A Melting Pot

Abstract

Leo Breiman’s article “Statistical Modeling: The two cultures” was timely and provocative. He advocated for Statisticians to learn about and appreciate a different “culture”: an algorithmic approach, as distinct from the familiar, stochastic, data modeling approach to Statistics. While we have appreciated and contributed to the algorithmic approach, we have always had a foot in both camps. Here we advocate for a “melting pot”, arguing that both approaches have their virtues, sometimes on the same problem.