囧研究:巧克力吃得多,得諾貝爾獎的機率越大?大綱

Eating more chocolate improves a nation's chances of producing Nobel Prize winners - or at least that's what a recent study appears to suggest. But how much chocolate do Nobel laureates eat, and how could any such link be explained?

近日一項研究表明：巧克力消耗越多，國民獲得諾貝爾獎的機率更大。那麼諾貝爾獎獲得者們的巧克力消耗量是多少呢？這其中的聯繫該如何解釋呢？

The study's author, Franz Messerli of Colombia University, started wondering about the power of chocolate after reading that cocoa was good for you.

該研究的作者，來自哥倫比亞大學的Franz Messerli在閱讀可可有益身體健康的文章後開始了此項研究。

One paper suggested regular cocoa intake led to improved mental function in elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment, a condition which is often a precursor to dementia, he recalls.

他回憶說，曾有一篇論文談論到，可可脂的日常攝入能提高老年人的心理機能，但會造成輕微的認知損傷，而這種損傷通常是癡呆的前兆。

"There is data in rats showing that they live longer and have better cognitive function when they eat chocolate, and even in snails you can show that the snail memory is actually improved," he says.

“而通過對老鼠的實驗，吃過巧克力後它們的壽命和認知均有所提高，即使是以蝸牛爲實驗對象，也可以發現他們的記憶力確實有所提高。”他說道。

So Messerli took the number of Nobel Prize winners in a country as an indicator of general national intelligence and compared that with the nation's chocolate consumption. The results - published in the New England Journal of Medicine - were striking.

於是，Messerli選取了一個國家獲得諾貝爾獎的人數作爲該國的一般國民素質指標，然後與該國的巧克力消費量對比，他的發現成果很讓人吃驚，目前該研究結果已發表在《新英格蘭醫學期刊》上。

"When you correlate the two - the chocolate consumption with the number of Nobel prize laureates per capita - there is an incredibly close relationship," he says.

“當你將巧克力消費量與獲得諾貝爾獎的人數對比時，你會發現兩者有着密切聯繫。”他如是說。

"This correlation has a 'P value' of 0.0001. This means there is a less than one-in-10,000 probability that this correlation is simply down to chance."

“其假定概率爲0.0001，意味着一萬個樣本中才會出現一個特例。”

It might not surprise you that Switzerland came top of the chocolate-fuelled league of intelligence, having both the highest chocolate consumption per head and also the highest number of Nobel laureates per capita.

“意料之中，瑞士位於‘巧克力加油智力聯盟’的首位，其每人巧克力消費量和人均諾貝爾獎人數均位列第一。”

Sweden, however, was an anomaly. It had a very high number of Nobel laureates but its people consumed much less chocolate on average.

瑞典的情況則有一些特殊，其諾貝爾獎獲獎人數很高，但巧克力消費量比較平均。

Messerli has a theory: "The Nobel prize obviously is donated or evaluated in Sweden [apart from the Peace Prize] so I thought that the Swedes might have a slightly patriotic bias.

對此，Messerli有自己的說法：“諾貝爾獎是在瑞典評出（除了和平獎），所以我覺得瑞典可能一點點偏心。”

"Or the other option is that the Swedes are excessively sensitive and only small amounts stimulate greatly their intelligence, so that might be the reason that they have so many Nobel Prize laureates."

“或者瑞典人異常敏銳，只需一點點巧克力就能激發他們的才能，所以他們纔會有如此多的諾貝爾獎獲得者。”

We conducted our own, entirely unscientific, survey to ascertain just how much chocolate Nobel laureates ate.

我們開展了完全沒有科學依據的調查，來探知諾貝爾獎獲得者們的巧克力消費量。

Christopher Pissarides, from the London School of Economics, reckons his chocolate consumption laid the foundations for his Nobel Prize for Economics in 2010.

來自倫敦經濟學院的克里斯托弗·皮薩利德斯估算了他在獲得2010年諾貝爾經濟學獎前的巧克力消費量。

"Throughout my life, ever since I was a young boy, chocolate was part of my diet. I would eat it on a daily basis. It's one of the things I eat to cheer me up.

‘在我的生活中，當我還是個小孩子時，巧克力就成爲我飲食的一部分。我每天都吃巧克力，它能使我振奮起來。’

"To win a Nobel Prize you have to produce something that others haven't thought about - chocolate that makes you feel good might contribute a little bit. Of course it's not the main factor but... anything that contributes to a better life and a better outlook in your life then contributes to the quality of your work."

‘要想贏得諾貝爾獎，你得做出一些別人想不到的事情——巧克力讓你感覺好可能只是其中的一丁點貢獻，當然不是主要原因。任何能使你生活更好一點的東西同時也對你的工作質量有貢獻。’

However, Rolf Zinkernagel - the largely Swiss-educated 1996 Nobel Prize winner for medicine - bucks his national trend.

然而，曾在瑞士學習，後榮獲1996年諾貝爾醫學獎的洛夫·辛克納吉卻不是巧克力消費大戶。

"I am an outlier, because I don't eat more than - and never have eaten more than - half a kilogram of chocolate per year," he says.

“我不是上述其中的一員，因爲我一年中吃過的巧克力從來不超過1千克。”他說道。

Robert Grubbs, an American who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2005, says he eats chocolate whenever possible.

與他人共同獲得2005年諾貝爾化學獎的羅伯特·格拉布表示他經常吃巧克力。

"I had a friend who introduced me to chocolate and beer when we were younger. I have transferred that now to chocolate and red wine.I like to hike and I eat chocolate then, I eat chocolate whenever I can."

“我年輕時有個朋友向我介紹了巧克力和啤酒，而現在我的習慣是巧克力和紅酒。我喜歡徒步旅行後吃巧克力，我隨時都吃巧克力。”

But this is a controversial subject.

但這是個自相矛盾的主題。

Grubbs' countryman, Eric Cornell, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001, told Reuters: "I attribute essentially all my success to the very large amount of chocolate that I consume. Personally I feel that milk chocolate makes you stupid… dark chocolate is the way to go. It's one thing if you want a medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize but if you want a physics Nobel Prize it pretty much has got to be dark chocolate."

格拉布的同僚，曾獲得2001年諾貝爾物理學獎的埃裏克·康奈爾告訴路透社：“我將我所有的成功歸功於我吃掉的巧克力，個人認爲牛奶巧克力會使人變笨，黑巧克力是最好的。”

But when More or Less contacted him to elaborate on this comment, he changed his tune.

但當《More or Less》就此事聯繫採訪他時，他改變了自己的說法。

"I deeply regret the rash remarks I made to the media. We scientists should strive to maintain objective neutrality and refrain from declaring our affiliation either with milk chocolate or with dark chocolate," he said.

“對於我曾經的輕率言論我感到遺憾，作爲科學家應該保持中立可觀，避免對牛奶巧克力或黑巧克力表現過度的喜惡。”

"Now I ask that the media kindly respect my family's privacy in this difficult time."

“我希望媒體能在這時候尊重我的家庭隱私。”

It might surprise you that we are trying to make a serious point. This is a classic case where correlation, however strong, does not mean causation.

你可能會感到驚訝，我們想在此闡述一種嚴肅的觀點：即使有些事件之間存在很多關聯，但並不意味着他們就是因果關係。

Messerli gave us another example. In post-war Germany, the human birth rate fell along with the stork population. Were fewer storks bringing fewer babies?

Messerli給我們舉了另外一個例子，在戰後德國，人口出生率與鸛的數量均下降，那是否鸛的減少導致嬰兒減少呢？

The answer was that more homes were being built, destroying the storks' habitat. And the homes were small - not the sort of places you could raise a large family in.

真正的原因是房屋越建越多，導致鸛的棲息地被破壞，房屋面積的減小，使得多成員家庭減少。

"This is a very, very common way of thinking," he says.

“這是很普遍的思考方式。”他說道。

"When you see a correlation, you do think there is causation in one way or another. And in general it's absolutely true. But here we have a classic example where we cannot find a good reason why these two correlate so closely."

“當我們看到事物之間的聯繫時，就會想當然地想起各種因果關係。一般來說是正確的，但是也有經典案例表明，我們找不到兩種事物緊密關聯的原因。”