Statistics as a discipline must promote its wider brand image or risk being marginalised, Professor David Hand, said in his Presidential Address to the Royal Statistical Society on Wednesday, 10 December 2008.

In his address, Professor Hand explained his view that statistics is the most exciting of disciplines, with the modern world relying more and more on the analysis of data. He warned there is a tendency to invent new names for statistical methods has obscured the role that statistics plays.

Speaking ahead of his address, Professor Hand highlighted that:

• statistics has a poor public image
• there is a narrow public perception of statistics
• public awareness of the role of statistics needs to be raised.

In his speech Professor Hand said:

"Statistics suffers from a poor public image, with many quips and quotations ridiculing the subject.

"A key issue is the narrow public perception of what statistics is, often limited to sport statistics and government statistics. Relatively few will recognise that the debate around climate change and global warming was primarily statistical, that the hedge fund industry is based on statistical models, or that epidemiological issues such BSE and AIDS are tackled using statistical methods.

"The question for us is how to raise public awareness of the key role of statistics. What is lacking is a proper 'branding' of statistics, so that when people read about these issues the role of statistics is explicit. Where the role is in other guises for example, pattern recognition, machine learning, data mining and expert systems then the brand must extend to a 'greater statistics'.

"Promoting this brand image will not only allow the role of statistics to be properly recognised, it will also allow the excitement of its achievements and potential to be more fully appreciated."

Download the PDF below to read the address:

Presidential Address (PDF 630 KB)