Science of Bradley Efron

Nature didn’t design human beings to be statisticians, and in fact our minds are more naturally attuned to spotting the saber-toothed tiger than seeing the jungle he springs from. Yet scienti?c discovery in practice is often more jungle than tiger. Those of us who devote our scienti?c lives to the deep and satisfying subject of statistical inference usually do so in the face of a certain under-appreciation from the public, and also (though less so these days) from the wider scienti?c world. With this in mind, it feels very nice to be over-appreciated for a while, even at the expense of weathering a 70th birthday. (Are we certain that some terrible chronological error hasn’t been made?) Carl Morris and Rob Tibshirani, the two colleagues I’ve worked most closely with, both ?t my ideal pro?le of the statistician as a mathematical scientist working seamlessly across wide areas of theory and application. They seem to have chosen the papers here in the same catholic spirit, and then cajoled an all-star cast of statistical savants to comment on them.

From the reviews:"This Volume is a fine collection of 21 selected papers by Efron. One of the book’s most interesting and important features is the formal introduction of each paper by a distinguished professional in the field.… The editors did a wonderful job in selecting them.… This volume contains a wealth of knowledge and important information for all of us!… In a nutshell the book is a must buy. I very much enjoyed reading this special edition, and I am sure you will too! It will be hard to find this much influential work in one place. This book is worth more than $149 U.S.!" (S. Ejaz Ahmed, Technometics, February 2009, Vol. 51, NO. 1)“The volume at hand, the first in Springer’s new ‘Selected Works’ series, attempts to give a panoramic view of the work of an untiring statistics researcher, a living legend among our ranks. It is edited by Carl Morris of Harvard University and Robert Tibshirani of Stanford University, both long-time coauthors of Efron and among his closest collaborators. The editors chose 21 prominent works to include in this volume; in his Foreword, Efron calls these his ‘best work so far’ (!). …However, what makes this volume a treat is the array of 21 distinguished researchers that have enlisted themselves to introduce—and put in perspective—each of these works. The list reads like a Who’s Who in statistics, and includes: T. Cover, H. Chernoff, R. Kass, P. Vos, J. Rolph, P. McCullagh, J. Kalbfleisch, J. Berger, T. DiCiccio, D. Hinkley, J. Shao, C.F.J. Wu, P. Hall, T. Hastie, L. Wasserman, P. Bickel, R. Beran, N. Reid, J. Felsenstein, S. Stigler, R. Irezarry, D. Madigan, and M. Newton. The insights that these experts bring to these works are profound; … Additional features of the volume include three to four pages of comments of former students of Efron’s, 10 pages of photographs spanning 40 years, a full list of Efron’s publications (up to 2008), and a reprint of Efron’s AMSTAT News President’s Corner article: ‘But what do statisticians do?’. Because of Efron’s recent 70th birthday, many people would call this volume a ‘Festschrift’; I would say it is simply a treat for us all.” (Journal of the American Statistical Association, June 2010, Vol. 105, No. 490)“All interested in statistical research. … How did the statistician Efron arise? What other research did Efron conduct? … What does he think about statistics? If you are interested in partial answers to any of the above questions, this is a book for you. … Every paper is preceded by a commentary by an expert on the subject … and this doubles the value of the collection. … a treasure trove of statistical gems, and deserves a place on the shelf of every research statistician.” (Terry Speed, International Statistical Review, Vol. 78 (3), 2010)