Emeritus Professor of Statistics, Auckland University.

WildSide Publishing author profile, view HERE

Contact:
seber@stat.auckland.ac.nz
or g.seber@auckland.ac.nz

George A.F. Seber is an Emeritus Professor of Statistics and held the foundation Chair in Statistics at Auckland University for several decades. He has a PhD in statistics and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society NZ in 1997.

Born in Sydney in 1938, Seber emigrated to New Zealand with his family at the end of World War II. He attended the Auckland University College, graduating with an MSc with first-class honours in 1960, and won a Commonwealth scholarship to undertake PhD in statistics at the University of Manchester. Completing his doctorate in 1963, he took up an assistant lectureship in statistics at the London School of Economics. In 1965 he and the statistician George Jolly simultaneously published accounts of the capture-recapture model of estimating biological population sizes, that came to be called the Jolly-Seber model. The same year, he returned to the University of Auckland, where he worked until retirement, except for a brief stint from 1971 to 1972 as professor of statistics at the University of Otago. George A.F. Seber was appointed to the foundation chair of Statistics in 1973. He was involved in establishing the Departments of Computer Science and Statistics at Auckland university.
Elected a Fellow of the NZ Royal Society Society in 1997 and awarded their Hector medal in Information Science in 1999. He was elected as a life member of the NZ Statistical Association 2004.

In his later years he trained as a counsellor at Laidlaw College to obtain a Diploma in Counselling from Laidlaw College and has been counselling for 17 years. He is also qualified as a supervisor of counselors and has been a member of the Christian Counsellors Association (NZCCA).

George is the author or co-author of 17 mathematical statistics books (mainly published with Wiley and Springer) with one translated into Chinese and Russian, and another into Portuguese. He also has an extensive 638 page counseling book entitled “Counseling Issues: A handbook for Counselors and Psychotherapists (self-published), a Christian apologetics book entitled “Can We Believe It?: Evidence for Christianity“, and a short booklet entitled “Coping with Dying: Death of a Loved One”.

George has been a member and musician at Windsor Park Baptist Church for many years, and he and his wife ran a divorce recovery programme called New Start there for several years. Currently he is involved there as a regular speaker with an apologetics programme called Reasons for Faith

George has published 17 Mathematical statistics books mainly in advanced statistics and statistical ecology and 5 other books on counselling, coping with dying, alcohol, sleep, and Christian apologetics (“Can we believe it? Evidence for Christianity”). He is currently writing another book on statistical ecology and has numerous research articles on statistics, human blood genetics, epidemiology, and a few in Christian magazines.
For him Christianity and Science are like two sides of the same coin.
He has had an interest in Christian apologetics from a teenager and is involved in giving talks at Windsor park Baptist church:
Media:

Apologetics & Science Videos. George has recorded a substantial series of Videos on the ‘Reasons For Faith’ Youtube channel. View HERE
These include : Genesis and Evolution:

Other topics include:
Why does God allow suffering?
Is there a God?
Understanding Islam
Alcohol – it is hurting us?
Are we more than just molecules?

Radio Interviews: Discussing his book ‘Alcohol: A Dangerous Love Affair’
MAGIC TALK INTERVIEW APR 5, 2020
THE AM SHOW INTERVIEW APR 7, 2020
NEWSTALK ZB INTERVIEW JUN 8, 2020
online at Wild Side Publishing. Access these HERE

RNZ National Nine To Noon, 11:35 am on 14 April 2020: Alcohol: A dangerous love affair? Listen HERE

More Recent Books:
ALCOHOL: A DANGEROUS LOVE AFFAIR; AN IN-DEPTH STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON USERS, THE COMMUNITY, THE NATION OF NEW ZEALAND, AND GLOBALLY
‘Alcohol: a dangerous love affair’ is written for anyone interested in alcohol, as even moderate drinkers are at health risk. The data available is enormous, but we are left with the impression that our political peers have conveniently ignored this elephant in the room. This compendium of verified data on alcohol examines nearly every aspect of its involvement in our lives, our community, our country, and globally.

SLEEP: ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH? THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, AND HOW TO GET MORE
Essential keys if you have sleep problems, or know someone struggling with sleep issues. Also a practical resource for medical professionals and counsellors.
Sleep: Are You Getting Enough? covers all aspects of sleep, including what we know scientifically about sleep. It looks at the things to avoid when preparing for or trying to sleep—and what can be done to promote a healthful sleep.
• The effects of sleep deprivation
• Why is sleep important
• The nature of insomnia
• Depression and sleep
• Strategies for sleep
• Snoring
• Sleep apnea and other disorders

COPING WITH DYING: THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE
A valuable booklet which describes in detail what a caregiver can expect when a person is dying.
This end-of-life process can be unsettling if you don’t know what is going on. For example, some symptoms may appear to be more serious than they really are. Information is given about the availability of Hospice care.
Also described are all the legal and other things that need to be sorted out once death has occurred, followed by some counselling about grief for those involved.

CAN WE BELIEVE IT? EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY
Many people today believe that Christianity will not stand up to a scientific or intellectual investigation, and that science has all the answers. Such an attitude shows an ignorance of the wealth of available philosophical arguments and scientific information that Dr Seber taps into in this book.
Initially, he shows that mathematics and science are limited in what they can prove in spite of modern advances. He then summarizes his material using basic questions as ten chapter headings:
Does God exist?
Is there a spiritual dimension?
Do we have free will?
Is the Bible reliable?
Who is Jesus?
Do miracles occur?
Why does God allow suffering and evil?
Is Christianity a blessing or a curse to society?
What about evolution?
How can we get to know God?
The reader may have other questions and a number are considered within each chapter, such as problems with philosophical materialism and atheism. He draws his material from many sources including statistics, physics, cosmology, genetics, philosophy, history, biochemistry, theology, psychology, archaeology, and biology. Comparatively new subjects like epigenetics, chaos theory, and quantum mechanics, that many people are not aware of, are brought into the picture. These topics change our thinking about reality.