19 February 2007

It is Sunday morning. I am listening to Chris Laidlaw interview a medical researcher. They are discussing developments and breakthroughs in the treatment of colon cancer. I wonder at the marvels of science and the dedicated, brilliant work that has gone into it. The researcher continues, “Undoubtedly the most influential single event in medical science in the twentieth century was the discovery of the randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial”. “Gosh,” I think, “Sounds like us.”

A statistical methodology the jewel in the crown of medical science. Wow!

Statistics is a Cinderella amongst the Sciences, cleaning, sweeping, bringing order, but rather ill-equipped for the Ball. Xiao-Li Meng (who was a keynote speaker at ASC/NZSA 2006) referred to our “deficiency in ‘self-promotion’” in his pitch to be Vice-President of the ASA (AmStat News, March 2006), writing that he would push for “deserved market value” across the board.

Perhaps the fact that he was not elected to the position indicates that we are still in “pumpkin mode”. Or perhaps it is that we value “the value of what we do”.

Actually, we did have another moment in the spotlight, when Jeff Hunter received the Campbell Award and Honorary Life Membership of the NZSA at the Royal Society Awards Dinner in November, for his many services to Statistics in New Zealand. It was a very special evening, and we were honoured to be a part of it.

And on the subject of randomized control trials, there is a nice satirical piece by Smith and Pell (2003) in the British Medical Journal (327:1459-61) decrying the fact that parachute usage is based only on observational data, a very amusing read.

Caveat: I think I have some of the details of the radio programme wrong, as it was several months ago, and the producer has no record of such an interview. However, the quote is reasonably accurate. If anyone can give me more accurate details, I will correct it online.

Roger Littlejohn