Conference under way

Conference is now well under way, with a formal opening by RSS President, Professor David Hand, followed immediately by the first plenary session with Professor Sir David Cox as speaker.

In the Abstracts Book, Sir David's reads: "A broad view will be given of some of the strands of activity of the RSS. A few possible implications for
the future will be outlined." Delegates were rewarded with a talk that spanned the Society's history, and that of the development of the statistical discipline.

He noted along the way that till the 1920s UK Prime Ministers had shown a real interest in statistics by being fellows of the Society. Although Prime Ministers being fellows has subsequently been the exception, Sir David did note that Society fellow and senior politician, Jack Straw MP, had secured a commitment to reform of the government statistical system in the Labour Party manifesto for the 1997 General Election.

Sir David also commented on the "sociology" of past Society meetings. In the days before email and the internet, he observed that the meetings had been as much community occasions as discussive ones.

He outlined the intellectual challenges for the Society. The RSS, he said, must strive to keep in touch with all major new developments, and work to avoid the fragmentation of the statistical community into non-communicating sections.

Finally, for conference goers he provided some advice. Given a choice of parallel sessions, go to the one about which you know the least. This way, he suggested, provided a means of really finding out something new. He did wryly observe that this was advice that he was still working to put into practice.