1 00:00:00,210 --> 00:00:09,610 Times, I know it would seem there any biography of her which is in the book eminently Turin's by listeners straight here. 2 00:00:09,610 --> 00:00:19,800 And it was written during the First World War and it contained long essays about four eminent Victorians. 3 00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:29,280 Three of them were comprehensively demolished as pretentious and altogether unpleasant. 4 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:34,500 Florence Nightingale, of course, got much more favoured treatment. 5 00:00:34,500 --> 00:00:38,550 How objective it really was. 6 00:00:38,550 --> 00:00:50,940 I'm not quite sure. But it did emphasise very strongly careful planning and also the very wide ranging nature of her interests. 7 00:00:50,940 --> 00:01:02,650 Both juries, both in the outskirts of what's known Istanbul in the outskirts of Istanbul. 8 00:01:02,650 --> 00:01:16,080 Both that, but also very wide ranging interests and activity after issue returned from the crime. 9 00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:24,060 It raises the question of the nature of the statistical work that she did. 10 00:01:24,060 --> 00:01:30,900 And I think once. Point is that. 11 00:01:30,900 --> 00:01:36,480 Computational. Facilities are very limited in those days. 12 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:46,090 Log tables, slide rules, I don't know how many people in the audience remember a slide rule is a piece of wood. 13 00:01:46,090 --> 00:01:56,660 And if you listen very carefully, you could show that two times two with something between three point nine nine and four point one. 14 00:01:56,660 --> 00:02:06,450 And if you had a very sophisticated slide rule, as I expect to go, did, you might get another digit coming out. 15 00:02:06,450 --> 00:02:13,510 But a. Otherwise, computationally, she would have been very limited. 16 00:02:13,510 --> 00:02:21,870 This accounts of the fact, I think in part that that her. 17 00:02:21,870 --> 00:02:36,410 Writing the little obits, I've read lips very strong emphasis on graphical methods of presentation done in a very skilful and careful way. 18 00:02:36,410 --> 00:02:44,200 Models of Tyra say that a presentation of quite complicated pieces of data. 19 00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:54,280 In addition to contact from her confinement house. 20 00:02:54,280 --> 00:03:06,920 She was in touch with Cantlay in Belgium, who is the leading perhaps the leading biostatistician of the 19th century, 21 00:03:06,920 --> 00:03:13,840 Kateri go see inventor of cauterise index body mass over height squared, 22 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:31,010 which is this is still a primary to choose in contact with Castaway and about various aspects of the more technical side, the statistics. 23 00:03:31,010 --> 00:03:38,890 I think that. Dr. LaDawn. 24 00:03:38,890 --> 00:03:46,390 Well, training find their computational point, a computational cereal's would have been limited. 25 00:03:46,390 --> 00:03:51,610 As I said, he the shooter had French curves. 26 00:03:51,610 --> 00:04:02,920 I don't know how many people know what a French curve is in the sense that I'm using eight other senses or might think of it, but. 27 00:04:02,920 --> 00:04:18,860 French curve is a shaped piece of wood, which can be used in effective to fit spine functions to 55 cubic seim shrines to empirical data. 28 00:04:18,860 --> 00:04:25,270 And it was still in when I first started statistical work just more years ago than I want to think. 29 00:04:25,270 --> 00:04:31,790 But I did the use of a spy was expected to be one of the things one would have expected to know. 30 00:04:31,790 --> 00:04:34,930 I was working in in an engineering department. 31 00:04:34,930 --> 00:04:50,900 And spine's way spy Unfitting was used with these French curves to fit smooth curves to parallel functions. 32 00:04:50,900 --> 00:04:54,370 So that was one side. 33 00:04:54,370 --> 00:05:10,160 But the main development. In the development of the more technical side of statistics, Hany is very, very strongly on developments in computation. 34 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:21,980 And it wasn't until about 1870 or 1880, which is towards the end of the Florence Nightingale period and my inactivity. 35 00:05:21,980 --> 00:05:38,600 It wasn't till then that the Hattan Brunswick calculator was invented and perfected in, I think, by collaboration between a Russian and a Swede. 36 00:05:38,600 --> 00:05:43,720 And the sound of the broughton's, the calculator, the grinding sound it made, 37 00:05:43,720 --> 00:05:54,460 echoed through the lecture halls of London and the universe is no doubt in others and working in many fields, 38 00:05:54,460 --> 00:06:07,880 the sound of the Bundesliga calculator was still to be heard as late as 1970 or so. 39 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:16,120 I'm going to say some more. About concretisation, what it would do would be to add up a large number. 40 00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:26,170 It had no memory, but it would it would add up a large number of numbers and that squares and their protest. 41 00:06:26,170 --> 00:06:32,750 So you could form some square some of products, some scale of two variables. 42 00:06:32,750 --> 00:06:40,280 Some are products of them in one cumulative operation on the machine. 43 00:06:40,280 --> 00:06:53,730 But nevertheless, there is no storage. And so when one, for example, inverted a small matrix, I remember inverting a seven by seven matrix. 44 00:06:53,730 --> 00:06:59,950 But the best debateable numerical methods available should have been about nineteen seventies. 45 00:06:59,950 --> 00:07:13,120 Nineteen fifties. And it took eight hours to avert a seven by seven matrix because every step had to be checked. 46 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:19,090 Before before I tried to do that calculation, I had quite dark brown hair. 47 00:07:19,090 --> 00:07:25,810 You can see now it suddenly turned grey from the stress of doing that calculation. 48 00:07:25,810 --> 00:07:31,340 So computation is always. Driven. 49 00:07:31,340 --> 00:07:37,610 What part of statistics is commonly and widely used? 50 00:07:37,610 --> 00:07:50,430 It's very exceptionally that one that one can use when in the past use methods that were not very favourably computationally. 51 00:07:50,430 --> 00:08:00,960 So the history of the development of statistical theory and statistical methods is very, very much tied with the nature of computation. 52 00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:07,880 And in particular, the nature of computation, which is relatively painlessly available. 53 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:15,640 Now, we've heard great lecture. I hope people have written up so we can study in detail. 54 00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:22,550 Thank you again, Deborah, for it. Thanks, David. 55 00:08:22,550 --> 00:08:30,270 I believe that David Spiegelhalter has also got a few comments that he'd like to make, so I'll just pass on to David Spiegelhalter. 56 00:08:30,270 --> 00:08:33,770 Okay. I hope you can hear me all right. Yeah. 57 00:08:33,770 --> 00:08:35,750 Are you going to excuse me being a bit nervous? 58 00:08:35,750 --> 00:08:44,300 I always I'm nervous speaking with David Cox around ever since he was my p h d examiner back in the 14th century, 59 00:08:44,300 --> 00:08:49,700 sometime when I had dark hair as well. And this is a fascinating lecture. 60 00:08:49,700 --> 00:08:56,690 There are also some details by Florence that I didn't know about. One could see the window and I really enjoyed it. 61 00:08:56,690 --> 00:09:05,210 I'd like to focus on one particular aspect, and that's really tied up with the pandemic that we're in at the moment where, 62 00:09:05,210 --> 00:09:09,440 as Debra mentioned, the scientists and the statisticians have been working there. 63 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:14,560 What's itself. And, you know, it's just working so hard. 64 00:09:14,560 --> 00:09:27,440 I mean, every other slight aside, I do hope that this is appreciated by people, just how hard, you know, everyone has been working during this period. 65 00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:32,000 And for a lot, you know, either for the same salary or for no money at all. 66 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:35,480 It is. And the stress involved in it. So I. 67 00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:44,810 But I think in a way, I'm sure Florence Nightingale would have relished this opportunity to bring together a data policy, 68 00:09:44,810 --> 00:09:46,490 and she should have been it right in the middle of it. 69 00:09:46,490 --> 00:09:51,560 I'm sure, because she as I mentioned to my when I did this lecture last year, she was like, I you know, one woman. 70 00:09:51,560 --> 00:09:56,000 Pressure groups know collecting data influencing all over the place. 71 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:05,060 You knew everybody all from her bed, writing letters, sending presence and, you know, extraordinary energy and effort that she put in. 72 00:10:05,060 --> 00:10:08,360 But she was concerned with policies. She she wanted to change things. 73 00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:11,840 She wanted to make things happen. And that's what I. 74 00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:13,980 That's on your last year I said, which you use Twitter. 75 00:10:13,980 --> 00:10:22,490 But even now, I really wonder, would she have been content to be a statistician who tries to gather evidence? 76 00:10:22,490 --> 00:10:26,960 Of course. And to that that can be used by policymakers. 77 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:30,930 But would she have been actually advocating for specific policies? 78 00:10:30,930 --> 00:10:33,350 I would love some people's opinion. 79 00:10:33,350 --> 00:10:39,740 Look, David's opinion crystals in anyone's opinion on this, because I kind of think it's an it is an important issue. 80 00:10:39,740 --> 00:10:45,060 It's something I'd been wrestling with all throughout this whole pandemic. I've been dying like other statisticians say. 81 00:10:45,060 --> 00:10:52,280 They died like Jan and others, beating a lot of media work. And I've been trying all the time to steer this middle way. 82 00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:56,720 I just don't feel I don't feel happy to say this is what should be done. 83 00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:02,600 All I want to be able to do is to try to explain what the evidence is and, if necessary, 84 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:11,210 appeal for better communication of the evidence and better evidence and to go out there and actually collect the data. 85 00:11:11,210 --> 00:11:17,330 But at no point where I'm always trying to avoid it, in spite of always being asked, well, what do you think should be done? 86 00:11:17,330 --> 00:11:24,980 What do you think about locked? Do you agree with it or not? I just I'm not going to say and I've been trying to keep that line the whole way through. 87 00:11:24,980 --> 00:11:33,140 And I wonder if Florence would have been happy to stick to that line if she was sitting there in her bedroom as as Deborah said, 88 00:11:33,140 --> 00:11:40,910 you know, being an absolute role model for lockdown. She'd been there quite possibly doing online interviews with News Night, 89 00:11:40,910 --> 00:11:48,030 which she had been happy just to explain about the evidence or which you've been telling everybody what she thought should be done. 90 00:11:48,030 --> 00:11:55,250 And I suppose I'd just like to leave that as a slightly open question, my ideas and maybe just my particular feeling. 91 00:11:55,250 --> 00:12:01,750 One thing I really like about the statistical profession is that they do not tend to be advocates for what should be done. 92 00:12:01,750 --> 00:12:10,460 They're advocates for better data and evidence and trying to understand things are, you know, to see the world as it is. 93 00:12:10,460 --> 00:12:15,680 But they do not tend to be people who say, well, this is then what should be done. 94 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:21,770 And I think that is a good role sometime to say putting saying my opinion immediately. 95 00:12:21,770 --> 00:12:27,410 And I might find myself actually. I would hate to disagree with Florence. 96 00:12:27,410 --> 00:12:38,080 I don't got to have a dad do that. But some I do think that this is an important issue that she brings that. 97 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:44,190 Yes, that her model isn't the right one, is the one we should follow or not. 98 00:12:44,190 --> 00:12:47,930 So. Okay, so just to finish off, I'd like to say thank you so much, Deborah. 99 00:12:47,930 --> 00:12:51,130 A fantastic lecture. I really learnt a lot. Great slides. 100 00:12:51,130 --> 00:12:58,400 And I love the tie in with what's going on at the moment, all the work at Imperial and elsewhere and the role of statistician's in all of that. 101 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:03,650 Wonderful. And so I had a great arc to it now. Lovely, lovely structure. 102 00:13:03,650 --> 00:13:11,930 And so with that, I'm going to stop rabbiting on and let Jen take control of whatever we're going to get asked next. 103 00:13:11,930 --> 00:13:17,420 Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much, David. Yeah, you make a very good point. 104 00:13:17,420 --> 00:13:25,690 I'm constantly being asked the same thing. They want to give you an opinion on what should or shouldn't be happening and very much just trying to run. 105 00:13:25,690 --> 00:13:27,570 Let's just talk about the evidence. 106 00:13:27,570 --> 00:13:35,640 We had one question come in asking about whether or not you feel some of the statistical results have been hidden from the community. 107 00:13:35,640 --> 00:13:42,660 And I'm guessing it's maybe in response to kind of it that what we think the transparency has been like. 108 00:13:42,660 --> 00:13:48,980 Do you think we've been seeing all of the data that has been available? 109 00:13:48,980 --> 00:13:58,720 Shall I start on that? I think there's been a real balance between doing what we normally do and putting things out slowly through peer review papers. 110 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:02,980 So our first react data, we didn't get out there because we were doing it through normal channels. 111 00:14:02,980 --> 00:14:09,550 And actually, the speed of this, you can't. And we see it with the vaccine studies that some data goes out there and then people have it. 112 00:14:09,550 --> 00:14:17,200 Has that been peer reviewed? But. Companies have to tell their shareholders with the studies that I'm sharing data monitoring committee 113 00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:22,390 for where we're still having debates about what the right channels of communication would be. 114 00:14:22,390 --> 00:14:26,500 And there's a real tension between immediacy, scrutiny, 115 00:14:26,500 --> 00:14:30,820 and you certainly would keep things absolutely hidden that if the others have got better solutions to that. 116 00:14:30,820 --> 00:14:38,870 I'd love to hear them. Yes. 117 00:14:38,870 --> 00:14:45,010 Do either of the Davids have any comment on that? Oh, yes, I do. 118 00:14:45,010 --> 00:14:51,550 Yes, I did. I'll begin by David, divided by bodging, first open my big mouth first hand. 119 00:14:51,550 --> 00:14:59,900 This is incredibly important and am I so strongly believe as you as we all do in openness and transparency about evidence and data. 120 00:14:59,900 --> 00:15:07,330 But of course, and many people within the we got to distinguish, I think, 121 00:15:07,330 --> 00:15:13,690 between government and the organisations that are working within government is absolutely crucial. 122 00:15:13,690 --> 00:15:19,990 And I distinguish that very strongly. And I spend my time criticising as loudly as possible. 123 00:15:19,990 --> 00:15:27,040 What I feel are lapses on behalf of what we've got as the political adviser, the number ten comms group, 124 00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:31,900 et cetera, which essentially are representing what I feel are the politicians, the government. 125 00:15:31,900 --> 00:15:35,320 And at the same time, I do tend, I think, quite reasonably, 126 00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:43,420 to defend very strongly the role of the organisations that are collecting the data and analysing data, 127 00:15:43,420 --> 00:15:52,140 presenting it to the policymakers and to to a really quite extraordinary extent, getting it out to the public. 128 00:15:52,140 --> 00:15:52,360 I know. 129 00:15:52,360 --> 00:16:00,490 I'd like to point to you know, I'm sorry, I'm conflict of interest on now non-executive director on the board of the U.K. Statistics Authority. 130 00:16:00,490 --> 00:16:06,760 So I would say that the AU and are doing a fantastic job at this, but the AU and ESA are doing a fantastic job. 131 00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:13,810 I think you're getting the data out. Just Bozman is new analysis, use a requested datasets and so on public health thing. 132 00:16:13,810 --> 00:16:19,690 And that dashboard was pretty crummy to start with, but they've had a fantastic team on that and now it is extraordinary. 133 00:16:19,690 --> 00:16:27,520 And the masses of hits I was on, I'm on it, you know, cut us for so every day I'm I'm clicking on it and checking every day. 134 00:16:27,520 --> 00:16:35,590 You know, it's a really fantastic resource. And and to provide an API so everyone could drag the data off that. 135 00:16:35,590 --> 00:16:39,130 So to go into other Web sites, the BBC one is very good. 136 00:16:39,130 --> 00:16:42,940 And all these other Web sites that people are constructing to to analyse that data. 137 00:16:42,940 --> 00:16:49,780 Excellent transparency. And and it's not just transparency. And in terms what you call fishbowl transparency, 138 00:16:49,780 --> 00:16:56,310 just going black and putting stuff out is massive pdaf that you can't get there you can't do much with. 139 00:16:56,310 --> 00:17:02,200 And this is transparency in a way that enables people that's I think empowers people. 140 00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:07,360 Now joined by security centre and which is, you know, keeps a really low profile. 141 00:17:07,360 --> 00:17:11,860 And I mean, I should say, because the people may not realise that the director of that is Claire Gardner, 142 00:17:11,860 --> 00:17:18,730 who was might be a student who's a Bayesian statistics and works at Imperial. 143 00:17:18,730 --> 00:17:28,850 So which I think sets a very good standard. And actually, the data that are used that the basis for the tearing decisions is out there. 144 00:17:28,850 --> 00:17:32,390 You know, it's being reported very, very quickly now. 145 00:17:32,390 --> 00:17:38,290 It is. It is. There is a 79 page PDAF, but the data files are underneath. 146 00:17:38,290 --> 00:17:46,060 It's not easy to find particularly, you know. What's going on in every single area and all the stuff, the masses of it. 147 00:17:46,060 --> 00:17:56,170 And and and I've been saying all day, as I say, all these billions being spent on tests and trace vast amounts on, you know, management consultants. 148 00:17:56,170 --> 00:18:02,830 Couldn't they have spent some more money on a decent website, given all the sacrifices we are all making continually? 149 00:18:02,830 --> 00:18:08,260 And we should be able to know exactly why these decisions are being made about us. 150 00:18:08,260 --> 00:18:14,650 So I would appeal it. I think there has been great efforts made. 151 00:18:14,650 --> 00:18:19,480 But more could be done. But it is extraordinary what we have got access to. 152 00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:25,960 I think I think compared. I'm not talking yet. I'm not talking about the use of graphs in briefings so that we could get onto that later. 153 00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:29,620 But I have to control my language, of course. 154 00:18:29,620 --> 00:18:35,380 But but in terms of the transparency, the data, there has been a very good example shown. 155 00:18:35,380 --> 00:18:43,690 And I think basically within the agency is a very huge amount of goodwill to do this. 156 00:18:43,690 --> 00:18:49,860 David coughs Do you have any comments to add to that? No, I feel, sadly totally on the fringe. 157 00:18:49,860 --> 00:18:57,510 Well, outside the fringe of this, I just look at the telly. 158 00:18:57,510 --> 00:19:05,920 I'm not a bad thing with the sanity. But like what I say, you know, I think it's. 159 00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:11,720 Often trying to put too much on one side or top or slide, take it away again. 160 00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:19,880 And it's an old trick. The older used to be very common in medical issues. 161 00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:31,150 If I went to any 30 or 40 years ago, people would put up very complicated slides and take them away again before anyone has a chance to read them. 162 00:19:31,150 --> 00:19:38,040 I see far too much in that. I don. 163 00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:45,820 So I really criticised the work that's underneath. Yeah, that that's a that's a separate issue. 164 00:19:45,820 --> 00:19:58,490 That's the actual presentation to the public. Seems to me often astonishingly, very poor. 165 00:19:58,490 --> 00:20:01,310 David, I'm very. I think you're absolutely right. 166 00:20:01,310 --> 00:20:06,470 I think it's a great shame because they're very good analysts and people within government, within agencies. 167 00:20:06,470 --> 00:20:10,430 But then when it comes this public presentation, it's some of the worst examples, 168 00:20:10,430 --> 00:20:16,920 I think the sort of stuff that if it was done by first year, each student at a test lecture, we'd be there. 169 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:21,710 Apsley bellowing out loud and saying this is unacceptable as part of a presentation. 170 00:20:21,710 --> 00:20:26,450 And then, you know, lots of coloured lines, which I would within it with a legend somewhere. 171 00:20:26,450 --> 00:20:32,270 So, you know, some awful stuff. And you know, this one recently on the. 172 00:20:32,270 --> 00:20:38,240 Which I've been ranting on about on the main page, which is explaining the winter plans terribly important. 173 00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:42,590 And it's some ghastly thing knocked up in Excel when you can't even tell whether whether 174 00:20:42,590 --> 00:20:47,790 the scale is linear or logarithmic or that somebody is used to make it look science. 175 00:20:47,790 --> 00:20:52,700 And to put some colour rate and, you know, rather than actually to inform anybody. 176 00:20:52,700 --> 00:20:55,130 And it's not under any standards whatsoever. 177 00:20:55,130 --> 00:21:04,430 Which given there are so many good people, you know, you know, in you know, in government agencies who know how to do good visualisations. 178 00:21:04,430 --> 00:21:16,290 I really I find it very upsetting. This is stuff that comes from there and is much better that. 179 00:21:16,290 --> 00:21:19,080 OK. So I went there are a couple of people with hands up, 180 00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:23,910 but I'm going to try and do this and I've been trying to keep an eye on the order in which things have come in. 181 00:21:23,910 --> 00:21:30,630 I think it's quite interesting. As with a Florence Nightingale lecture, we've had a couple of questions come in on this idea. 182 00:21:30,630 --> 00:21:41,060 I tend to balance one of which is saying that daughter attended a mass open day and there were no women speakers. 183 00:21:41,060 --> 00:21:48,300 And when they asked why there were no women, because the comment was how many famous women mathematicians can you name? 184 00:21:48,300 --> 00:21:56,190 I'm going to ask you to go through them right now. But there's a question of do we always need to make sure that there's a woman on a panel? 185 00:21:56,190 --> 00:22:01,950 And we've also had a question from Denise Leavesley to David Cox, a festival. 186 00:22:01,950 --> 00:22:05,430 She says it's a fantastic book. Thank you very much, Deborah. 187 00:22:05,430 --> 00:22:12,600 But, David, your celebrated in the community for your research collaborations with large number of women. 188 00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:17,250 And Denise is interested as to whether or not this has been a deliberate decision on your 189 00:22:17,250 --> 00:22:23,600 part and how you feel it has contributed to your thinking or not a deliberate decision. 190 00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:29,460 Just a great, great, great fortune to work with. 191 00:22:29,460 --> 00:22:39,350 Very able people. Both genders, genders. Incidentally, college. 192 00:22:39,350 --> 00:22:46,730 The appointment of sequestration's certainly had nothing to do with gender at all, 193 00:22:46,730 --> 00:22:53,090 and we ended up with not far short of them, mixture of men, women on marriage. 194 00:22:53,090 --> 00:22:57,750 Not because of the new policy. So I tried. 195 00:22:57,750 --> 00:23:03,280 Right. Anybody who's got some. 196 00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:11,670 I'm sure I can just work with them and that we can together get productive results better then make good on her. 197 00:23:11,670 --> 00:23:17,060 But conscience, gender bias. No, I don't have one. 198 00:23:17,060 --> 00:23:22,550 I think it's a really interesting point at this sort of positive discrimination and unconscious gender bias, 199 00:23:22,550 --> 00:23:27,930 and should we always make sure there's a woman on the panel? Deborah, do you have any comments on that? 200 00:23:27,930 --> 00:23:34,280 I do. I think the point at which people apply for a job, you want to appoint the best people. 201 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:41,390 The the thing beneath that is making sure that the level playing field so that women get a fair crack 202 00:23:41,390 --> 00:23:45,830 at doing the things that might get them to being appointed to a lecturer or a chair and so on. 203 00:23:45,830 --> 00:23:53,480 Where I would take a rather different line is when you're looking at particularly committees or public facing things, 204 00:23:53,480 --> 00:24:00,300 then absolutely you want balance diversity and whether that's RSS council for which we need nomine. 205 00:24:00,300 --> 00:24:06,410 And so we we've just elected one batch. We need nominations by the end of this month for the next batch. 206 00:24:06,410 --> 00:24:13,880 The about the last thing I do as outgoing president is to chair the present nominating committee for Cylvia successor. 207 00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:19,070 We need diverse nominations for that, because if you haven't got those nominations, you're not drawing on the best. 208 00:24:19,070 --> 00:24:22,670 And so wherever you haven't got diverse nominations, 209 00:24:22,670 --> 00:24:30,770 you need to look and ask why on a panel we are sitting here and in this day and age, it would be wrong if this was for men. 210 00:24:30,770 --> 00:24:35,590 And it's, I think, particularly helpful in that, except for things like celebration, women's mistakes. 211 00:24:35,590 --> 00:24:39,580 If it's all women, there's at the moment, this is a rebalancing role for that. 212 00:24:39,580 --> 00:24:43,280 But, you know, I'm very conscious that that is by no means the other diversity. 213 00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:48,300 We're sitting here for white people. So clearly, there are some things need doing to change that. 214 00:24:48,300 --> 00:24:53,720 So, yeah, so that's where I'd have to say that them certainly if you want to attract your best students 215 00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:59,510 to university and you put an all male panel and then you wonder why they go somewhere else. 216 00:24:59,510 --> 00:25:02,970 Yeah, I thought partitions bear to think it through a little bit better than that. 217 00:25:02,970 --> 00:25:13,520 But Baker. But I mean, it's one of the reasons I do feel very proud to be part of the statistical profession in that. 218 00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:20,980 In my experience, there isn't a need to make a big effort to get to a gender balance on research teams or organisation. 219 00:25:20,980 --> 00:25:28,400 It just it just happens because there's just really as of now and there's a big day there, 220 00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:33,800 especially with the younger generation coming up who are majority females in the majority. 221 00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,550 I think the younger fellows for the old you know, the old males like her. 222 00:25:37,550 --> 00:25:41,750 Like me. It's Dave flips around. But that's going to be changing. 223 00:25:41,750 --> 00:25:50,720 So I really like the fact that with the way not a great effort is needed to get that that sort of that balance in statistics at the moment, 224 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:55,170 which is I find I think it's something hugely to celebrate. Would be different in maths, I think. 225 00:25:55,170 --> 00:26:02,680 But it just shows, I think, what a wonderful subject we're in that we don't have to make this effort. 226 00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:10,660 But as Deborah is so rightly said, this is only in terms of gender balance, as many other characteristics as well. 227 00:26:10,660 --> 00:26:16,750 Concerned about. Yeah, I actually did a little bit of an analysis looking up membership and the gender split. 228 00:26:16,750 --> 00:26:21,960 And, you know, you very much see that in the older generations it's very male dominated. 229 00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:24,780 But as you filter through, it's becoming more 50/50. 230 00:26:24,780 --> 00:26:30,820 And I do think that naturally, as time goes on, there will be more women taking president's roles and things like that. 231 00:26:30,820 --> 00:26:35,760 So, yeah, I'm quite encouraged by it. So we've got a couple of hands up. 232 00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:40,530 So I'm going to go to Len, first of all, who had a hand up for a little while now. 233 00:26:40,530 --> 00:26:46,290 So I believe Leon will meet you. See, you can talk. Len, thank you. 234 00:26:46,290 --> 00:26:55,110 I'd like to respond to David Spiegelhalter question about would she and then present a problem and ask you have any of you know, 235 00:26:55,110 --> 00:27:03,960 any means of doing anything about her or any answer to it? And it would she have given specific direct advice to policymakers like cabinet ministers? 236 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:15,690 Yes, and she did. And her brief to the pull of to the what's called Cubic Space Committee, which was part of the poor law bill of 1867. 237 00:27:15,690 --> 00:27:23,850 She certainly gave very specific advice on that. And that can be seen as the first step towards getting to a national health service, 238 00:27:23,850 --> 00:27:31,020 that is of establishing quality care for the poorest, not those who can pay for it. 239 00:27:31,020 --> 00:27:32,820 So that was that was very important. 240 00:27:32,820 --> 00:27:39,840 But the problem I want to re raise and we're getting away from the issues you've been talking about now is going back to the Crimea and war. 241 00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:49,410 We don't have to my knowledge, correct me if you know something, a really decent count of the war dead. 242 00:27:49,410 --> 00:27:58,730 The Nightingale's analysis and the royal commission analysis were both based on data from the Army Medical Department, 243 00:27:58,730 --> 00:28:04,110 a nightingale often said how they were conflicting reports of up dead. 244 00:28:04,110 --> 00:28:08,220 And of course, Alexander Tullock collected data. It wasn't just the official people. 245 00:28:08,220 --> 00:28:14,970 And she did know in places that the number of people buried was greater than the number of people who died. 246 00:28:14,970 --> 00:28:20,670 And and was it suggesting anything went wrong. But clearly there were false in the record keeping. 247 00:28:20,670 --> 00:28:29,730 But you see, her data for those wonderful polar area charts is based on what got to the Army Medical Department. 248 00:28:29,730 --> 00:28:36,210 And that's only people who got admitted to Hospital B at a regimental hospital or a general hospital. 249 00:28:36,210 --> 00:28:41,110 But men and officers who died on the battlefield, they're not counted there. 250 00:28:41,110 --> 00:28:45,450 Now, when I was in the UK last February, March and was planning to stay longer, 251 00:28:45,450 --> 00:28:53,070 I intended to go to the National Archives because they have the reports of the adjutant general, 252 00:28:53,070 --> 00:28:57,630 which the British Library doesn't have, and that might help to fill in those gaps. 253 00:28:57,630 --> 00:29:07,770 But I have never seen a, you know, a table which gives you deaths in regimental hospitals, in General Hospital, blah, blah, blah. 254 00:29:07,770 --> 00:29:17,490 And deaths on the battle ground and our deaths of doctors and nurses and other people who were there doing other kinds of things. 255 00:29:17,490 --> 00:29:22,770 So we've never had a really full count on on on that subject. 256 00:29:22,770 --> 00:29:29,940 Anyone got any ideas or is willing to undertake to do it? 257 00:29:29,940 --> 00:29:34,880 So I can I bodging Len? Lovely to hear from you. I'm sorry I haven't got any ideas. 258 00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:41,360 I don't know about these data sources, but I would like to draw a modern parallel because the crucial thing about this is 259 00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:47,030 that you can't interpret data unless you know the process by which it was collected. 260 00:29:47,030 --> 00:29:52,540 And the modern parallels that, you know, the daily deaths reported on Kofod off. 261 00:29:52,540 --> 00:29:56,960 The people who have had a positive test then died within 28 days of any cause. 262 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:05,300 And so people who caught it in a sense and dropped dead before they got tested won't be included in the daily count. 263 00:30:05,300 --> 00:30:12,140 They won't be in the dating statistics. They'll be in the death registration's if if they decide that they, you know, put it on the test. 264 00:30:12,140 --> 00:30:15,800 That's difficult without being tested. So there's deaths that are not occurring there. 265 00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:22,220 Again, people who got Koban, they got run over by a bus three weeks later. And what also will be included as a Kovar death. 266 00:30:22,220 --> 00:30:27,440 And so it is rather important ways to know what is being counted. 267 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:34,700 And I think this this whole pandemic, although obviously there have been examples of wonderfully sophisticated modelling and computation, 268 00:30:34,700 --> 00:30:43,070 hugely elaborate analysis, so much of it has come down to the absolute basics with which night and go would have been so familiar. 269 00:30:43,070 --> 00:30:50,760 Which is kind of tabulating data and understanding whether you can believe it or not. 270 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,100 And at what question you're trying to answer, 271 00:30:53,100 --> 00:30:58,650 because if you're trying to say Deskovic covered directly caused death, that's different to monitoring deaths. 272 00:30:58,650 --> 00:31:04,520 So if you're clear what the question is, then you can be clear with the data you've got is fit for purpose. 273 00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:10,450 Don't. David. Yet. David Cox, if you've got any comments. 274 00:31:10,450 --> 00:31:19,720 I don't know. OK. So I think that there's a really interesting sort because we're only about five minutes left aside now. 275 00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:24,760 So there's quite an interesting comment here on sort of practical statistics. 276 00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:35,520 Well, we've also had a comment that saying that Florence Nightingale would definitely be telling us to wash our hands. 277 00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:41,380 But then there's a question talking about there's a tendency for statistical training 278 00:31:41,380 --> 00:31:48,190 to become increasingly mathematical to the exclusion of practical problem solving. 279 00:31:48,190 --> 00:31:53,710 Have you got. What practical experience do the panel members consider essential for the next generation 280 00:31:53,710 --> 00:31:58,210 of statistical consultants and how best we can communicate that to the public? 281 00:31:58,210 --> 00:32:02,170 And there's a sort of similar question saying how there's a lot of mathematical 282 00:32:02,170 --> 00:32:07,120 statistics where they may never have performed an experiment or survey in their life. 283 00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:11,210 And then we've got investigators on the other side who require statistical training. 284 00:32:11,210 --> 00:32:16,420 And what's happened to Nightingale's recommendation that practitioners do the education? 285 00:32:16,420 --> 00:32:22,600 Just take your comments on that. Well, could I make a comment? 286 00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:33,490 Yes. That's the general principle, is you teach people things by developing out of what they already know or interest. 287 00:32:33,490 --> 00:32:38,500 So if you are interested, if you have students who've come to study at university, 288 00:32:38,500 --> 00:32:45,970 study of that and are deeply interested in pure mathematics and nothing much else, then you have to stop it. 289 00:32:45,970 --> 00:32:53,050 Probably Luti and gradually steer them towards the notion that he's not beyond all of this. 290 00:32:53,050 --> 00:33:05,020 Mathematics are very, very interesting and important scientific problems, which you can which they may be having to do something useful in that. 291 00:33:05,020 --> 00:33:10,100 The mathematics and develop into into application. 292 00:33:10,100 --> 00:33:17,360 For most people, that would be an absolute disaster. You have to start with applications. 293 00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,200 Those are to some extent reached. 294 00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:27,020 Appreciate. Appreciated. But the student in question. 295 00:33:27,020 --> 00:33:38,120 You have out of that into some general ideas, out of the out of the narrowing of interest into the unknown. 296 00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:45,300 And so it depends very much way you present your audience is snarky and it's not a mix. 297 00:33:45,300 --> 00:33:57,190 You're in trouble because you might have to try and appeal to the different categories of people before you do the more details with mystical ideas. 298 00:33:57,190 --> 00:34:06,470 And of course, it depends enormously also whether you've a connexions to explain the Hollow's states or they have that very, 299 00:34:06,470 --> 00:34:14,540 very small and that that makes a big difference. Can I button and they won't. 300 00:34:14,540 --> 00:34:23,210 I've been working this air for nearly 50 years and I've finally actually learnt the wisdom that David has just expressed. 301 00:34:23,210 --> 00:34:29,310 It's taken me a long time. I knew I should have listened to him a lot earlier. 302 00:34:29,310 --> 00:34:33,150 But I know absolutely that I grew up in the mathematical route. 303 00:34:33,150 --> 00:34:37,400 You know, Jar's joined the pure maths until he got too difficult and went through the 304 00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:42,680 probability and then mathematical statistics and and then that's the route I took. 305 00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:47,010 And that's what I taught for years. And that's how I worked with papers I wrote. 306 00:34:47,010 --> 00:34:52,070 And it's only recently, I think that I really flipped around and produced the book. 307 00:34:52,070 --> 00:34:55,010 Anyway, the point about this book, The Office Statistics, 308 00:34:55,010 --> 00:35:00,810 is just my like myself attempts at redemption, at completely flipping the whole thing around. 309 00:35:00,810 --> 00:35:03,460 And as David said, it depends where people are coming from. 310 00:35:03,460 --> 00:35:09,440 I was going to call it starts with data scientists because I wanted people to not come up through the mathematical route, 311 00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:16,580 and that's why probability doesn't come until two thirds of the way through. So the island's statistical inference putting them together is, you know, 312 00:35:16,580 --> 00:35:21,830 near the end of the book, because there's so much you can do through problem solving. 313 00:35:21,830 --> 00:35:25,970 Actually, problem driven all the time. Question driven. Problem driven. 314 00:35:25,970 --> 00:35:32,150 You can do such a vast amount. I'm so amazed me how much you could do with all this mathematical stuff. 315 00:35:32,150 --> 00:35:39,640 And so I'm I'm you know, I've had my Damascene moment, you know, a few years ago. 316 00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:46,640 And now I have completely flipped around how I think statistics should be taught except for the people, 317 00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:52,960 you know, who have come up through that mathematical route and they have to be brought in in a different way. 318 00:35:52,960 --> 00:36:00,380 So I think implicit in what David Cox was saying was that you kind of need both. 319 00:36:00,380 --> 00:36:04,900 Know even saying wherever they start and you need to sort of edge them in the other direction. 320 00:36:04,900 --> 00:36:10,810 And this may be the time to say that 40 years ago, I was doing a call since Disclaim France, the. 321 00:36:10,810 --> 00:36:16,480 It was a joint project as a region calls. We had Coxon. Hinckley has our course text. 322 00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:23,470 And what John France said to us, who is my lecturer, was this is a book you won't get everything out of the first time. 323 00:36:23,470 --> 00:36:26,410 You need to reread it next year and again in five years or so, 324 00:36:26,410 --> 00:36:31,780 because the more you have practical experience, the more you'll realise what he's trying to say. 325 00:36:31,780 --> 00:36:37,510 And equally, I would say those doing applied work from time to time need to get to see the wood for the trees. 326 00:36:37,510 --> 00:36:42,070 So we wouldn't be upset with covered if we hadn't had people dealing with other infectious diseases. 327 00:36:42,070 --> 00:36:44,320 I keep the details different, the modelling design. 328 00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:49,750 So you've got to keep both in tension, which certainly are both today if it's a done throughout their career. 329 00:36:49,750 --> 00:36:56,740 But I've still got a copy of Hickox and Hinckley, and when I get back into my office, I shall be rescuing and bringing it home. 330 00:36:56,740 --> 00:37:01,540 Got mine to. OK. 331 00:37:01,540 --> 00:37:08,710 So we're pretty much at time and I'm aware that I need to give Crystal a few moments to say thanks to everybody. 332 00:37:08,710 --> 00:37:13,540 And the final goodbyes. But are there any final comments from any of you that you'd like to make? 333 00:37:13,540 --> 00:37:21,230 That's around at the panel discussion. I just want to know what a pleasure it's been. 334 00:37:21,230 --> 00:37:30,260 Yes, and thank you again for the lecture. Fantastic. And thank you to Oxford for putting this together, because it's been the most wonderful event. 335 00:37:30,260 --> 00:37:35,540 And though I'm very sorry that we're not going for tea and cake and water and Oxford and a dinner for some of us, 336 00:37:35,540 --> 00:37:39,980 I think we've probably had a very different and in many ways richer discussion 337 00:37:39,980 --> 00:37:45,580 than we might have done if we've done it when it was originally planned. So thank you for reinventing it. 338 00:37:45,580 --> 00:37:49,080 I'm one of the last things I will say is one of the advantages of doing it online is that everybody 339 00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:54,360 writes their questions in the box and we have got questions that we haven't been able to cover. 340 00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:59,080 I don't know if there are going to be any arrangements, but it may be possible. 341 00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:01,140 So I apologise for any questions that couldn't come up. 342 00:38:01,140 --> 00:38:06,550 But it may be possible to put those to our panellists after the event and perhaps write it up somewhere. 343 00:38:06,550 --> 00:38:11,010 And I will have to leave that to Oxford to see if it's possible. 344 00:38:11,010 --> 00:38:17,300 Sorry if I've given you a task that it's simple, but there are some really interesting questions that we didn't get. 345 00:38:17,300 --> 00:38:22,720 And I apologise for that. But thank you very much. A really interesting panel discussion. 346 00:38:22,720 --> 00:38:27,600 Three of you have been incredible. And I will handle far final goodbye. 347 00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:34,860 OK. Thanks to all of you for taking part and for spending this time being so extra special, thanks to Deborah. 348 00:38:34,860 --> 00:38:41,240 She did first the lecture, then the panel. But it's been really great to get your views on all of this. 349 00:38:41,240 --> 00:38:50,520 Both looking back at what Florence did and what she might have done if she were alive now, as well as bringing all these contemporary issues, 350 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:58,890 because I think I really genuinely think that mathematics and statistics specifically is just the ultimate transferable skill. 351 00:38:58,890 --> 00:39:10,260 You can move or work on one thing and to another and and thereby meet such interesting people, as well as helping to answer interesting questions. 352 00:39:10,260 --> 00:39:18,730 It's been a tremendous pleasure for us to host this sit in a different way than we originally planned, but nonetheless bring it to everybody. 353 00:39:18,730 --> 00:39:27,540 And hopefully we were able to open this up to a wider audience that wouldn't have been able to to come had it been specifically in Oxford. 354 00:39:27,540 --> 00:39:32,730 So, you know, there are some silver linings in this. Deborah has said that very clearly. 355 00:39:32,730 --> 00:39:39,000 She is willing to make her slides available. They are currently in a form that is too big to easily distribute. 356 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:46,290 So we will have to do a little bit of I.T. compression of that before people end up hanging, trying to download them. 357 00:39:46,290 --> 00:39:52,200 But we we have your contact details. And so we will make those available. 358 00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:58,380 You saw the link already in the chat. So do visit the virtual exhibition. 359 00:39:58,380 --> 00:40:01,320 If you haven't had a chance to already, there's lots of interesting stuff there. 360 00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:06,660 It's like you get to stand in a virtual room and and choose what you focus on off the wall. 361 00:40:06,660 --> 00:40:16,170 It was a tremendous honour for Beverly Layne who helped organise this and to go along and actually see and choose amongst the pieces of her 362 00:40:16,170 --> 00:40:27,690 original correspondence and huge thanks to Paleo for sharing those with us to Beverly for having organised stage one and then stage two. 363 00:40:27,690 --> 00:40:32,200 And to everybody who's been involved to bring this to. So thank you all very much. 364 00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:39,210 It seems like it's the middle of the night, even though it's only five p.m., but really best wishes to everybody. 365 00:40:39,210 --> 00:40:45,310 Thank you for taking part. And we look forward to next year. When I would. 366 00:40:45,310 --> 00:40:53,133 Thanks very much.