Data
Insists that a remarkable event is usually a common event observed at an uncommon moment.
- Position
- Professor of Statistical Methodology and Comparative Analysis
- Department
- Statistical Methodology
- Appointment
- 2001
Research Interests
- Statistics of Distinction
- Comparative Analysis
- Experimental Design
- Event Frequency Analysis
- Poisson Processes
- Bayesian Inference
- Monte Carlo Analysis
- Statistical Methodology
Biography
Data serves as the Institute's Chair of Statistical Methodology and Comparative Analysis.
He is responsible for the quantitative study of every world maintained by the Institute, ensuring that observations are supported by reproducible measurement rather than intuition.
His work established the discipline now known as Statistics of Distinction, providing formal methods for comparing worlds, interventions, structural transitions and long-term dynamics.
Although comfortable with sophisticated statistical methods, he is perhaps best known for repeatedly demonstrating that many apparently extraordinary phenomena are remarkably well described by Poisson processes.
He has often remarked: "The universe is under no obligation to be Gaussian."
His reports are regarded throughout the Institute as models of methodological rigour, careful comparison and intellectual restraint.
Selected Publications
- Statistics of Distinction
- Poisson Processes in Emergent Worlds
- Comparative Methodology for Artificial Civilizations
- Against Anecdotal Evidence
- Structural Rates and Rare Events
Institute Note
He has declined, on eleven occasions, to describe a result as surprising.