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Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by RodgerTheGreat on Thursday September 20, 2012 @10:51AM (#4548818)
How long will there be English departments? Every professional needs to be able to communicate ideas in writing. One would assume that in time English would be absorbed into other departments that applied it.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by apl on Thursday September 20, 2012 @11:00AM (#4548857)
I'm equally confused by his point about non-statistics departments doing more statistics than their "proper" counterparts. While that may be true, the bulk of cutting edge research in a given field always comes from specialists. I've never heard of substantial statistical advances arising in psychology departments (even though they're arguably one of the biggest "consumers" of statistics out there).

It's a bit like trickle-down economics.

Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by stakka on Thursday September 20, 2012 @01:46PM (#4549712)
I think you have to look 'up' the stream. Physics has given statistics some of the biggest ideas in the recent past. I think biology is relatively mathless unless it's *omics crap, and then again you have non-statisticians contributing to stats. Also plenty of CS stuff for stats.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by jamessb on Thursday September 20, 2012 @06:18PM (#4551050)
There are definitely other mathy areas: crystallography, biophysics, computational neuroscience, theoretical ecology, and applications of simulation methods like CFD and FEA to physiology, . . .

But yes, most biological research doesn't require much mathematics.

Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by bromang on Friday September 21, 2012 @05:51AM (#4553056)
can you give some examples of statistical advances from physics?
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by dbecker on Thursday September 20, 2012 @02:35PM (#4549971)
Econometricians (based in economics departments) have contributed to the cutting edge of statistical knowledge.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by 001sky on Thursday September 20, 2012 @11:52PM (#4552121)
Financial econometrics, in particular, is among the most adavanced actual uses of statistics. This is also not all occuring in academe.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by disgruntledphd2 on Thursday September 20, 2012 @03:33PM (#4550267)
meta analysis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis

Invented to look at telepathy, and Rhine was definitely a psychologist (though one the field unfairly tries to forget). That being said, I thought Glass was a psychologist but he was actually a statistician, so I suppose the modern form of meta-analysis was, in fact, invented by a statistician. Do psychometricians count as statisticians? If not, then quite a few more things were invented outside of statistics.

Psychology: not just for innumerate touchy feely hippies (just mostly).

Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by aasarava on Thursday September 20, 2012 @12:53PM (#4549459)
Except that English as a subject is much less about writing English or the English language as it is about studying English literature and its reflection of (and impact on) culture and history.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by bluepaper on Thursday September 20, 2012 @12:59PM (#4549489)
Depends on which English degree you study. I know those who've studied the literature and cultural impact side of things and those who've studied the language with a linguistics spin on it.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by 001sky on Thursday September 20, 2012 @11:55PM (#4552129)
http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html

Has an interesting history on the subject

Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by johndcook on Thursday September 20, 2012 @11:23AM (#4548987)
Some writing courses have been absorbed by other departments. Engineering departments, for example, may teach their own technical writing courses rather than going through the English department. When I was in college, I had a writing course offered through the physics department.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by Legion on Thursday September 20, 2012 @04:26PM (#4550500)
> How long will there be English departments?

For however long there will be people willing to pay tuition to enroll in one. Really, that's the answer to all questions in that form. No matter how worthy of independence a study might be, it exists or fails to exist primarily on the existence of a body of students willing to pay money to sit in those seats.*

* speaking purely in terms of undergraduate programs here

Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by lifeisstillgood on Thursday September 20, 2012 @10:56AM (#4548845)
Damn it I came to make exactly the same comment.

Writing English stories is just aiming at a different compiler in someone else's head.

Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by matthewowen on Thursday September 20, 2012 @03:41PM (#4550300)
"Writing English stories" has pretty much nothing to do with what people do in English departments.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by lifeisstillgood on Thursday September 20, 2012 @04:55PM (#4550630)
I doubt they sit around writing all day - but I am darn sure they do compiler anaylsis of the human brain.
Re:How long will there be computer science departments? by Stefan_H on Thursday September 20, 2012 @04:35PM (#4550543)
So they finally got rid of those pesky creative writing classes, huzzah!