Professional Ethics for Statisticians: An ASA Organizational History

• Activity Number: 483
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Committee on ASA Archives and Historical Materials
• Author(s): Howard Hogan and Duane Steffey*+
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau and Exponent
• Keywords: professionalism ; shared values ; responsibilities

Abstract

Developing ethical guidelines and standards for a scientific profession is a long-term, evolutionary process. Although the ASA was established in 1839, it operated for over one hundred years without a written code of conduct. Beginning in the 1950s, largely through the efforts of two ad hoc committees and with the input of a great number of people, the ASA developed and published a set of ethical guidelines for statistical practice. The guidelines address the responsibilities of statistical practitioners to other involved parties-colleagues, peers, clients, employers, funders, and research subjects-as well as in publications, testimony, and allegations of misconduct.

The ASA Committee on Professional Ethics is assessing which elements of the guidelines (last modified in 1999) should be revised or expanded to reflect the evolution of statistical practice. A committee-organized invited session at this year's Joint Meetings will discuss "Ethical and Policy Issues in the Statistical Use of BIG Data." We encourage members of the profession to participate and to contribute their ideas for preserving relevant and useful ethical guidance in contemporary statistical practice.