Stats Society Monthly Talk: Venables -- O what a difference R makes - VENUE UPDATE

Next week’s Stats Society talk (jointly held with Sydney R Users Forum) is by
Statistical rockstar Bill Venables.  It’s up the road at UTS:  

Seminar Room, Level 3, 645 Harris Street 
(NOTE: this is on the corner of Mary Ann St, not the main tower building)

6:00pm - 6:30pm for drinks

6:30pm - 7:30pm for talk  

7:30pm - Light meal with the speaker in the seminar room (you are welcome to join)

Cheers, 

Michael 

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O what a difference R makes … : Reflections on "Regression Analysis", 
E. J. Williams,(1959) 


Abstract: 

"If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything." - Author unknown.
E.  J.  Williams’ book "Regression Analysis" Wiley, (1959), appeared just before the
modern era in Statistics really began.  This new age is characterised by an exponential
growth in computational power, coupled with an explosion in theoretical and practical
developments to take advantage of the rapidly developing computational and graphical
tools available.  The great virtue of Williams’ book is that it presents real (though
very small) data sets, mostly in full, and always in a solid context.  The analyses are
motivated and the computations detailed.  From a modern point of view, what is most
lacking is any graphical explorations of the data.  In this talk I will re-visit three
of Williams’ examples and explore them from a modern standpoint, graphically and
analytically.  These will lead to an historical discussion of the genesis of some modern
statistical methods, which when Williams wrote were just getting underway.  These
include transformations, generalized linear models, random effect extensions and
non-linear regression.  

Bio: 

Bill Venables is an internationally renowned statistician, with interests in the
development of statistical methods and related computation.  He currently works with
marine scientists on marine biodiversity and stock assessment issues.  Dr Venables’
recent activities have included: • biodiversity assessment, mapping, modelling and
monitoring in Northern Australia, • contributing to fishery sustainability by providing
scientific support to management, including improved methods of stock assessment and
assessment of environmental impact His books Modern Applied Statistics with S and S
Programming, written with Professor Brian Ripley of the University of Oxford, United
Kingdom, have become standard references for professionals and advanced students.  Dr
Venables joined CSIRO in 1999 and is currently a Post-Retirement Fellow.  Before joining
CSIRO he was Head of the Department of Statistics at the University of Adelaide, South
Australia.