Preface

Summary

In an article published in 1970 Professor A. Ehrenberg made the following comment:

‘I feel that the kind of examples of statistical analysis that tend to be considered in professional discussions…are so grossly over-simplified as to make a pretentious mockery of real-life situations and statistical consultancy.’

Examining some of the examples presented in many statistical textbooks, we were forced to agree with Professor Ehrenberg – a comparison of the average weekly beer consumption of male college students living in halls-of-residence with those not living on campus hardly gives the flavour of most real-world consultancy problems!

So in an attempt to present the reality of statistical consulting we were led to assemble the collection of papers that make up this text. Our aim was to show that, in addition to statistical expertise of the type acquired from standard textbooks and in courses held up and down the country, the consultant statistician needs a number of other talents, foremost of which is the ability and willingness to communicate with researchers in other areas. We see this book as a complement to standard texts and ideally we would like to see it adopted as a companion volume on statistics courses, covering those parts of statistical consultancy which are not (and perhaps cannot be) formally taught.

Since statistical problems arise in almost all areas of science, in medicine, in industry, in marketing and in finance, so do problems related to statistical consultancy. Adequate coverage of all these areas could only be achieved in a text containing many hundreds of articles.