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The Lady Tasting Tea:
How Statistics Revolutionized Science
in the Twentieth Century
by David Salsburg; New York, W.H. Freeman, 2001. 340 pgs.
Review by Mark Gardner
The seemingly unlikely title refers to an actual gathering
on a summer afternoon in Cambridge, England in the late
1920s. One of the women in the group insisted that tea
tastes different depending on whether it is poured into milk
or if the milk is poured into the tea. How might one test
whether this proposition is true? It turns out that there were
some mathematical luminaries present at
that tea party, and what unfolded as a result
of their thoughts about this problem
of testing is what we now call statistics.
The use of statistics today is ubiquitous.
It starts in the morning with the
weather report that forecasts the chances
of rain for the day, and goes on to political
polling, or the results of pharmaceutical
research regarding some health issue,
or economic probabilities that this or that
might happen. We are bombarded with
statistics, and in many cases use them,
well or poorly, to inform decision making.
In general, even if we never studied
the subject in school, we think we have
some feeling for what they mean. After
reading Salsburg’s book I now have a clearer understanding
of how mathematical probabilities are related to the real
world and to specific individuals. He does not include any
statistical formulas, but rather describes how this way of
thinking has replaced the world of phenomena, and his clear
thinking is well worth the read.
Salsburg describes mathematician Ronald A. Fisher
starting to work with statistics early on, collecting data on
the increasing weight of his newborn son. This added an
element of time to the data that made the seemingly
independent data of real life relational. He went on to
develop parameters to deal with this that were oversimplified
to the point of being untrue. In an exciting chapter on
Andrei Kolmogorov’s contributions to dealing with this
element, “time,” Salsburg suggests that if
Kolmogorov had not died prematurely,
his work would have revolutionized
science as we know it.
The book is full of real-life examples
of questions that concern us, and
shows how individual personalities,
described in careful chronological order,
added their contributions to the general
understanding of concrete questions.
Salsburg has a gift for characterizing the
personalities and their quirks, and tells a
fast-moving, humorous tale of the
human quest to quantify uncertainty.
There is a fascinating thread
woven through the book concerning the
limitations and inadequacies, both practical
and philosophical, of looking at the world statistically.
This thread is mixed with true admiration and appreciation
for the genuine value of the many contributions that were
made to this way of looking at the world. At the end of the
book, Salsburg hints that there is a need for “geniuses” of a
new kind, similar to Kolmogorov, who, in the near future,
might start a whole new paradigm.
first issue 2011 • 53