Speaker
Description
Lessons learned in the last 25 years
Gerhard Nehmiz, consultant for Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, Biberach, Germany
gerhard.nehmiz.ext@boehringer-ingelheim.com
The Working Group "Bayes methods" of the IBS / German Region was founded in 2001, and met a need. It had two roots: The WG "Prognosis and decision making" of the GMDS (U. Mansmann) and the German BUGS User Group (DeBUG) (G. Sawitzki, J. König, U. Mansmann, G. Nehmiz).
The aims of the WG were to support the Bayes approach in theory and application. This would then also strengthen its role in the outer world.
The activities of the Working Group in the 25 years were, in summary: to connect people, to organize yearly workshops (partly with other WGs), and to organize sessions at the Biometric colloquia or GMDS meetings. A short overview will be given.
The main "lessons learned" were:
(1) The WG grew from 16 (2001) through 48 (2006), 61 (2014) to 90 (2025), out of 800-1000 members of the IBS / German Region. Most of these were passive listeners and not active contributors. It was never easy to recruit presenters.
(2) Also after the Axial era of Bayesian statistics (1990-1995), progress went on remarkably. The WG could by far not keep up with all this. It picked up topics that were relevant from an algorithmic, methodical, medical or environmental point-of-view.
(3) Finding the right words is helpful for the own understanding and for sending clear messages to the outer world. Communication did benefit from separating the words "probability [of data]" and "degree of certainty [of statements]".
(4) Good data and meta-data are indispensable. The Bayes approach cannot save a badly designed experiment.
Sources:
Webpage of the Working Group
Webpage of the International Biometric Society, repository of "Biometric Bulletin"
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