What are the most important statistical ideas of the past 50 years? [pdf]

Re:What are the most important statistical ideas of the past... by ncmncm on Monday March 08, 2021 @02:12PM (#26390150)

The re-discovery of causation analysis, by Pearl, after it was suppressed for many decades by the statistics mandarinate, clearly qualifies.

Max Planck is quoted, "Science progresses one funeral at a time." In this case, the grand old man of statistics finally died still insisting that it could not be proved that smoking caused cancer, but not before blighting careers of those who were showing it could.

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Re:What are the most important statistical ideas of the past... by huitzitziltzin on Monday March 08, 2021 @03:29PM (#26391078)

> after it was suppressed for many decades by the statistics mandarinate, clearly qualifies.

I have heard Pearl make this claim but have never seen his evidence for it.

As a counterexample: Don Rubin is a statistician who has a well-known framework for causal inference who has been at the top of the field for a very long time. Rubin has published widely and very well on causal inference.

Is there good evidence for the topic actually being suppressed by anyone within the statistics profession? There is work on causal inference going back to RA Fisher. If anyone has tried to suppress it, I'm not sure they have been very effective.

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Re:What are the most important statistical ideas of the past... by mlac on Monday March 08, 2021 @05:01PM (#26392253)

>Is there good evidence for the topic actually being suppressed by anyone within the statistics profession?

Unfortunately there's not enough evidence to show causation...

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