The Lady Tasting Tea

What Hacker News says

1. bikenagaSep 2024
   And "The Lady Tasting Tea" by David Salsburg is a nice history of statistics; 29 chapters, a little over 320 pages. [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001; ISBN 0-8050-7134-2 (PB)]
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2. the-mitrMay 2024
   I read this story and several other very interesting ones in this great book detailing the history of evolution of modern statistics -- The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century by David Salsburg.

   The author himself personally met with several leading figures that he describes. Highly recommended!

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3. bigdictJun 2023
   The Lady Tasting Tea was a great read on that exact topic.
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4. kaspersetDec 2022
   Did not read that many books this year but this two books makes my list:

   1)The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_Tasting_Tea This book is about the history of Statistics which is weaved through the some remarkable personal stories behind the history of Statistics. If you have ever used statistics, some of the words will sound familiar and will help to understand the history behind it.

   2)The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Song-of-the-Cell/... I am still reading this book but I have read his previous book, "The Emperor of All Maladies" so knew his style. Again I enjoy historical perspective and this one tells about how we thought of the cell. It almost reads like textbook but is much interesting read than textbook. Brought some of the memories from my cell biology class. Always fascinating on how we take some things for granted such as blood transfusion came along in first place. He also narrates some his personal experience in between to make it even more readable.

   In short, I love tech and biology sparkled with history.

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5. muggermuchNov 2022
   1. I would fiercely recommend reading “An Engine, Not A Camera” (Donald MacKenzie). Formally, it reads as a sociological study of the practice of finance - how financial markets shape society instead of simply capturing its needs and desires at large. More importantly, however, it made me think deeper on questions about fields of study that are (were?) distant and to question assumptions: a lot of ideas that we take for granted as absolute truths are simply consensus-derived and have no objective reality.

   2. On a similar theme, “The Lady Tasting Tea” (David Salsburg) was a wonderful history of the development of statistics as a mathematical discipline. I found it absolutely fascinating to map out how individual personalities were buffeted and shaped by larger historical events and movements (e.g. eugenics in the late 19th century, WW2, the rise of the Soviet Union, etc.) into asking questions of data that propelled statistics forward. Disciplines we think of as being “hard” (math, CS, statistics, physics) have been shaped by social forces in a non-linear non-Hegelian fashion, in fits and starts, quite contrary to the way they are presented in a pedagogical setting.

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6. olooneySep 2019
   There are things like CONSORT[1] which kind of do this. Statisticians like Fisher[2] have a ton of good general advice of the design of experiments. (A plug for The Lady Tasting Tea[3] and the 7 Pillars of Statistical Wisdom[4] feels appropriate here.)

   On the whole though, most of the things you should and should not do are so domain specific its very hard to give much useful advice at the level of "all science." Right now this seems to work because researchers are so eager to anticipate objections and and avoid unnecessary arguments during peer review they stick slavishly stick to the same methods used by seminal papers in their field, and this has the same effect as running down a checklist.

   There probably is a case to be made for using an actual checklist, though[5].

   [1]: http://www.consort-statement.org/

   [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_experiments#Fisher's...

   [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_Tasting_Tea

   [4]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27311742-the-seven-pilla...

   [5]: http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/

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