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• An entertaining history of experimental design that gives proper due to Gosset is Ziliak (2014). To see how the methods that Gosset developed were used for commercial purposes at the Guinness Brewery, see Ziliak (2008).

• Through the 1980s, American cars didn't last long. In the 1960s, American automobile manufacturers offered warranties for 4000 miles or three months, whichever came first. By the 1990s, these warranties had been increased to 70000 miles or seven years (Lightstone et al., 1993, p. 774).

• W. E. Deming was a statistics professor at NYU in the late 1930s when he developed “statistical quality control.” He took his idea to the Detroit automakers, but they didn't want his advice. After WWII, he then took his ideas to Japan, which embraced them wholeheartedly. Deming is largely credited for the postwar Japanese economic miracle. How would the course of history have been altered, if Detroit had embraced Deming instead of rejecting him?

• As a general rule, observational results can't be trusted until they have been verified by a well‐designed experiment. Medical practices often become popular as a result of observational studies, only to be overturned years later by experiments, long after much damage has been done. Some examples are hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women, stenting for coronary disease, and a specific medicine thought to retard heart disease (fenofibrate to treat hyperlipidemia). See Huded et al. (2013) for further examples.