Trip to Louvain (and back)

Apart from the minor initial inconvenience that I missed my train to Brussels thanks to the SNCF train company dysfunctional automata [but managed to switch to one half-an-hour later], my Belgian trip to Louvain-la-Neuve was quite enjoyable! I met with several local faculty [UCL] members I had not seen for several years, I gave my talk for the World Statistics Day in front of a large audience, maybe not the most appropriate talk for that day since it was somewhat skeptical about the nature of statistical tests, I got sharp questions, comments, and suggestions on the mixture approach to testing [incl. a challenging one about the Bernoulli B(p) case], I had a superb and animated and friendly dinner in a local restaurant—where everyone kindly spoke French although I was the only native French speaker—, I met the next morning with two PhD students from KU Leuven (the “other” part of the former Leuven university, albeit in the Flemmish side of the border) about functional ABC and generalised Jeffreys priors, I had a few more interesting discussions, and I managed to grab a few bags of Belgian waffles in Brussels before heading home! (In case you wonder from the above pixture, the crowds in the pedestrian streets of Louvain-la-Neuve were not connected to my visit!, but to a student festival centred at beer a 24 hour bike relay that attracted around 50,000 students, for less than a hundred bikes!)

World statistics day

Today is October 20, World Statistics Day as launched by the UN. And supported by local and international societies. In connection with that day, among many events, the RSS will be hosting a reception, China will hold a seminar in… Xi’an, how appropriate!, my friend Kerrie Mengersen will give a talk at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on The power and promise of immersive virtual environments. (Bringing her pet crocodile to the talk, hopefully!)

And I will also give a talk in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, on Le délicat dilemme des tests d’hypothèse et de leur résolution bayésienne. At ISBA, which stands for Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences and not for the Bayesian society!. within UCL, which stands for Université Catholique de Louvain and not for University College London! (And which is not to be confused with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in Leuven, where I was last year for MCqMC. About 25 kilometers away.) In case this is not confusing enough, here are my slides (in English, while the talk will be in French):

Quételet’s average (wo)man

In the EuroStar last morning, I got attracted by my neighbour headline’s about average and went to pick a spare copy at the head of the train:

The article is awfully written, mixing nonsensical figures (like “the average British woman, who is 40, enjoys an extra half-day work each week”!!!) with a few remarks about the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is supposed to celebrate the first World Statistics Day but there is very little to celebrate if this is the vision of statistics this day promotes. Are we back to Quételet‘s quest for the “average man”?!