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Heh. Our senior VP (Fortune 500 company) has a side gig teaching statistics at UCLA. He can spot hand-waving at a 1000 feet, number-fudging at twice that distance. I've seen exactly one guy try to BS his way out of a corner in front of him. It wasn't pretty.
There aren't many people with that kind of skill around. Much less so in the small metro I work and reside in. We aren't a marquee name and don't pay well enough to attract the experts we need. If we get in a real jam, senior management has a contract with a top-tier recruiting firm in the healthcare IT industry to have remote consultants on an as-needed basis. We're depending on those consultants to keep things afloat.
That isn't the problem. Many people "can" develop deep skills in statistics by getting a PhD in it. The problem is people "choose" not to, and want to fast-track and not put in the hard work to develop those deep skills (getting a PhD). A good PhD-trained statistician/biostatistician has endless opportunities because they don't need to fake anything; they know their trade.
That isn't even remotely what this thread is about. The vast majority of people aren't going to have the intellectual horsepower to be a stats PhD. It's pointless for most people to try. Even if they did, it won't take all that many new entrants to that workforce to saturate its labor market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
The problem is there aren't that many people who can actually develop deep skills in statistics. What we're going to start seeing, because it is the current hot trend, is a lot of people calling themselves data scientists because they have enough Excel knowledge to impress most of management and wave their hands enough on the statistics to fool the rest.
"Deep stats analysis" is something computers/AI will be far, far better at than humans will be in relatively short order.
In any event, the junior PM that was completely clueless was removed from the project. A more senior PM was put in his position, and we essentially had a project reset meeting yesterday. While he's not technical, he's been involved in many projects, some of which I've been on, and I trust his judgment.
That isn't the problem. Many people "can" develop deep skills in statistics by getting a PhD in it. The problem is people "choose" not to, and want to fast-track and not put in the hard work to develop those deep skills (getting a PhD). A good PhD-trained statistician/biostatistician has endless opportunities because they don't need to fake anything; they know their trade.
Not that many people can get a PhD. Just take a look at the Education forum at the number of people who can't handle first year math.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
Heh. Our senior VP (Fortune 500 company) has a side gig teaching statistics at UCLA. He can spot hand-waving at a 1000 feet, number-fudging at twice that distance. I've seen exactly one guy try to BS his way out of a corner in front of him. It wasn't pretty.
Bosses like that are a joy to work for. They're rare, so hang on to him. My current org has execs who think Excel is a database tool.
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