Tuesday 12th May 2015

Peter Diggle - Royal Statistical Society President, Lancaster Medical School, University of Lancaster and Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool

Slides can be downloaded at: http://www.statslife.org.uk/events/eventdetail/446/-/rss-president-s-address-2015-statistics-a-data-science-for-the-21st-century

Where are all the Data Scientists?

It appears to be the fate of statisticians to be periodically threatened with extinction. At the beginning of my career, the threat was that computer packages would make us redundant. Now, the threat is from a multiple assault by emerging species - machine learners, informaticians and, most of all, data-scientists. But the threat is also an opportunity. We should welcome the increasing appreciation of statistics by whatever name people choose to call it, and embrace these emerging species as allies who can strengthen our discipline rather than threaten its existence. However, in so doing we need to take a critical look at the way we teach statistics - both to our own students and to students in other disciplines.