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Certification offers an alternative means for upgrading the technical competence of statistical professionals. However, certification is an indirect method which lacks the mechanism to promote communication and professional responsibility among statisticians. A more effective approach would be the organization of educational groups that will train employers and increase their awareness of the benefits of statistical practice at all levels of industrial and federal organizations. This approach will enabvle statisticians to achieve public recognition and respect for their profession., Several years ago, as a statistician in an R&D Laboratory at Hewlett Packard Company, a project manager asked me for advice on the setting of a specification (aka 'tolerance interval') [...]

Certification of statistical practitioners has been under consideration by the American Statistical Association. This article discusses, through a series of examples, some problematic aspects of statistical practice that certification can help to ameliorate. An optional, limited certification program is advocated as an indirect mechanism for communicating values, concerning the validity of information and responsible use of data, which are not widely understood or attributed to the profession by society at large. How society perceives the roles and professional values of statisticians may be more important to the future of statistics than specific technical issues of practice., A professional statistical certification program is necessary for promoting professional values within the statistical profession. This kind of program will cultivate a deeper sense of responsibility among statisticians with regard to the validity and use of important data. It would also help the statistical community in monitoring its technical and ethical standards, enabling them to improve the quality of statistical practice., 1. INTRODUCTION Professional statistical certification in the United States has previously been discussed (e.g., Boen and Smith 1975), but a current American Statistical Association (ASA) initiative (ASA Committee on Certification, [...]

The article describes a class activity to help students understand the concept of a sampling distribution of a sample proportion, using GOLO, a dice-based golf game.

The proposal to implement a professional certfication program for statisticians will not prevent future statistical mistakes from occuring. On the contrary, it will create an exclusionary organization of statistical practitioners which will prevent qualified but uncertified professionals from engaging in statistical practice. Instead of implementing such a useless program, the community should dedicate itself to the upgrading of existing statistical methods and the promotion of high ethical standards.

The implementation of a professional certification program does not guarantee error-free statistical analyses in the future. On the contrary, the implementation of this program could lead to the devaluation of statistics degrees and the stagnation of the statistical profession. It would also force uncertified yet qualified scientists, engineers and technicians to take additional statistics courses at their own expense. Instead of implementing a certification program, the statistical community should assist scientists in dealing with serious statistical errors and alert them to the different kinds of problems that may arise from their research activities., Advocates for certification have three tasks: they must establish that there is a problem that certification is intended to address, they must establish that certification will solve the problem, and [...]

The proposal to implement a professional certification program to prevent future statistical errors is based on political and sociological issues rather than technical ones. Although this proposal could enhance the public's perception of the statistical profession, it should not be based solely on the personal benefits which statistical professionals stand to gain once the certification is approved., Imrey constructs his case for certification with citations of issues of scientific and public importance in which serious statistical mistakes were made. Those mistakes led to wrong conclusions. Imrey cites [...]

The proposal to implement certification programs for statisticians should be given serious consideration by statistics professionals. Such programs will not only enable statistical practitioners to lessen the misuse of their arts but will also enhance society's perception toward the statistical community. They will also protect the public from being fooled by dubious statistical claims perpetrated by ill-trained statisticians., As someone in favor of the certification of statisticians, I welcome Imrey's cogent remarks. Readers of Amstat News and those attending the various meetings of the ASA in recent months [...]

The idea of implementing professional certification programs will not reduce the mistakes being committed by certain sectors of the statistical community. Instead, these programs will only inhibit innovation and lead to a more stagnant statistical profession. To improve the technical competence of the profession, statisticians need only to speak out publicy when statistical errors are committed by their colleagues., Certification is a modern development of the medieval idea of a guild, different from (but correlated with) state licensure. A variety of reasons for it can be given, but its [...]