I agree with Roger’s latest post: “we need to expand the tent of statistics and include people who are using their statistical training to lead the new science”. I am perhaps a bit more worried than Roger. Specifically, I worry that talented go-getters interested in leading science via data analysis will achieve this without engaging our research community.
A quantitatively trained person (engineers , computer scientists, physicists, etc..) with strong computing skills (knows python, C, and shell scripting), that reads, for example, “Elements of Statistical Learning” and learns R, is well on their way. Eventually, many of these users of Statistics will become developers and if we don’t keep up then what do they need from us? Our already-written books may be enough. In fact, in genomics, I know several people like this that are already developing novel statistical methods. I want these researchers to be part of our academic departments. Otherwise, I fear we will not be in touch with the problems and data that lead to, quoting Roger, “the most exciting developments of our lifetime.”