The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century

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.