Reinforcing the Impact of Statistics on Society

Karen Kafadar

Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2020, vol. 115, issue 530, 491-500

Abstract: What does statistics have to offer science and society, in this age of massive data, machine learning algorithms, and multiple online sources of tools for data analysis? I recall a few situations where statistics made a real difference and reinforced the impact of our discipline on society. Sometimes the difference lay in the insightful analysis and inference enabled by ground-breaking methods in our field like hypothesis testing, likelihood ratios, Bayesian models, jackknife, and bootstrap. But perhaps more often, the impacts came from thoughtful analyses before data were collected, and the questions that arose after the statistical analysis. The impact of understanding the problem, designing the experiment and data collections, conducting the pilot surveys, and raising important questions, is substantial. Through sensible explorations following formal statistical procedures, statisticians have made contributions in many domains. In this presentation, I recall some examples which made a long-lasting impact. Some of them, like randomization in clinical trials, known and familiar to all, are so ingrained in our practice that the role of statistics has been forgotten. Others may be less familiar but nonetheless benefited greatly from the critical input of statisticians. All remind us that our field remains today not only relevant but critical to science and society.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01621459.2020.1761217 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jnlasa:v:115:y:2020:i:530:p:491-500

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/UASA20

DOI: 10.1080/01621459.2020.1761217

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the American Statistical Association is currently edited by Xuming He, Jun Liu, Joseph Ibrahim and Alyson Wilson

More articles in Journal of the American Statistical Association from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().