As a retired member of Rothamsted Statistics I am regularly asked to show
overseas visitors where Fisher worked, where the lady tasted tea, how his
"Millionaire" calculator works, and some of his original handwriting. The
building where they had tea in 1919 still stands, unlike several of the
Rothamsted labs, and tea time continued to be a valuable institution where
scientists from different departments could meet and exchange ideas and
questions - this discontinued in the 1980s.
What is not clear was whether she identified all the cups correctly at
the time, because Fisher used the outcome 6/8 in his book example. Some
authors misquote this result as being a Binomial example with eight
independent trials (with 256 outcomes), whereas Fisher assumes that the
subject knows that there are four of each kind, and therefore only 70
possible outcomes.
Fisher was a student at Cambridge, but did not work there until about
1943. It is a pity when unchecked facts get repeatedly misquoted. A
similar example is with Bortkiewicz and the deaths from horsekick among
Prussian soldiers. The German word Herren (men) is sometimes mistaken for
Heeren (officers), so the famous data set is described in relation to
Prussian Officers (who would of course be on the horse, not on the ground).
Gavin Ross
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Harding" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: Fisher
> On 12-Jun-06 Vernon Gayle wrote:
> > Dear Colleagues,
> >
> > This is purely for personal interest.
> >
> > I have just received a copy of 'The Lady Tasting Tea - How
> > Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century'
> > by David Salsburg.
> >
> > I noticed on page 1 that he suggests that the famous tea
> > tasting experiment associated with Ronald Fisher took place
> > in Cambridge.
> >
> > However, in 'Intro to Categorical Data Analysis' (1996) Alan
> > Agresti reports that it was at Rothampsted.
> >
> > If someone has a copy of 1935 edition of Fishers 'The Design
> > of Experiments' please could they have a look for me - Salsburg
> > suggests that the story is in chapter 2.
> >
> > Many thanks
> >
> > Vernon
>
> I was going to say that I don't know about the facts of the
> tea-tasting experiment, but I know a man who undoubtedly does
> (Anthony Edwards).
>
> But then I turned to my copy of
>
> "R.A. Fisher: The Lide of a Scientist"
>
> by Joan Fisher Box (his daughter). On page 134 is the following
> account:
>
> "Already, quite soon after he had come to Rothamsted [he
> joined the staff in October 1919], his presence had transformed
> one commonplace tea time to an historic event. It happened
> one afternoon when he drew a cup of tea from the urn and
> offered it to the lady beside him, Dr B. Muriel Bristol,
> an algologist. She declined it, stating that she preferred
> a cup into which the milk had been poured first. "Nonsense",
> returned Fisher, smiling. "Surely it makes no difference."
> But she maintained, with emphasis. that of course it did.
> From just behind, a voice suggested, "Let's test her."
> It was William Roach, who was not long afterward to marry
> Miss Bristol. Immediately, they embarked on the preliminaries
> of the experiment, Roach assisting with the cups and exulting
> that Miss Bristol divined correctly more than enough of those
> cups into which the tea had been poured first to prove her case."
>
> There are a few more paragraphs developing this event into the
> permanent thread it became in Fisher's thought, leading on to
> the opening of Chapter II of "The Design of Experiments (1935):
>
> "'A lady declares that by tasting a cup of tea made
> with milk she can discriminate whether the milk or
> the tea infusion was first added to the cup. We shall
> consider the problem of designing an experiment by
> means of which this assertion can be tested.'
>
> "In the subsequent pages he considered the questions relevant to
> designing this particular test as a prime example, for the same
> questions arise, in some form, in all experimental designs."
>
> One could hardly get closer to the horse's mouth than that, nor
> have more delightful cirumstantial detail, so it would be ungallant
> to doubt any part of it!
>
> My one remaining question about the whole thing: In the circumstances
> of the original event, did everone eventually get a cup of tea?
> Or was the urn exhausted by the demand for experimental resources?
>
> Best wishes to all,
> Ted.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> Date: 12-Jun-06 Time: 20:16:27
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