Robust statistical analyses require knowledge, judgement, and increasingly, specialist expertise. To market a product as a way to jettison the statistician is s

Robust statistical analyses require knowledge, judgement, and increasingly, specialist expertise. To market a product as a way to jettison the statistician is so shortsighted as to be intellectual malpractice. Forgive me if I seem overly aggressive but I have grown weary of my and my colleagues' profession being side-lined and belittled. Politicians, administrators, and even some other scientists see statistics as merely a badge to be placed atop their own work for validation. Well, ladies and gentlemen, statistics is more than that. It is an empirical science in its own right. Of course, it doesn't always take a statistician to do the necessary statistical work. I am no physicist yet I can certainly apply the Clausius Clapeyron equation as needed. Likewise, I expect many (perhaps most) scientists to be able to apply an ANOVA or simple regression as the need arises. HOWEVER, the lack of intellectual humility on the part of so many non-statisticians when applying statistical tools to their own work is maddening.