Is there a quote like this from some statistician?

Question

I think, I read this quote some where:

For every field "x" there exists a field "computational x"

Has anyone else read this or remembers reading anything close to this?

If I remember correctly, it was by Dr. Jan de Leeuw.

Can anyone please tell if my memory fails me here? (I could not find any link after a lot of googling)

I am asking this here because of its use in Reproducible Research and if I remember correctly this quote was in a presentation related to reproducible research. Apologies in advance if it wasn't meant to be here. — suncoolsu, Dec 15 '10 at 04:40
I don't really see the point made by this quote. Is there a computational philosophy ? computational poetry ? ... It seems that it would be more correct to say : "For every field "x" that has a "computational x" there is a "computational x". :) — robin girard, Dec 15 '10 at 08:04
@Robin. I agree with you, but it sounds good for a presentation on reproducible-research and I am about to give one. — suncoolsu, Dec 15 '10 at 09:23
Computational poetry (PDF): http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.27.4337&rep=rep1&type=pdf — Matt Parker, Dec 15 '10 at 16:15

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 15 '10 at 17:44

5

Maybe you are after this talk?

Tutorial: Methods for Reproducible Research, by Roger D. Peng (slide 3)

Also, papers on Reproducible research written by de Leeuw that I am aware of are Reproducible Research: the Bottom Line, and Statistical Software -- Overview. But a quick check didn't reveal any citation like the one you show.

edited Dec 15 '10 at 17:44

whuber

answered Dec 15 '10 at 08:05

chl

@chl. Thanks. You are a great resource. Did you google this? If yes, can you please enlighten me with your google-fu skills? And yes, I did check these two articles but didn't find the quotation. – suncoolsu Dec 15 '10 at 09:21
@suncoolsu Yes, I was lucky enough with reproducible research de leeuw "for every field" in Google, but as I know you have some background in genetics, I was initially expecting to get a hit from Bioconductor tutorials instead... – chl Dec 15 '10 at 10:13
@chl, suncoolsu: The brute-force obvious search on 'For every field "x" there exists a field "computational x"' turns up this thread as hit #1 and Peng's tutorial as hit #2. – whuber Dec 15 '10 at 17:44
@whuber I was adding an extra Jan de Leeuw to your search and I guess it messed up the results. – suncoolsu Dec 15 '10 at 22:35
1

@suncoolsu In terms of "Google fu", a good approach seems to be to start with broad searches and then narrow them in response to the hits you are getting. Starting with an extremely narrow search risks overlooking good stuff. In this case even my search perhaps was too aggressive. When you consider, though, that every word in that quote can have many meanings unrelated to your intended topic, using the entire quotation seemed to be a reasonable starting point. – whuber Dec 15 '10 at 23:46

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 15 '10 at 19:22

4

It might also be found in a more formal document, but nothing in my collection...

answered Dec 15 '10 at 19:22

conjugateprior

@Conjugate (+1) Nice catch! – chl Dec 15 '10 at 19:38
Wooo! Hats off to your googling skills :-( Me sux. – suncoolsu Dec 15 '10 at 22:21
@Conjugate and Chl. You guys have put me in a dilemma: whose answer should I accept? – suncoolsu Dec 15 '10 at 22:22
2

@suncoolsu No googling involved - I look through de Leeuw's mammoth preprint list once every 6 months to see what goodies have newly arrived. If you can bear the fierce matrix algebra and super terse presentation, there's always something interesting to read. – conjugateprior Dec 15 '10 at 22:30
@suncoolsu I like Jan's work (I was at this UseR also!), and actually I think you really should accept this answer. – chl Dec 15 '10 at 23:44
@chl can you pls tell which useR was this? – suncoolsu Dec 21 '10 at 08:39
@suncoolsu UseR! 2006. – chl Dec 21 '10 at 09:00

2 Answers2