David S. Salsburg (born 1931) is an author. His 2002 book ''

The Lady Tasting Tea ''The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century'' () is a book by David Salsburg about the history of modern statistics and the role it played in the development of science and industry. The title comes from ...

'', subtitled ''How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century'', provides a layman's overview of important developments in the field of statistics in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the areas of

experiment design The design of experiments (DOE, DOX, or experimental design) is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. The term is generally associ ...

, the study of random distributions, and the careers of major researchers in the field such as

Ronald Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who a ...

Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...

, and

Jerzy Neyman Jerzy Neyman (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981; born Jerzy Spława-Neyman; ) was a Polish mathematician and statistician who spent the first part of his professional career at various institutions in Warsaw, Poland and then at University College ...

. Salsburg is a retired pharmaceutical company statistician (having been a senior research fellow at

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

's central research department until 1995) who has taught at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

Connecticut College Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...

, the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

, the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Rhode Island College Rhode Island College (RIC) is a public college in Providence, Rhode Island. The college was established in 1854 as the Rhode Island State Normal School, making it the second oldest institution of higher education in Rhode Island after Brown Uni ...

, and

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

and has been a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

since 1978. In 1994, Salsburg was awarded the ''Career Achievement Award of the Biostatistics Section of the

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA, pronounced ), formerly known as the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, is a trade group representing companies in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States. Founded in 195 ...

'', given annually for "significant contributions to the advancement of biostatistics in the pharmaceutical industry". The

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

characterised him as follows :"Salsburg believes that the public is not fully aware of the degree to which recent developments in

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

impact the way we perceive the world. He correctly points out that the twentieth century saw the fading of a

deterministic Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and consi ...

outlook and the rise of a statistical/

probabilistic Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

way of looking at the world. This ongoing revolution is not only in the

physical sciences Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences". Definition Phy ...

, it also touches the social sciences and even the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

. Though profound, it is a quiet revolution that has been unnoticed by many." Salsburg's most recent book, ''Errors, Blunders and Lies: How to Tell the Difference'' was published in 2017.

Publications

1. ''Understanding Randomness: Exercises for Statisticians (Lecture Notes in Statistics)'' (1983)
2. ''Statistics for Toxicologists (Drug and Chemical Toxicology)'' (1986)
3. ''The Use of Restricted Significance Tests in Clinical Trials (Statistics for Biology and Health)'' (1992)
4. ''

: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century'' (2002)
5. ''When the Band has Ceased to Play, American Presidents after Leaving Office'' (2013)
6. ''Jonah in the Garden of Eden: a statistical investigation of the Hebrew Bible'' (2013)
7. ''Love Feeds Among the Lilies'' (2013)
8. ''Errors, Blunders and Lies: How to Tell the Difference (ASA-CRC Series on Statistical Reasoning in Science and Society)'' (2017)

References

External links

Photograph of David Salsburg
from near the bottom o

American statisticians 1931 births Living people Harvard University staff University of Pennsylvania staff 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Yale University staff 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American mathematicians Fellows of the American Statistical Association 21st-century American mathematicians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers {{US-mathematician-stub