Presidents Of The Royal Statistical Society
The President of the Royal Statistical Society is the head of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), elected biennially by the Fellows of the Society. (The time-period between elections has varied in the past, and in fact elections only rarely occur.).
The President oversees the running of the Society and chairs its council meetings. In recent years, almost all presidents have been nominated following many years' service to the Society, although some have been nominated to mark their eminence in society generally, such as Harold Wilson.
There has only been one contested election in the Society's history; in 1977, many fellows objected to the nomination by the Council of Campbell Adamson because he was not a statistician, was said to have made derogatory comments about statisticians, and principally because in the previous year he had been defeated in an election to the Council of the Society, and fellows felt that he was being foisted upon the Society by the current 'establishment' in an essentially undemocratic fashion. Henry Wynn was nominated by several fellows (including Adrian Smith, himself later president, and Philip Dawid) and won the election.
In 2010, Bernard Silverman stepped down as president mid term. This was due to being appointed as chief scientific advisor to the home office which presented a conflict of interest as the society sometimes issues expert statements on statistical matters in public life.
Read more about Presidents Of The Royal Statistical Society: Honorary Presidents, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words presidents, royal and/or society:
“Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Although my royal rank causes me to doubt whether my kingdom is not more sought after than myself, yet I understand that you have found other graces in me.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one other—only in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.”
—Talcott Parsons (1902–1979)