David Salsburg

David Salsburg has his PhD in mathematical statistics and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard School of Public Health, Yale University, Connecticut College, and the University of Connecticut. Most of his career was spent at Pfizer Central Research, Pfizer, Inc., where he rose to the top of the scientific ladder. He was the first statistician hired at Pfizer and among the first to work for any drug company. In 1962, amendments to the Food and Drug Law of the U.S. gave the Food and Drug Administration authority to require that the sponsors of new drugs prove that the drugs were effective for the medical indications. Before this, they had only to prove that the new drug was "safe". Management at Pfizer thought they were hiring someone to calculate something called a p-value to provide a statistical gloss to what they already "knew". However, the main advantage of statistical modeling is that it forces the scientist to think carefully about the possible outcomes of the study and about the careful design of the study. Salsburg soon found himself doing more than calculating p-values. He began poking into problems in pharmacology, toxicology, chemistry, and even marketing. Management came to realize that they could use statisticians for more than calculating a p-value but for making the earlier decisions about development. In the end, Salsburg contributed to the development of several hundred compounds that failed to make it to market, and 20 that did. He retired from Pfizer in 1995 and has since taught at Harvard and Yale and written several books. His LADY TASTING TEA described the development of statistical models in language designed for the non-expert reader. His JONAH IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN (now available as an e-book on Kendle) uses statistical methods to examine the authorship of the books of the Hebrew Bible. He has published articles examining the authorship of books attributed to Davy Crockett, and looking at the authenticity of collections of numbers found in the Bible. As he enters his 90th decade, he is busy lecturing, writing, visiting grandchildren. See his blog for some of his ideas and comments