Nobel Prize for Statistics
Q: There isn’t a Nobel Prize for Mathematics, is there?
A: No
Q: I’ve heard that was because Nobel’s wife was having an affair with a prominent mathematician. Is that true?
A: Almost certainly not
Q: How can you be sure?
A: Various reasons. For a start, Nobel wasn’t married.
Q: Oh. Is there a Nobel Prize for Statistics?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Various reasons. For a start, statistics hadn’t really been invented in 1895, when Nobel died.
Q: Do statisticians ever win Nobel Prizes?
A: Yes and no.
Q: How is that not a simple “yes” or “no”?
A: The Sverige Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has often been given for statistical research. Opinions vary on whether this is a ‘real’ Nobel Prize.
Q: Can you explain how to pronounce that?
A: No.
Q: When was the most recent time it was given for statistics research?
A: Yesterday, to Lars Peter Hansen (together with two other people for non-statistical research)
Q: Can you explain in simple terms what he did?
A: I could try, but Jeff Leek at Simply Statistics has already done a reasonable job
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
“For a start, statistics hadn’t really been invented in 1895, when Nobel died.”
Funny because Laplace died in 1827! ;-)
11 years ago
Laplace was just probability ⟨sniffs condescendingly⟩ ;)
11 years ago
Yes, the often quoted ‘Lies, Damned and Statistics’ cannot have referred to the discipline of statistics, as when the quote was made it did not exist as a discipline. The derogatory words are more likely to have been referring to the original meaning of the word ‘statistics’ – ‘data of the state’.
11 years ago
Great one. And Thomas Bayes died in 1761 :)
8 years ago
And Euclid died in 365BCE, but he wasn’t a statistician either.
8 years ago
“Thomas Bayes (/ˈbeɪz/; c. 1701 – 7 April 1761)[2][3][note a] was an English statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bayes
8 years ago
Yes, they say he’s a statistician, but they don’t give any examples of anything he did that even they call statistics.
8 years ago
And “Euclid (/ˈjuːklᵻd/; Greek: Εὐκλείδης, Eukleidēs Ancient Greek: [eu̯.klěː.dɛːs]; fl. 300 BCE), sometimes called Euclid of Alexandria to distinguish him from Euclides of Megara, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the “father of geometry”.”
No one says he is a statistician.
8 years ago
Indeed.
8 years ago
“Yes, they say he’s a statistician, but they don’t give any examples of anything he did that even they call statistics.”
Well, he developed the “Bayes theorem” and with others (e.g. Laplace) invented the so called “Bayesian statistics”. He is one of the early founders of statistics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founders_of_statistics) – the first big name statistician in history. Of course, unless you consider “Bayesian statistics” is not statistics just like many frequentists keen to ignore.
8 years ago
Also looking at the list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founders_of_statistics), there are many great statisticians before Nobel died. William Playfair invented bar chart and pie chart. “Statistics is the study of the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data.” (Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms), so surely Playfair’s contribution in data presentation can be considered as “statistics”? The next one in the list, Gauss, invented least squares (with Legendre) – of course least squares including OLS is part of statistics? Then Florence Nightingale, also contributed greatly in statistical graphics and “the establishment of epidemiology”, and was elected as the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society in 1859, well before Nobel died.
8 years ago