Statistics, philosophy, and health: the SMAC 2021 webconference

SMAC 2021 was a webconference organized in June 2021. The aim of this conference was to bring together data scientists, (bio)statisticians, philosophers, and any person interested in the questions of causality and Bayesian statistics, ranging from technical to philosophical aspects. This webconference consisted of keynote speakers and contributed speakers, and closed with a round-table organized in an unusual fashion. Indeed, organisers asked world renowned scientists to prepare two videos: a short video presenting a question of interest to them and a longer one presenting their point of view on the question. The first video served as a “teaser” for the conference and the second were presented during the conference as an introduction to the round-table. These videos and this round-table generated original scientific insights and discussion worthy of being shared with the community which we do by means of this paper.