I was born on 21 June 1973. Like most people, I don't remember anything about the first few years of life, and like most children I went through a phase of driving my dad mad by asking 'Why?' every five seconds. With every question, the word 'dad' got longer and whinier: 'Dad, why is the sky blue?', 'Daaad, why don't worms have legs?', 'Daaaaaaaaad, where do babies come from?' Eventually, my dad could take no more and whacked me around the face with a golf club.1
My torrent of questions reflected the natural curiosity that children have: we all begin our voyage through life as inquisitive little scientists. At the age of 3, I was at my friend Obe's party (just before he left England to return to Nigeria, much to my distress). It was a hot day, and there was an electric fan blowing cold air around the room. My 'curious little scientist' brain was working through what seemed like a particularly pressing question: 'What happens when you stick your finger in a fan?' The answer, as it turned out, was that it hurts – a lot.2 At the age of 3, we intuitively know that to answer questions you need to collect data, even if it causes us pain.
My curiosity to explain the world never went away, which is why I'm a scientist. The fact you're reading this book means that the inquisitive 3-year-old in you is alive and well and wants to answer new and exciting questions too. To answer these questions you need 'science' and science has a pilot fish called 'statistics' that hides under its belly eating ectoparasites. That's why your evil lecturer is forcing you to learn statistics. Statistics is a bit like sticking your finger into a revolving fan blade: sometimes it's very painful, but it does give you answers to interesting questions. I'm going to try to convince you in this chapter that statistics are an important part of doing research. We will overview the whole research process, from why we conduct research in the first place, through how theories are generated, to why we need data to test these theories. If that doesn't convince you to read on then maybe the fact that we discover whether Coca-Cola kills sperm will. Or perhaps not.
1 He was practising in the garden when I unexpectedly wandered behind him at the exact moment he took a back swing. It's rare that a parent enjoys the sound of their child crying, but on this day it filled my dad with joy because my wailing was tangible evidence he hadn't killed me, which he thought he might have done. Had he hit me with the club end rather than the shaft he probably would have. Fortunately (for me) I survived, although some might argue that this incident goes some way to explaining the way my brain functions.
2 In the 1970s fans didn't have helpful protective cages around them to prevent idiotic 3-year-olds sticking their fingers into the blades.