> A reasonable point. Some of us have been thinking, for some
> time, that
> 'statistics' is too big for anyone to cover completely.
> Perhaps we need
> codicils to the C.Stat showing exactly what particular individuals are
> accredited to handle?
That could be a big step forward. Let me go back to Claus Moser's
presidential address:
"... Considerable mathematical ability is now needed to understand more than
a small proportion of (statistical) journals .. much of what is written is
irrelevant to, and oblivious of, applications in business, government and
other important fields .. the papers deal with theories looking for data
rather than with real problems needing theoretical treatment .. We have
become technique rather than problem oriented."
If that pattern was evident more than 20 years ago, it must be even more
dominent today.
A lot the trend that Moser identified can be attributed to academia and its
pressures. But the primacy given to the 'science of statistics' in the
revisions proposed for the RSS Charter will reinforce that trend by
promoting the theoretical against the applied.
The revisions of the Charter will therefore make it more difficult for the
Society to introduce qualifications that relate to applications in
particular areas. And the revisions would make it particularly difficult
to develop a qualification for the use of statistics as facts about society,
or to take other educational initiatives in this area.
Ray Thomas
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