Global InformationRonald Fisher information
Sir Ronald Fisher FRS | |
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 Fisher in 1913 | |
| Born | Ronald Aylmer Fisher 17 February 1890 London, England |
| Died | 29 July 1962 (aged 72) Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Alma mater | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Fisher's exact test Fisher's inequality Fisher's principle Fisher's geometric model Fisher's Iris data set Fisher's linear discriminant Fisher's equation Fisher information Fisher's method Fisherian runaway Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection Fisher's noncentral hypergeometric distribution Fisher's z-distribution Fisher transformation Fisher consistency F-distribution F-test Fisher–Tippett distribution Fisher–Tippett–Gnedenko theorem Fisher–Yates shuffle Fisher–Race blood group system Behrens–Fisher problem Cornish–Fisher expansion von Mises–Fisher distribution family allowance Wright–Fisher model Ancillary statistic Fiducial inference Intraclass correlation Infinitesimal model Inverse probability Lady tasting tea Null hypothesis Maximum likelihood estimation Neutral theory of molecular evolution Particulate inheritance Random effects model Relative species abundance Reproductive value Sexy son hypothesis Sufficient statistic Analysis of variance Variance |
| Spouse | Ruth Eileen Guinness (1917) |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Statistics, genetics, and evolutionary biology |
| Institutions |
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| Academic advisors | James Hopwood Jeans F. J. M. Stratton[1] |
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Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS[5] (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic.[6] For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science"[7][8] and "the single most important figure in 20th century statistics".[9] In genetics, his work used mathematics to combine Mendelian genetics and natural selection; this contributed to the revival of Darwinism in the early 20th-century revision of the theory of evolution known as the modern synthesis, being the one to most comprehensively combine the ideas of Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin.[10] For his contributions to biology, Richard Dawkins proclaimed Fisher as "the greatest of Darwin's successors".[11] He is considered one of the founding fathers of Neo-Darwinism.[12][13]
From 1919, he worked at the Rothamsted Experimental Station for 14 years;[14] there, he analyzed its immense body of data from crop experiments since the 1840s, and developed the analysis of variance (ANOVA). He established his reputation there in the following years as a biostatistician.
Together with J. B. S. Haldane and Sewall Wright, Fisher is known as one of the three principal founders of population genetics. He outlined Fisher's principle, the Fisherian runaway and sexy son hypothesis theories of sexual selection. His contributions to statistics include promoting the method of maximum likelihood and deriving the properties of maximum likelihood estimators, fiducial inference, the derivation of various sampling distributions, founding principles of the design of experiments, and much more.
Fisher held strong views on race and eugenics, insisting on racial differences. Although he was clearly a eugenicist, there is some debate as to whether Fisher supported scientific racism (see Ronald Fisher § Views on race). He was the Galton Professor of Eugenics at University College London and editor of the Annals of Eugenics.[15]
- ^ Owen, A. R. G. (1962). "An appreciation for the Life and Work of Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher". The Statistician. 12 (4): 313. doi:10.2307/2986951. JSTOR 2986951.
- ^ a b c Ronald Fisher at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Newport, Melanie (2013). "African Society of Human Genetics 8th Scientific Meeting held in conjunction with the H3Africa Consortium, May 19th-21st 2013, Accra, Ghana" (PDF). The Galton Institute Newsletter (80): 7–8.
- ^ Zimmer, Carl (29 May 2018). She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity. Penguin. p. 419. ISBN 978-1101984604.
- ^ Yates, F.; Mather, K. (1963). "Ronald Aylmer Fisher 1890–1962". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 9: 91–129. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1963.0006.
- ^ "Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 25 July 2023.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Hald98was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962)". UCL Division of Biosciences. 2 March 2021. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
- ^ Efron, Bradley (1998), "R. A. Fisher in the 21st century", Statistical Science, 13 (2): 95–122, doi:10.1214/ss/1028905930.
- ^ Berry, Andrew; Browne, Janet (26 July 2022). "Mendel and Darwin". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (30): e2122144119. Bibcode:2022PNAS..11922144B. doi:10.1073/pnas.2122144119. PMC 9335214. PMID 35858395.
- ^ Edwards, A. W. F. (2011). "Mathematizing Darwin". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 65 (3): 421–430. doi:10.1007/s00265-010-1122-x. PMC 3038233. PMID 21423339.
- ^ Dawkins, Richard (1986). The Blind Watchmaker. Norton & Company, Inc. p. 113. ISBN 978-0393351491.
- ^ Esposito, Maurizio (July 2016). "From human science to biology: The second synthesis of Ronald Fisher". History of the Human Sciences. 29 (3): 44–62. doi:10.1177/0952695116653866. S2CID 147742674.
- ^ Russell, E. John Russell. "Sir Ronald Fisher". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
- ^ UCL (13 February 2019). "Ronald A Fisher". UCL Division of Biosciences. Retrieved 12 March 2021.