George Mason University
CDS/CCDS/Statistics Colloquium Series
Seminar Announcement


Experiences with Congressional Testimony: Statistics and The Hockey Stick

Yasmin H. Said

Department of Computational and Data Sciences
George Mason University


Research 1, Room 301, Fairfax Campus
George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030

Time: 10:30 a.m. Refreshments, 10:45 a.m. Colloquium Talk
Date: September 7, 2007



ABSTRACT

Rarely does the federal government need advice on theoretical statistics. I would like to talk about one exception. Efforts to persuade Congress to enact legislation that affects public policy are constantly being made by lobbyists who are paid by special interests. While this mode of operation is frequently extremely effective for achieving the goals of the special interest groups, it often does not serve the public interests in the best possible way. As counterpoint to this mode of operation, pro bono interaction with individual legislators and especially testimony in Congressional hearings can be remarkably effective in presenting a balanced picture. The debate on anthropogenic global warming has in many ways left scientific discourse and landed in political polemic. In this talk I will discuss our positive and negative experiences in formulating testimony on this topic.