SDS Statistics Seminar Series

Topic

四大的迷思及破解: The Myth and Debunking of the Big Four

Speaker

C. F. Jeff Wu, X. Q. Deng Presidential Chair Professor, School of Data Science, CUHK-Shenzhen

Host

Jianfeng Yao, Presidential Chair Professor, School of Data Science, CUHK-Shenzhen

Date

5 November (Tuesday), 2024

Time

11:30 AM- 12:30 PM, Beijing Time

Format

Hybrid

Venue

Room 103, Dao Yuan Building

Zoom Link

https://cuhk-edu-cn.zoom.us/j/2987958236

Meeting ID :298 795 8236

Language

English

Abstract

The four journals (AnnStat, JASA, Biometrika, JRSSB), dubbed the Big Four 四大，have been widely used in China as the ultimate criteria for promotion and award competition. By now, they have served their positive historical role and purpose. But their detrimental effects on the whole statistical community have gradually become evident. Primarily, they have consumed our energy and prevented us from pursuing much larger goals like scientific and technological advances. It is high time to retire them and replace them by a more open and flexible system for promotion and award recognition. I will outline one such system, dubbed the Magnificent Ten 华丽十大，as a “brick” to get a “gem” (抛转引玉). I will also briefly outline a similar problem in the management science community, namely, their adherence to or instance on using the so-called UTD24 for recognition and reward, especially the two journals (MS, OR) for the operations research community. Finally, I will discuss the impacts of AI on statistics and data science, why the exclusive devotion of energy to the Big Four pursuit has hurt our community in facing the challenge and onslaught of AI, and what we may do to drastically revamp our discipline.

(Notes: This is a rehearsal talk for my opening speech at the 2024 Prob/Stat Conference in Xiamen. The slides are 95% English but my talk will be in Chinese mixed with some English.)

Biography

C. F. Jeff Wu is a X. Q. Deng Presidential Chair in the School of Data Science, CUHK (Shenzhen). His research covers statistical theory, methodology and applications. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (2004), and Academician of Academia Sinica (2000). A Fellow of ASQ, IMS, INFORMS, and ASA. He received the COPSS Presidents’ Award (1987), COPSS Fisher Lecture Award (2011), Deming Lecture (2012), Shewhart Medal (2008), Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020. He was the 1998 Mahalanobis Memorial Lecturer at the Indian Statistical Institutes, received the inaugural Akaike Memorial Lecture Award in 2016, the 2017 Box Medal from ENBIS, and an honorary doctor degree at the University of Waterloo.

He has published more than 190 research articles. He has supervised 52 Ph.D.'s, out of which more than half are teaching in major research departments worldwide. Among them, there are 26 Fellows of ASA, IMS, ASQ, IAQ, INFORMS and IIE, four are editors of major statistics journals, and one is a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada. He co-authors with Mike Hamada the book "Experiments: Planning, Analysis, and Optimization" (Wiley, 3rd ed. 2021). He coined the term “data science” in 1985 (during a lecture at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing).