118 – SPEED: Teaching Statistics: Strategies and Applications
Statistical Programming to Principles of Data Science: Rethinking the Traditional Statistical Programming Curricula
Andrew Hoegh
Montana State University
Since the arrival of computers and statistical programming languages in the early 1970s, there has been tension between mathematical statistics and computing. John Tukey, perhaps optimistically, foresaw a `peaceful collision' between statistics and computing; however, in hindsight this was more of a missed opportunity as the reluctance to `moderate the romance with mathematics' and fully embrace computing has, arguably, lead to the development of many fields that run parallel or partially include statistics. This article will take a historical look at the interaction between statistics and computing while highlighting that a different path would have lead to a different field of modern statistics. Furthermore, the article will examine the current state of computing in statistics and make recommendations for the future.