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| 2008 Honor a Statistician Award |
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The Connecticut Chapter is recognizing Chapter
members who have made significant contributions
to statistics and its applications with the
Honor A Statistician Award. Involvement in
Chapter activities is also considered. This year
we were pleased to present
Dr. David Salsburg with the award.
Dr. Salsburg was presented with the award at the
Chapter Banquet in June 2008.
The abstract for Dr. Salsburg’s talk is presented below:
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| Do Vaccines Cause Autism? Does Breathing Cause Death? Defining Cause and Effect in an Observational Study |
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The concept of "cause and effect" has posed deep philosophical discussions with positions ranging from Aristotle's insistence that a phenomenon is not understood until one can identify its cause to Bertram Russell's claim that the concept of cause and effect has no meaning. The ultimate purpose of most epidemiological studies is to identify "causes" of illness. What does this mean when dealing with observational data rather than data from a designed randomized study? Using references from Aristotle, Keynes, Russell, Fisher, Cochran, and Cornfield, among others, this is a discussion of how statistical models have been used to answer these questions.
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| Short biography of David Salsburg |
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David Salsburg has a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics (U. of Conn., 1967). He taught at Trinity College and the University of Pennsylvania before going to Pfizer Central Research, Pfizer, Inc., where he was the first biostatistician at that company. He worked at Pfizer for 27, rising to the senior position on the scientific ladder before retiring in 1995. While at Pfizer and since retirement, he taught courses at the University of Connecticut, Connecticut College, and Harvard School of Public Health, and Yale. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and received a lifetime achievement award from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association. He has published papers dealing with theoretical statistics, toxicology, pharmacology, clinical research, textual analysis, quality control, and legal problems. He is the author of three academic books, in addition to "The Lady Tasting Tea."
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