As the [catholic] daily La X has a special “Sciences&éthique” report on data science and scientists, my mom [a long time subscriber] mailed me [by post] the central pages where it appeared. The contents are not great, focusing as often on a few sentences from and missing on the fundamental limitations of self-learning algorithms. As an aside, the leaflet contained a short interview by Jean-Stéphane Dhersin, who is head of the CNRS ModCov19 centralising platform [and anecdotally a neighbour] on the notion that a predictive model in epidemiology can be both scientific and imprecise.
Archive for interview
data science in La X
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Statistics with tags AI, CNRS, COVID-19, data science, ethics, France, interview, journalism, k nearest neighour, La Croix, ModCov19, modelling, pandemic on January 25, 2022 by xi'anlunch with David [and Meursault]
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life, Wines with tags Burgundy wines, Cambridge, caricature, Côte de Beaune, COVID-19, David Spiegelhalter, England, Financial Times, interview, Mersea Island, Meursault, picnic, seafood, Suffolk, white wines on May 1, 2021 by xi'an“My real beef, my real anger, is that hugely expensive programmes like test and trace did not have built in, right from the beginning, a capacity for experimental evaluation. They should have been running studies, different methodologies, different ways of tracing. As it is, we don’t know what benefit it’s had. It’s like rolling out vaccines without ever measuring whether they have an effect or not. For Heaven’s sake!”
another Nice shot [jatp]
Posted in Statistics with tags Alps, clouds, flight mode, French Alps, hiring committee, interview, jatp, Nice on May 22, 2019 by xi'anMASH in Le Monde
Posted in Statistics with tags big data, Ecole Normal Supérieure, ENS, interview, Le Monde, MASH, Master program, Université de Montpellier, Université Paris Dauphine on January 25, 2019 by xi'an“À l’université, j’étais le matheux qui savait parler aux statisticiens.”
Posted in Books, pictures, University life with tags Cédric Villani, French elections, French parliement, interview, Le Monde, maths and stats, Paris-Match, weekend edition on February 19, 2018 by xi'anThis weekend edition of Le Monde had [most of] Cédric Villani as its cover story. Mostly about his new career as a representative of Orsay at the French Parliament. And a member of the presidential majority. But the weekend edition being the weekend edition, it cannot escape its glossy tendencies and rather than focussing on the political agenda and achievements of the député, including a radical restructuring of the maths curriculum in French high schools, or maybe even his position on the harsh stance of the Macron government on migrants and refugees, Le Monde spends most of the article on the extra-ordinary personality of Villani. Paris-Match-like. Which leads to quote as the one below, where I find myself at a loss on how to interpret this “ability to speak to statisticians”…!