An recent editorial from Science (warning: may be behind a paywall unless you are accessing from campus or via VPN) argues that statistics is important for all branches of science and even beyond — in public policy.
To quote the opening paragraph:
Popular media and science publications sound the drum: “Big Data” will drive our future, from translating genomic information into new therapies, to harnessing the Web to untangle complex social interactions, to detecting infectious disease outbreaks. Statistics is the science of learning from data, and of measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty; and it thereby provides the navigation essential for controlling the course of scientific and societal advances.