Harvard School of Public Health - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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The Age of The Computer Robert B. Reed, Chairman T HE Department of Biostatistics has the peren¬ nial pleasure of coming in close contact with practically all of the students at the School. We are, of course, aware of the fact that this pleasure is at times one-sided and that whereas E. T. Bell has identified mathematics as both the Queen of the Sciences and the Hand-maiden of the Sciences, there exists a school of thought that considers biostatistics to be the Necessary Evil of Public Health. Perhaps the advent of the computer age will make biostatistics more palatable. There is no doubt that modern computers are of almost incon¬ ceivable assistance in coping with the necessary evils of tedious and complex statistical manipula¬ tion. However, the output of a reasonably active computer is a continuous reminder of the classic principle of public health that statistics are like garbage—once you have collected them, you must decide what to do with them. And the disposal problem is increasing by leaps and bounds. The impact of the computers on biostatistics is, in a sense, only one part of the information ex¬ plosion that is being felt throughout all of science. For the student of biostatistics, it means two things. On the one hand, the mechanics of proc¬ essing masses of records and numbers is becoming increasingly more rapid and efficient. Simultane¬ ously, this processing is becoming the concern of In the window below are Claire Wasserboehr, Margaret In the window below are Raymond Neff, Carol Leonard, Holt, Judith Shapiro, Dr. Jane Worcester, Dr. Jacob Dr. David Heer, Linda Parrish, and Margaret Drolette. Feldman, and Dr. Lenin Baler.

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BI05TATI5TIC5

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Three Biostat students, and friend. computer specialists rather than the direct concern of the scientist who uses the statistics. In this way, the work of biostatistics is being simplified. It is even conceivable that at some time in the dim, distant future students in Biostatistics lab will never calculate a standard deviation. Instead, they will learn what a standard deviation is in¬ tended to measure and that there are machines that will produce values of the standard deviation from sets of data. On the other hand, the same computers that are relieving the scientist of the burdens of data proc¬ essing are presenting him with the need to develop increasing sophistication in the utilization of com¬ plex masses of material. In the past, the analysis of public health problems has been conveniently limited by practical restrictions on the amount of information available and the extent to which it could be analyzed. In the future, the comparative ease with which data can be collected and proc¬ essed will require increased clarity in the formu¬ lation of problems and corresponding selectivity in the utilization of statistics. Dr. Robert B. Reed Advanced Bio:tatistics class students (below) listen to Dr. Worcester (right) give one of her painstakingly prepared lectures on the mysteries of the chi-square. 17