About the Author

David Salsburg is a former Senior Research Fellow at Pfizer, Inc., and currently works as a private consultant. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and received a lifetime achievement award from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association. The author of technical books and over fifty scientific articles, Salsburg has taught at Connecticut College, Harvard School of Public Health, Rhode Island College, Trinity College, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in New London, Connecticut.

Reviews

"Highly readable and well-written. Give it to someone you want to delight." --Alcan R. Feinstein, M.D., Sterling Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, Yale University School of Medicine "A fascinating description of the kinds of people who interacted, collaborated, disagreed, and were brilliant in the development of statistics." --Barbara A. Bailar, National Opinion Research Center

The development of statistical modeling in primary research is the underreported paradigm shift in the foundation of science. The lady of the title's claim that she could detect a difference between milk-into-tea vs. tea-into-milk infusions sets up the social history of a theory that has changed the culture of science as thoroughly as relativity did (the lady's palate is analogous to quantum physics' famous cat-subject), making possible the construction of meaningful scientific experiments. Statistical modeling is the child of applied mathematics and the 19th-century scientific revolution. So Salsburg begins his history at the beginning (with field agronomists in the U.K. in the 1920s trying to test the usefulness of early artificial fertilizer) and creates an important, near-complete chapter in the social history of science. His modest style sometimes labors to keep the lid on the Wonderland of statistical reality, especially under the "This Book Contains No Equations!" marketing rule for trade science books. He does his best to make a lively story of mostly British scientists' lives and work under this stricture, right through chaos theory. The products of their advancements include more reliable pharmaceuticals, better beer, econometrics, quality control manufacturing, diagnostic tests and social policy. It is unfortunate that this introduction to new statistical descriptions of reality tries so hard to appease mathophobia. Someone should do hypothesis testing of the relationship between equations in texts and sales in popular science markets it would make a fine example of the use of statistics. Illus. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.