The Frederick Fertilizer Company has developed a fertilizer they think will make plants grow faster, taller, and heartier. They need to conduct an experiment. They need to plant seeds randomly into different containers— some with the fertilizer and some without. Of course, in any bag of seeds, there are better seeds and poorer seeds.
a. Does a random assignment of seeds guarantee that all the better seeds will not be tested with the new fertilizer? Explain.
b. Is it probable that all the “better” seeds will be placed with only the new fertilizer? Explain.
c. If the test is conducted and the plants treated with the new fertilizer do in fact grow taller, faster, and heartier, would the company believe the fertilizer worked as intended or that all the better seeds were assigned to the new fertilizer containers, and the fertilizer had no effect?