men across departments resulted in an unequal distribution of women and men at the university overall.
然而，不同院系男女比例的不平等导致了大学里男女比例的不平等。
The question, then, is what caused the unequal distribution of women and men to begin with?
那么，问题是，是什么导致了男女分配不均？
One can of course imagine a sinister institution knowing how Simpson's paradox works, wanting to discriminate against a particular group,
当然，人们可以想象，一个邪恶的大学机构知道辛普森悖论是如何运作的，想要歧视某个特定群体，
and thus advertising smaller, more competitive departments more heavily to that group, and vice-versa for groups they want to promote.
从而向这个群体宣传规模更小、竞争更激烈的院系，反之亦然。
More realistically, certain departments or fields may have reputations for being unwelcoming and unsupportive towards women even if they let them in fairly,
更现实地说，某些院系或领域可能会因为不欢迎和不支持女性而名声不佳，即使她们公平地进入大学，
and it’s also possible that aspects of a university itself attract applicants who are more likely to follow gendered career stereotypes.
也有可能是大学本身的某些方面吸引了那些更有可能遵循性别职业刻板印象的申请者。
But ultimately, as the Berkeley study concluded, the problem is a bigger, societal, one:
但归根结底，正如伯克利的研究得出的结论，这个问题是一个更大的社会问题：
“Women are shunted towards fields of study that are generally more crowded, less productive of completed degrees, less well funded, and that frequently offer poorer professional employment prospects…
“女性被转到那些通常更拥挤、完成学位的效率更低、资金更少、职业就业前景更差的研究领域……
The absence of a demonstrable bias in the admissions system does not give grounds for concluding that there must be no bias anywhere else in the educational process.”
招生系统中没有明显的偏见，但这并不能证明教育过程中其他任何地方都不存在偏见。”
Those words were written in a statistics paper in 1975.
这些话记录在1975年的一篇统计论文中。
And more recent statistics tell us that they still remain true today
最近的统计数据告诉我们，今天仍然如此
- which is unfortunate if you think women and men should have equal opportunities and/or be paid equally for equal work.
——如果你认为男女应该得到了平等的机会和/或同工同酬，这是不幸的。
So the paradox isn’t really in the statistics, since after careful analysis, the statistics tell us we’re biased and even hint at where those biases are (or aren’t) coming into play.
因此，悖论并不真正存在于统计数据中，因为经过仔细的分析，统计数据告诉我们我们是有偏见的，甚至暗示这些偏见在哪里(或没有)发挥作用。
No, the paradox is that we’ve remained so reluctant to fight our biases, even when they’re put in plain sight.
不，自相矛盾的是，我们一直如此不情愿与我们的偏见作斗争，即使它们是显而易见的。
This video is sponsored by Skillshare, the online learning site with courses on all sorts of creative, business and technology skills
本视频由Skillshare赞助，Skillshare是一个在线学习网站，提供各种创意、商业和技术技能的课程
– like proper knife skills, or how to make animated graphs for a video, or how to fly a drone, or how to design a logo for your knife-carrying drone-flying animated-graph company, and so on.
比如合适的刀的技能，或者如何为视频制作动画图形，或者如何驾驶无人机，或者如何为你的带刀无人机飞行的动画图形公司设计标识，等等。
You can get two months free by going to skl.sh/MinutePhysics.
你可以在skl.sh/MinutePhysics上享受两个月的免费时间。
Again, that’s skl.sh/MinutePhysics
再强调一次，这个网站是skl.sh/MinutePhysics
