[R] Inference for R Spam

[Bert Gunter]

"The purpose of the subject or discipline ``statistics'' is in essence
to answer the question ``could the phenomenon we observed have arisen
simply by chance?'', or to quantify the *uncertainty* in any estimate
that we make of a quantity."


May I take strong issue with this characterization? It is far too narrow and
constraining. We are scientists first and foremost. The most important and
useful thing I do is to collaborate with other scientists to frame good
questions, design good experiments and studies, and gain insight into the
results of those experiments and studies (usually via graphical displays,
for which R is superbly suited). Blessing data with P-values is rarely of
much importance, and is often frankly irrelevant and even misleading (but
that's another rant). 

George Box said this much better than I: "The business of the statistician
is to catalyze the scientific learning process."

This is much much more than you intimate.

Cheers to all,

Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics