I don't doubt that at all. But it doesn't suggest that statisticians don't understand statistics. On the contrary, it provides an alternative to the idea that defective "statistics" are indicative of statisticians not understanding the subject.
It's like blaming programmers for buggy software. It isn't usually the programmers who decide upon the budget, or the deadlines, or whether fundamental changes are made to the specification a week before the deadline.
"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Absolutely. When a problem arises that *can't* be brute-forced, more companies today don't have anyone in-house who still has the somewhat deeper knowledge required to work out a solution using traditional techniques... so they end up calling a consultant.
...and there's a positive feedback loop at some point where the good programmers leave for better-managed companies, and you're left with a bunch of lesser-skilled programmers overseen by lesser-skilled management (very often people who don't actually know how to program).
In any field just having a particular title on your business card doesn't imply you actually know how to perform the job very well, of course. But clearly there are plenty of statisticians who understand statistics, engineers who understand engineering, etc., too.
Most of the statistics I'm familiar with involves additive white Gaussian noise. :-)
Here's where I get my views regarding statisticians:
Cheers! Rich
Unfortunately I've never known an engineering manager who could engineer/design and manage young engineers... except for myself ;-)
Motorola's concept of engineering manager was as paper pusher.
Which is why I've been independent since 1973.
...Jim Thompson
"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
I'm told that in the glory days of Tek and HP many of the engineering managers were actually engineers.
But Motorola's approach is surely the most prevalent.
How'd you use to get along with your co-workers, Jim? :-)
---Joel
Really well. In fact, when I quit Motorola, my _whole_ team quit a week later.
Names available upon request.
Lest everyone wonder how that can be... fundamental group rule: "No discussion of religion or politics on company time."
And I _am_ a good teacher, as vouched for by past customer/client Mark/qrk, posted here on February 7.
I was also well known for protecting my staff from other group managers and upper management trying to change direction.
...Jim Thompson
Yeah, have seen that type of consultant around here. The city has two tax measures, a utility tax and a parcel tax, that are about to sunset. They really need the revenue, because they really need to hire some more police officers. They hired a consluting firm to do some polling and find out if they could do the increases in both taxes that they needed.
Of course, the conslutant confirmed that they could. I know, because I was 'surveyed' by them one night. It was fascinating just how they worded the questions so that they could get the result that was expected.
So, when it was going to come up for the council vote, the wife and I went to speak out against the whole thing. So, I was very surprised when the measure came up, and the city manager went and pulled the parcel tax! Seems he had done his OWN little poll on the matter, and gotten a real feel for what the public felt!
Charlie
Well, when I was contracting at Lockheed Martin IMS while working on the toll roads, I did have an engineering manager that could engineer. Actually, he was the best manager I ever had as an engineer. He knew how to take Microsoft Project, and generate a REAL Gant chart that actually reflected reality. If his schedule said it took 5 days to complete something, you could be pretty sure that in four days, it would be complete!
Charlie
engineers
Gant charts are nice IF you can get reliable timing from all participants. Usually they're just bull-s*it elements to show/snow upper management.
...Jim Thompson
engineers
Yep, but this guy knew how to take that input, and really analyze it and make it correct. He seemed to 'see' the dependency tree, and then put it down on paper!
Charlie
bunch
engineers
A truly valuable man!
I generally run into people who want me to shorten my schedule (*), but I resist when I can.
(*) I do tend to be very methodical (fancy word for "slow" :-), driving people nuts, but then, my stuff _always_ works... while other "team" members have to go back and patch. (I have a chip right now, having proven that all my stuff works, I just sit back and poke fun at the speedy folk still patching at the one-year point ;-)
...Jim Thompson
I took algebra for granted. In any science or engineering discipline, being unable to do algebra is on a par with being unable to read or write; you're essentially functionally illiterate.
You may be able to get by without being able to "do" calculus (I can barely remember how to integrate anything beyond polynomials), but you still need to understand the concepts.
Otherwise you won't know what to feed into the tools, or how to interpret their output. Or when you've made an obvious mistake; it's not hard to design a circuit that works fine in Spice but which could never be realised in practice.
This part I agree with 100% -- if you remember the concepts, it's straightforward to go and look up the details again, and primarily all you've lost is time.
Not too long ago I read some comments by a math teacher on the use of sophisticated graphing calculators (which effectively means TI-83/84/89 today... unfortunately HP calculators are all but dead in high schools...) and how if you gave the kids a problem that could be directly solved by the calculator (e.g., "What's the equation of a line given these two points?" or "What's the equation of a line given the slope and Y axis intercept?") they were fine... but change the problem just a bit (e.g., "What's the equation of a line given the slope and X intercept?"), they were completely lost and didn't know how to proceed.
Those are the kids who are going to end up brute-forcing their electrical engineering problems.
---Joel
or flipping burgers
I never pretended that it was anything other than direct personal experience with actual living statisticians that i have worked with. Call it anecdotal if you wish, do not call it statistically valid in anything way other than proving that the low probability events do occur.
And 5 for 5 in direct working experience may reasonably be expected to be a low probablilty event.
pick
The closest I have to offspring going into EE is a son who writes software :-(
...Jim Thompson
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Personally, while I love math it doesn't love me. Running ground-orbit- ground recalculations in my head came with OJT; I had to take trig three times before finally passing with a C (the key to success was staying awake; probably could've got an A if I could've learned not to draft in typos when it came time to show my work--I still can't understand what the problem with going from question to answer is if the teacher saw me sit down, open the book, write the question number on the paper, write the answer, then copy the problem over. What am I supposed to do, get a cranial X-ray? An electroencephalogram, maybe? But I digress.) Fortunately, it doesn't sound like your daughter has that sort of problem; neither did my youngest sister (UTD class of 2007). Outside of school, what does she like to do for hobbies? I used to play Shadowrun, and the whole cybernetics thing is something I found fascinating. Together with what I learned during my self-directed researches into diabetes and AIDS, Rice's recruiter said they'd write a new scholarship to get me for then-new school for biotechnologies. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with bus fare to get there; my grandfather came up with the money for a ticket to Dallas and $100 a month to live on, too, after UTD's VP of Admissions called me when he found out I wasn't going anywhere. I still didn't do well as an undergraduate, and never found a school I liked until I went through the U.S. Army Signal School at Fort Gordon. Spoiled me completely. I really, really, don't recommend the Army for young ladies, though. Know any soldiers? If yes, then you should know why. Air Force Academy? Maybe, though I think the Air Force is a dead-end. Still, top-flight instructors and fine curricula. But back to my key point. What's she actually like? If she doesn't know, then spending time at a conventional job just might be motive to avoid partying away once she's an undergrad; but seriously, that's more a matter of A) knowing HOW to be careful, which most damsels don't, and B) people, places, and friends. Most internships my friends did were pretty thoroughly disappointing until they were near graduation, anyway: "Welcome to your new job, Go-fer." Florida has some nice options that ways; hydrodynamics, aerospace, etc., but unless you've a buddy who can take her under his/her wing to show them what the job really entails: "Welcome to your new job, Go-fer. My, you've got a pretty smile." If you e-mail with subject direct to me, I'll send you the e-mail of a retired friend, former professor with doctorates in math, physics, chemistry, and history. Maybe if she talks to him, or folks like him, she'd get an idea of where a person can go, and how to get there. If she hasn't already got the habit, reading professional journals in any fields she is considering can give her a much better idea of what people in those fields goals are (and how long it takes for any sort of successful career); and corresponding with people in those fields can give her the real-world view. (Note: people who stay buried in labs and paperwork actually appreciate getting a post-card. That means someone actually knows their name; and they'll take an automatic shine to you if you actually have a clue about _why_ you would know their name! Also, a post-card doesn't take much of their time, and is therefor good for introductions. P.S. -- There's absolutely nothing useful attributable to my own name, in case you thought of looking. I'm careful to use others for anything worthwhile;)
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