Re: Experienced Statistician to help decide whether a regression is legitim

Anahita wrote:
I didn't realize how long a single conversation we
had! For this reply, I'll cut out
MOST of what we had discussed already and comment
only on a few.

.. however as a devils advocate... some malpractice
is really based on "ignorance" (which is bliss!)- and
this ignorance is "good faith"...

Most malpractice ARE based on "ignorance", but I was
talking about my experience in THIS group, that after the
malpractice had been explained and re-explained a dozen times, the same
person continues to argue that it's not malpractice --
that's ignorance of a different kind -- refusal to LEARN, because I
always point to reputable books and articles that corrects the
malpractice, but the few frequent malpractioners in sci.stat.math
seldom ever read those references and continued to wallow in
their BLISS of ignorance.

hmm well if it is so, it is indeed rather a sign of stubbornness


C'est la difference. That's what you say in France.
;)
oui c'est tout à fait différent.


Yes then one should dig and search.. but not
everyone has the mindset of a "researcher"...
Some of this malpractice is a consequence of a lack
of modesty as well...

Most of the malpractice I found here are NOT in
research, but merely executing simple applied tasks that can hardly
be considered research.

Agreed…

So it really are deficiencies
that resulted in malpractice. I think what I've seen here (for
the most part) are beyond a lack of modesty.


There have been Executive Programs in Business
Schools throughout the country, in their MBA
programs
in which ONLY high level managers and
company CEOs are admitted. They are taught not
only
how to recognize what is good and what is bad,
but
actually DO many of the analysis themselves.

I had no knowledge of that.. and if this is true
this is wonderful..

I was aware of this kind of program from my
colleagues at the University of Chicago, Harry Roberts in particular,
who told me many of the things the Executives do in their
classes. I didn't teach any of the Exec Program courses until 1982 when
I was a Visiting Prof at the MBA Exec Program at
Vanderbilt. It was a most rewarding experience to find the
eager-to-learn EXECS (most CEO and high level managers) who were NOT the
brightest students in statistics, yet they were genuinely interested

This is a good start…but people with more maturity become more genuinely interested often enough…

in learning, and they show their appreciation and
above all, they don't blame what they don't grasp on ME (as most of
the undergrads do).

Ahaha yes that can be rather true….. I studied in elite schools were only “goods were admitted” (whatever that means) so there was genuine interest and probably a boost for the professors.. and we were going fast… that was good… challenging.
When I had to teach to “normal” students.. I understood the pain sometimes..

That was the only time in my
academic career
that I had an Exec student writing me after the
course was all
over and he received a D how he appreciated my
efforts. In
some way, that was A high point of my career, tobe
genuinely
thanked by a student who made a "D" in my course.
Elsewhere
I've been taken to the bonfire for lynching when the
students
did not get the grade they thought they deserve but
didn't.

Ahaha.. oh yes… and that is how these students that should not have earned their grade become phds and then professors or work as experts.. and do not do good work.. yes yes..


It makes a whole world of difference between the
RESPONSIBLE
execs (which is why they got to their positions in
the first place)
and the irresponsible brats (now common in all
colleges).

And these also land in the industry ….

That
group of MBA Execs invited me back to their Reunion
(at their
expense, and I was the only one so invited out side
of Vanderbit)
5 years later, when I was a Visiting Prof at Harvard.

Well bravo.. means you did succeed in making them feel they had learnt something…
That is rewarding…


however I see a few points I can state here:
first it does take quite a lot of perspiration to
become a mathematician or a statistician.. so going
through a few
courses if it might enlighten you somewhat doesn't
make you all of a sudden a "magus of statistics"..

Of course not. But at the hands of good profesors
such as Harry Roberts and a few others, they are orders of
magnitude better than those managers who had NOT been through the few
courses of education on how statistics is properly used.

Agreed and that is superb!

Second those managers who have/take their spare
time to go through these courses might be mostly
those who
think it matters... (selection bias?)...

Possibly. But if they are already CEOs, it becomes
mostly one of the desire to learn and be a BETTER CEO. There are
always exceptions of course.

Of course was just stressing the fact

So even there.... there would be matter for debate
or?


My >co-author and former colleague
Harry V. Roberts of
the University of Chicago had been a strong
moving
force in that
program
at Chicago as well as in the movement to educate
the
Management.

Send him my belated congratulations for his
dedication.

Perhaps you didn't have a web brower to read what's
in the URL.

I confess I did not think of checking the URL I shall now

I regret to say that it is too belated. Because the
page was an
obiturary of his death in 2004. That was during
the YEARS of
my complete disassociation with ALL statisticians and
ALL statistics
(from about 2000 to 2005 when I re-started in
sci.stat.math) because
of my disgust with what the Educational Institutions
did to reward
the professors who did not TEACH but gave out high
grades –

Yes.. sad eh…

and they are the CAUSE of so many mal-practice
statisticians we
see today. The statistics professor did LITTLE if
ANY to try to
right the wrong.

So, it was my deepest regret that I didn't even know
John Tukey

Was a great great guy..

died until two years later, and that I didn't know
Harry died until
fairly recently.

The whole thing is certainly a good idea and shows
he was persuasive enough.

He was a remarkable human being. The webpage
highlighted
that he was a Bayesian which not many people knew.
I've
stated several times in this group that I learned my
Bayesian
Statistics from L.J. Savage, Harry Roberts, and few
other


Wow!!! A real Bayesian ! hey that is really a good piece of information! I read Savage when I was working on decision under uncertainty issues so I’ll come to you once with questions.. I also followed two summer schools on imprecise probability.
I’d really like to understand a little more about what is Bayesian statistics..

very reputable Bayesians when some Illywhacker and
other
complete NON-Bayesians made all kinds of noise
challenging
me about my knowledge about Bayesian stat. when they
were
the ones who were completely bankrupt in said
knowledge.

He
even taught principles management that are much
more
management than
statistics.
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/041007/obit-roberts.shtm
l

That is the page about Harry Roberts. Perhaps that
line
was truncated so that you couldn't access it because
I
can see the "l"of shtml dangling below. :0)
l
#> Toward the end of his career, Roberts helped
develop a curriculum in
#> Total Quality Management at the GSB.

Harry even had succeess in pursuading several
major
companies to REQUIRE their upper level management
positions to be
filled by only those who had several advanced
courses in statistics.

Here, with all du e respect, are you sure that this
is a good criterion? After all division of labor is
about everybody should be doing that for which he is
best qualified.. I guess managers should manage and
statistician "statisticize"

Yes, but in an industry which so much depends on the
research and
study BASED on statistical data,

You are very right in that respect… stats are everywhere.. now it is a guarantee of “truth” and when you see sometimes how it is done.. I cry!
Even I a non-statistician..

such a requirement
would not TAX
any high level manager -- management is a skill that
can almost be
learned WITHOUT any formal study whereas statistics
is a skill
that CANNOT be learned without a very carefully
supervised LEARNING
experience.

hmmm that was my reason to leave academia... this
"tolerant" attitude to "low or nonsensical" research
...

Me too. So, we have at least that much IN COMMON
for out
reasons to leave academia. :-) Publish or perish
is ALMOST
Both are deviant to what I believed was science… uninteresting papers by millions, lack of originality, uniformism, bad courses, and decreasing rigor..

as bad as "Give grades to please the students because
they
pay the tuition -- forget about teaching them
anything."


They are much more ready to
criticize ME for pointing out the malpractice
than
criticizing those who malpractice.

I have not followed the debate. It is thus a
courageous attitude of yours to defend and try to
point out malpractice... one is seldom rewarded for
that. It takes on top a communicator talent

That is not restricted to any particular debate.
That has been
the PREVAILING atmosphere ever since I stepped in
sci.stat.math
about 5,000 posts ago. :-)

But being human (or pescan?)

Piscean I should have written…


Ah, that's Spanish for "the fish", and I thought you
were French.
For a second, I thought you were referring to some
poster
who pasted with the name "pescaand" who first
thanked me
profusely in 2005 for being so patient in teaching
her/him
about what a Linear Model was, and then suddenly
re-appeared
in 2006 to post the most bitter, unwarranted, and
vicious
attack on me because I had made a passing remark
about a
UK student who was apparently his/her
girlfriend/boyfriend,
who had dropped out of that discussion long ago.

you know very well how difficult to us all it is to
admit that one errs....

It is VERY easy for me because I seldom err, and if I
do, and was
pointed out, I immediately accept it. If you can't
do that, then you
lose ALL credibility.

Then you are closer to being very honest than many people.. but it is rare..

Even some of my CRITICS (of my no-nonsense way of
blunt
communication as is my trademark in academia) readily
point
out to others my trademark phrase "I stand corrected"
on those
FEW occasions I did err and was pointed out by
others, whether
the error was large or small.

so then Mr. Reef Fish, humans remain humans even if
dealing with statistics..you cannot expect that those
you enlighten do not go through the tortures of
realizing that what they believed they knew might
have benn illusory..

It becomes a torture ONLY when they refuse to LISTEN
and at
least TRY to understand WHERE they erred. In
m00es's case,
which was an "extremely" of such a case, he couldn't
wait when I
said "read it in my next post" (and he had already
made the SAME
NOISE posting exactly the same that he had erred).

Those who continued arguing when they SHOULD have
known
how they erred are the ones who brought torture to
themselves.
In the end, instead of losing ONCE (admit and move
on), they
lose 100 TIMES and leave a permanent record in the
archives
of their ignorance and obnoxiousness, not to mention
the
pollution of an entire newsgroup.


When applied statisticians
malpractice and have strong influence on CEOs of
companies, the effect is not as readily visible.

Companies ALWAYS have the option to hire
competent
statisticians to help do the job their own
in-house statistics staff
is incapble of handling properly or well.

Well there you are... they do in theory, but in
practice.. it is slightly more complex... first you
have to understand what kind of specialist you hire,
and then screening humans is difficult you know that
as well..

That's why the EXEC program CEOs and upper level
managers are in a better position to know whom to hire.

and then it takes time to discover that your team
doesn't know how to work ( especially if you have not
been through the courses listed above...).. which is
the case in the issue I am talking about... and then
if the previously hired consultants also fail to "see" the
problem...

All of that is certainly possible! The more
ignorant the management,
the more probable. :-)

That is my current observation.. at least… still no theory thought!

C'est la vie. We are not living in Utopia. We
have both seen the Real World. Kicking a strawman is easy to do.
Recognizing and appreciating a solid statistician is a much harder
task.

I think so…

Another French say says: "avec des si on met Paris
en bouteille" meaning that whith a causal chain of
"if”s you can even bottle "Paris".. i.e. manage the
impossible..

That sounds like my mentor's favorite saying against
Fisher's idea of randomization: "What if you throw up a
group of blocks
of letters and it fell spelling 'C H R I S T M A S'"?

Joli.

In any case thank you for your refreshing thoughts
and the story of the courses for manager.. the US is
always in advance!

Touche. The US is in advance in some small areas.
The US remains foreever behind in the math and science areas
in spite of having the best in the same areas. That's
because the best FEW are at the tail of the dog. They cannot wag the
dog, the ever content we-are-the-best majority even if they
ranked FAR behind most countries, even a few in the 3rd world,
on math related areas.

The wheel will turn again in some time…



again thank you very much, Monsieur, for the chat! Anahita
.

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