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Abstract:
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Statistics has a long and rich history of contributions to the advancement of human kind. Today the contributions from modern statistics are truly amazing. Many aspects of our day-to-day lives have benefited from statistics and statistical thinking. As technology improves our ability to handle massive amounts of data in an expeditious fashion, we still must take care with key issues of statistical inference. Issues such as the representativeness of the data and the methods use to summarize and infer from the data remain much the same. Examples from a range of experiences demonstrate how using modern statistics well, can truly add value to the appropriate questions. These examples, also demonstrate the importance of scientific leadership when addressing societal challenges. It is with great honor that I contribute this paper, recognizing Professor James R. Thompson's contributions to statistics, scientific leadership and as a civic scientist who understood that statistics is a valuable tool in addressing the most important issues of our day.
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