[kyzyl]

Perhaps if one has a doctrate in model theory and has never strayed outside of the abstract algebra/group theory realm, they might not be qualified to speak on statistical problems. However, my experience has been that this is almost never the case. The mathematics people I've known have been, for the most part, extremely well versed in various forms of analysis, algebra, probability and, yes, statistics. You might be surprised how a lot of the deep mathematical concepts tie into statistical methods. There's more to it than performing t-tests.

Comments like yours are more or less exactly what I was speaking about. What makes you think that somebody with an advanced mathematics degree wouldn't know about statistics? Because it's not in the title? Go kick down the door of your local university math department and spring some statistics problems on them. You'll probably come out with the answers.

[strangestchild]

Perhaps your experience has been different from mine, maybe because I'm based in the UK - I know that US education tends to be more generalised. Among my friends with or pursuing postgraduate degrees in pure mathematical disciplines, none have any particular knowledge of stats above the undergraduate level. As a master's student, I wouldn't imagine I count for much - but what I know about statistics could be written on the back of an envelope. It's something I've been meaning to remedy for a while now. It's possible that tenured professors have a wider breadth of knowledge than the average PhD - and I admit that I wouldn't know if that were the case.

As for the depth of statistics as a field, and its reliance on other disciplines - I agree entirely. I think pure mathematicians are far more likely to be ignorant of statistics than statistical mathematicians are of, for example, analysis.