Comments on: Geek Prize

By: tg

tg — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:51:02 +0000

Well done, Ben. So for the rest of us who are not quite up to speed on statistics, should we all be enrolling on the OU’s ten-pointer (ie, starter) course, SMK184, “Chance, risk and health” in order to follow you in future?

Course blurb: www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C01SMK184

It is apparently based in large part on a book by one Professor Stephen Senn. This book has no reviews on Amazon but the author maintains an errata page for it, which is always promising.

(Disclaimer: I am an OU student, but I know nothing about this course. I am almost tempted to take it, but argh, so many courses, so little time.)

By: Universal Antidote

Universal Antidote — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:45:52 +0000

It is rather a nice bowl. I was going to suggest you fill it with antioxidant supplements or some such.

Seriously though – congratulations! Well-deserved honor.

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 01:29:55 +0000

Faraday was the visionary, Maxwell the mathematician.

Me – pure maths, now a computer programmer.

By: matthewoconnor

matthewoconnor — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:26:33 +0000

Congratulations indeed Dr. Goldacre. Did they give you a prize, or merely promise you one…?

www.flickr.com/photos/hadenoak/353126625/

By: cribbins

cribbins — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:12:51 +0000

ToeKnee -

I’d concede entirely that mathematicians concerned with direct applications benefit from being as interested in (or knowledgeable about) the applications as they are in the mathematics involved. And yes, multidisciplinary teams are excellent for dealing with some areas (one of my old professors, CJ Budd, has built a stunning reputation on work that’s mainly been in collaboration with others). But I’m also aware that the UK’s leading expert on the theory of Stokes waves, for example, privately claims to know nothing of fluid mechanics; yet, because nonlinear analysis is so closely related to applications, his ‘purity’ hasn’t precluded his work impacting on those interested in doing something useful. Similarly, one of his colleagues, a chap who who’d faint at the sight of computational mathematics, has produced work that’s been of tremendous use to ‘yer actual’ meteorologists. And I’d say the same kind of story holds for some of of pure probabilists I’m familiar with. And so on.

Sometimes it’s fine to live in an ivory tower.

The magic is in choosing the *right* ivory tower…

By: ToeKnee

ToeKnee — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:53:59 +0000

Cribbins. Oh absolutely I agree. My comment was not meant to sound negatively more puzzled I suppose. My experience has been similar knowing Mathematicians and Statisticians who work in a wide variety of areas and precisely by virtue of the fact that their base discipline is fundamental to the work in these areas. However, I have repeatedly found that when they excel in an area it is because they have effectively re-trained in another field – albeit with a sound basis in the mathematical or statistical underpinnings. Equally though I have meant numerous mathematicians and to a lesser extent statisticians who, in my opinion, have failed to impact in an area or even had a negative impact in an area because they didn’t really grasp the nature of the problem, understand the reality of the data or consider the practicalities of implementing the solutions they suggest. Often surrogating these with over complex mathematics. Interesting you mention the example of medical imaging as this is my field and is often rife with both examples. Just look at fMRI for instance (although most of the damage in this field is frankly caused by Psychiatrists!)

Please don’t take this too negatively. Multidisciplinary teams are the only way to conduct modern research and I value Mathematicians as much as any other field. I just think they have to be good ones and the good ones are more than mathematicians.

By: pv

pv — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:16:50 +0000

Very many congrats. Made all the more impressive by the quality of the competition.

By: Will

Will — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:59:42 +0000

Thanks for winning this, Ben. In my organisation, I am increasingly using your work to educate my colleagues on the intricacies of statistics and science. This award gives you (and me) the kind of status in the eyes of my company directors to really be taken seriously as a worthwhile training aid. Can’t wait for the book!

By: Suw

Suw — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:55:47 +0000

Congratulations! An award well deserved!

Btw, what’s all this “You must bee logged in to post a comment”? I must be a bee to log in?

By: evidencebasedeating

evidencebasedeating — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:52:03 +0000

Bravo, Ben!

So now you can add serious ‘fcuk-off statistician Ninja’ to your academic and medical black belt Ninja status. And all achieved with the apparent absence of sleep, Vitamin C, orthomolecular medicine, tinctures of homeopathic nonsense, or fish oils!

Must be great to find your appreciative audience extends wider than your badscience groupies!

By: cribbins

cribbins — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:13:49 +0000

ToeKnee – I’m not sure how to take your comment. Some of the research mathematicians and statisticians I’ve known have worked on problems arising from areas such as finance, cancer research, brain imaging analysis, hydrodynamics, food processing, coal-fired power stations etc. Yet they remain mathematicians and statisticians. In fact, at least three of those working in fluid dynamics would call themselves pure mathematicians. The difference is not in the domain in which they work, but in the kind of questions they tackle. Research cannot be classed as pure or applied based purely on that; it depends on the individual’s research motivation.

By: speakeasy

speakeasy — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:09:22 +0000

Well deserved. As a reader of your blog and Guardian pieces, I congratulate you.

(P.S. Have you ever looked at how scientific findings can be distorted by the lack of appropriate punctuation? I was left quite breathless after reading one of the comments here).

By: cribbins

cribbins — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:02:21 +0000

Well earned, son.

By: ToeKnee

ToeKnee — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 11:00:45 +0000

Well done Ben. However, in the paperless office of the future in which we now all work (yeah, right) is there any need for such a paper weight?

Do any of the winners have formal training in statistics? Genuine question as I can’t be arsed to do the research, i.e. type 6 words into Google and click around a bit together with some light skim reading – frankly I’m suprised I can muster the energy to type this I’m so effing lazy at the weekend.

I only ask as I have always thought being a pure Mathematician or a Statistian to be a bit like learning a language but never visiting the country. You end up with a fabulous set of skills but without a practical domain in which to use them. Don’t get me wrong I’m not one of those Mathematician bashing physicist but most of the Mathematicians and Statisticians whom I know have also spent many years specialising in some other domain.

Discuss.

By: Andrew Clegg

Andrew Clegg — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:22:33 +0000

PS I love the cynical quote at the end of that Matthew Parris piece.

“But why fret? Journalists and politicians bring you the essential not the literal truth.”

Bleak but (essentially) true…

Andrew.

By: Andrew Clegg

Andrew Clegg — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:13:55 +0000

First winner huh! That means you can tell yourself that they inaugurated it just for you

Andrew.

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 09:55:37 +0000

The piece about appliances on standby is pretty good. Sometimes Matthew Parris really annoys me…

Do you think that awarding fifth place is perhaps being too judicious?

By: ACH

ACH — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 09:36:34 +0000

This is going to be a very “me too” comments thread, but congratulation from me too.

Can’t understand why Durham Education Dept weren’t short listed though……

By: JunkkMale

JunkkMale — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:58:58 +0000

May I add my congratulations to what I am sure, will be a growing and deserved chorus.

And also my thanks to you for a most approriate set of pieces to now retroactively add to my own blog today in response to some further ‘facts’ about the Stern Report and climate change, which may or may not make it to the Telegraph’s online pages (they do tend to ‘moderate’… oddly): junkk.blogspot.com/2007/01/fast-and-loose-play-on.html

May I also take this opportunity to request any more qualifed (and I don’t just mean in terms of expertise, but also a commitment to objectivity or just plain accepting ‘we don’t know – ie: this site) who do think they can cast some helpful illumination on this whole issue, to be aware of all that swirls around and can obscure positive actions in this heated (warmed?) debate. And redirect those of us keen to do what’s best in as well informed a manner as possible.

By: muscleman

muscleman — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:27:07 +0000

And heartiest Congrats from me too.

The piece was a worthy winner too.