At a summer tea party in Cambridge, England, a lady states that tea poured into milk tastes differently than that of milk poured into tea. The lady in question claimed to be able to tell whether the tea or the milk was added first to a cup. Her notion was thought unlikely by the scientific minds of the group. But one guest, by the name Sir Ronald Fisher (1890-1962) proposes to scientifically test the lady's hypothesis. There was no better person to conduct such a test, for Fisher had brought to the field of statistics an emphasis on controlling the methods for obtaining data and the importance of interpretation. He knew that how the data was gathered and applied was as important as the data themselves. Fisher proposed to give her eight cups, four of each variety, in random order. One could then ask what the probability was for her getting the number she got correct or just by chance. The woman got all eight cups correct. The chance of someone who just guesses getting all correct, assuming she guesses that four had the tea put in first and four the milk, would be only 1 in 70 (p=.014). Apparently, the lady knew her tea.

Can you think of something in your everyday life that could be tested with research?