JSM 2010 [day 2]

After a very good early run in Stanley Park, I went to a morning session on new statistical challenges in genetics, but unfortunately could not keep focussed enough (due to a very short night, still being not tuned to Pacific time!) so I ended up chatting with Sid Chib at the Springer booth about the future of R and the drawback of it running too slowly… The second session of the morning I attended was the I.J. Good memorial session (although there were many alternative choices I could have made at the same time!) where Steve Fienberg, Jim Berger, Adrian Raftery and David Banks gave different perspectives on the life and influence of this leading figure. After his work in Bletchley Park along Alan Turing during the war, already using Bayes factors introduced a few years earlier by Harold Jeffreys, I.J. Good contributed very much to the Bayesian revival of the 50’s. (A fact not mentioned this morning is that he was a consultant for 2001: A Space Odyssey!) The afternoon session on Bayesian processing of massive data systems was somehow compulsory since I was talking in this session! While the talks were interestingly diverse, there were however again very people in the room, making me feel the attendance was much lower than last year. As the day ended earlier to let free space to the presidential address, this eventually came as a less exciting day (but left me time for an early evening swim plus two mixers!)…