Talk:Ronald Fisher/Archive 1

Archive 1

Fisher and Eugenics

I am just interested to know why any discussion about eugenics are not included in the biography or discussion of his book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. I think it is necessary to give a balanced view of the man, and the development of statistical genetics. I have always been interested in how 'hard' ideas like statistical genetics or evolution get (ab)used in developing social theories like eugenics or social darwinism. Would there be much protest if I tried an attempt to include one or two lines about this in his biography? --Frank.visser 10:31, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No, this is an encyclopedia, and as long as it remained encyclopedi and followed the principle of NPOV, there should be no problem. Although Fisher was a genius, he was not a nice man. I think there is a whole chapter in a book about Fisher somewhere, I think the bio needs expanding to. In summary, be bold in editing pages, we can always revert and have a discussion as appropriate. THe present eugenics article is (IMHO) rubbish at the moment too. Dunc_Harris|☺ 12:22, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Cool, I will dig up some sources and background information. I will try to keep it non-judgmental. He was a man of his times, and his views reflected the mores of a large part of (upper class) society.

--Frank.visser 14:17, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'd be intersted in the source of the following statement: "Between 1929 and 1934 the Eugenics Society also campaigned hard for a law permitting sterilization on eugenic grounds. They believed that it should be entirely voluntary, and a right, not a punishment." --Chris Locke

it is in the middle of p 197 of Box's R. A. Fisher, The Life of a Scientist. DonSiano 02:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Fisher was more into positive eugenics than negative eugenics, i.e. he thought that those of good birth should have lots of children (needless to say, he followed this through!) but without the nasty reigning in of the breeding of the unwashed masses. But others notably Leonard Darwin were in favour of negative eugenics. — Dunc|☺ 10:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Fisher as a consultant for British Tobacco Industries  ?

Is it correct that Fisher has worked as a consultant for the British Tobacco Industries. ?

Pleased give references.

Fisher (who is dead) advocated that correlation does not imply causation in the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. In this he was later proved wrong, and despite the fact that he was paid (I think), I think it was sincerely held view which we now have the benefit of hindsight to look at. — Dunc|☺ 19:58, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

i think this should be mentioned in the main article, when someone is receiving a hand off from a tobaco co their "scientific" findings should be questioned and his objectivity is obviously compromised. I dislike the canonical tone of this article a lot, this is a major error in judgement and i don't know why the article should mention only the successes and not ther errors and faults. 213.5.28.153 07:30, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

More info on the roots of modern Darwinism

The opening paragraph gives a Dawkins quote that he is the greatest of Darwins successors, but little is given to explain why. There should be more text explaining how Fishers ideas in The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection are the roots of modern evolutionary perspective i.e. gene selectionism and game theory applied to biology. With links to Hamilton, Dawkins and M.J.Smith. (I can provide quotes and citations if need be.)It should also be pointed out he was the first to frame the process of NS in mathematical terms, which solidified Mendelism, correcting Darwins mistakes on what was the driving force behind evolution(mutation or selection; Darwin believed in blending inheritance, which caused him to give presidence to mutation). I feel there is a lack of text on his relationship with Leonard Darwin as well. --Mikespenard 22:37, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this. Fisher was one of the three great founders of theoretical population genetics, often said to be the greatest of the three (Wright and Haldane being the others) and always agreed to be at least tied with Wright for first place. I understand we're dealing with the great figure of modern mathematical statistics here, but the population genetics and quantitative genetics work is surely worth more than three sentences! By the way, his book is great but much of his contribution was in papers, not just the book -- let's not fall into a Great Books fallacy here in which all great contributions are as books, not papers. I will try to add something on his contributions to population genetics. Felsenst

Erdos Number

I propose that we delete the part stating his Erdos number, as it is not particularly relevant to a biography, except perhaps Erdos' biography. If we follow this as an example, we would have to state all the scientist's Erdos numbers, which is a bit pointless Delmet 00:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I second the motion. For statisticians, it would be more sensible to define a Fisher number. I believe that Archimedes and Gauss did not co-author any papers with Erdős, and who remembers them now? EdJohnston 23:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Delete all Erdos numbers for people who died before the concept was invented. --Salix alba (talk) 00:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

'Pull quotes' seem out of place at beginning of article

In this diff [1] an editor added the cquote template for these two opening quotes. While this seems a bit more readable than the previous version, the giant blue quote marks are a reminder that this template is most often recommended for 'pull-quotes' that are used by publishers in sidebars, or whatever the correct term is. This aspect has recently been criticized [2] and in fact, the whole cquote template was proposed for deletion in December. If no better solution can be found, I'd prefer to see blockquote tags instead. EdJohnston 16:02, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Population genetics material needs reworking

I have expanded the paragraph on his contributions to theoretical population genetics a bit. But as his contributions to that field were spread over many decades, it is a bit unsatisfactory to have it all in the section on his Early Professional Years. Also, the whole section on his book, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection gives the misleading impression that his contributions to genetics and evolution were mostly through that book. As he wrote many classic papers in the area, this is seems to be a case of the Great Books Fallacy (that scientists publish mostly by writing books). As his work divides into two great themes -- statistics and genetics -- wouldn't it be better to separate these rather than interlace them uncomfortably by describing his contributions in temporal order? Felsenst 14:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Cambridge appointment

I've deleted the following: "A renewal of Fisher's appointment at Cambridge was not offered by the University in the summer of 1950, much to Fisher's dismay. He now realized he could expect little in the way of support, but", because it seems to imply he lost his position at Cambridge. He didn't, remaining there until retiring in 1957. Yates and Mather (Yates, F. and K. Mather. 1963. Ronald Aylmer Fisher 1890-1962. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 9:91-120) note he held the Chair until retirement, and that he was also President and Life Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. MayerG 01:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

---

More statistical significance than portrayed here?

Does his role in creating Maximum Likelihood Estimation etc warrant more then a paragraph in his early years?

72.200.80.12 18:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If he "almost almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science" then why isn't more said about how he laid these foundations, or when in his career, or who his major colleagues were as statisticians? It is transparently clear that this page has been composed by geneticists rather than statisticians, but statistics is a very important discipline that is relied upon widely in many empirical scientific fields, and Fisher's statistical contributions merit much more material on this page.Health Researcher 22:40, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. We should add more on that. To be continued..... Michael Hardy 00:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

bump - I will try and do something here in the next few months... but many statisticians should be able to chip in. Must also be material to be gotten in Anova and a whole series of other pages based on his work, as well as that of people like Pearson...

Fisher's Educational Credentials

He only held a BA from Cambridge in astronomy. Why has the article evaded this fact?

Fisher held no degree in biology.

Ray Martinez 21:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Fisher's personality

I never met Fisher but have heard many times that although yes, he could be very loyal to people who he formed a good opinion of (as the article says), if he formed a bad opinion of you, you were in for a very hard time -- he could be very difficult, to put it mildly. He and Sewall Wright had a decades-long bitter dispute, and were not on speaking terms. And his dispute with Wright was not his only one. Here is what John Aldrich's page "A guide to RA Fisher" says: "Enemies: In his obituary piece in The Times Barnard wrote 'his devotion to scientific truth being literally passionate, he was an implacable enemy of those whom who judged guilty of propagating error." There were serious breaches with Karl Pearson, Sewall Wright and Jerzy Neyman amongst others.' The same obituary piece precedes this (according to the MacTutor biography of Fisher) with "But he also was the victim, as he himself recognised, of an uncontrollable temper;" I think there should be some way of making his tendency to fall into bitter dispute with other major figures clearer. Felsenst

Why I am not an admirer of the man Fisher. Joan Box-Fisher introduced her father's personality (sic) with the anechdote of him crushing a mouse in his bare hands, throwing it out the window, and then yelling at the assistant (whose trouble understanding Fisher precipitated the outburst)! There are plenty of other stories about Fisher's abusive behavior, and it's easy enough to find venemous quotes from Fisher.Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Shannon's Information

I removed the following sentence "some years before Shannon's notions of information and entropy". Although Fisher's information is connected to Shannon's information and they share the same word "information", they are very different concepts. The removed sentence suggests that Fisher invented Information Theory, which is an overstatement of Fisher's contribution. 130.126.136.198 (talk) 01:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

"Extraordinarily talented"

As of the 19:17, 4 Nov 2004 revision, the first sentence calls Fisher "extraordinarily talented". In a neutral encyclopedia, I object to that description.

—Vespristiano 23:12, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

in this encyclopedia, do you think it is not neutral to write "Albert Einstein was extraordinarily talented"? Tomi 16:10, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think a sentence should be added that he was extremely biggoted too, in view of his eugenics pedigree.

213.5.28.153 07:28, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Hes been said to be "extraordinarily talented" by his peers, not by Wiki editors alone. The Dawkins quote backs up that opinion held in the field. Fisher being biggoted in your opinion is subjective and not relavent in a neutral Wiki. If that opinion is to be posted it should be backed up by citations of his peers, making it an objective statement. Analysing eugentics does not make one a bigot, especially with opt-in eugentics. :::--Mikespenard 22:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Fisher's racism, repeated statements that the European race is superior to others, is well-documented elsewhere. (I would guess that Stephen Jay Gould might have written about Fisher.) I don't believe that he was personally racist in dealings with C. R. Rao (his student, and a genius from India), so Fisher obviously was more sophisticated than most racists in understanding the difference between population means/medians and individuals.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Why that quote in the intro?

Anyone else think the Dawkins quote is out of place in the introduction.

interjection: This comment and the first reply really concern whether that long quotation may be out of place anywhere in the article. Such heavy reliance on quotation is out of place in the lead regardless of its content. ...

I'm all for quotes, but "X scientist says good things about this person," seems odd, to say the least. Yeah, he's popular, but wouldn't be better if we got a quote from a respected science magazine or something? It's add a lot to the article. I'd change it but... It has Dawkins' name on it and I fear that someone will revert it rather quickly because of the... er... favortism of that specific individual around these articles (in all honesty, he's popular, but that means little to me and probably less to readers; they'd probably prefer to see a cite from an established article and not a single scientist, whoever the person quoted might be). Or maybe I'm just overthinking it. 98.198.83.12 (talk) 08:57, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It is fine in a tribute to an author to make a laudatory remark, but usually encyclopedias are more restrained. For example, I removed several personal tributes to Jacques Drèze because they were un-encyclopediac. The statement that Fisher "almost single handedly created mathematical statistics" is hyperbole (and lifted from Hald's yellow pot-boiler, which inexplicably contradicts the account of Laplace, Edgeworth, etc., in his second scholarly history). Harold Hotelling was a fan of Fisher's and sometimes promoted him by saying that (pre-Neyman) Fisher emphasized the sampling distribution, which is fair, by comparison.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:47, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I have deleted from the lead the long quotation of Dawkins that already appeared in the footnote, where it remains. So much quotation was not the right way to respond (years ago) to the Good Article review, which advised that the lead must be expanded. (Above, Talk:Ronald Fisher#GA failed. See also the 'Pull quotes' section.)

The remarks by Dawson are appropriate in scope. The expanded lead should touch most of those bases, thereby at least indicating what Fisher accomplished in some of the many fields --rather than listing the fields (lead sentence) and ranking him in two or three of them. --P64 (talk) 19:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

GA failed

Easy to modify reasons given are :

• Lead section should be expanded.

The record shows it was expanded only by extending the quotation which I have trimmed back today.--P64 (talk) 19:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• References should be added to.
• Image of Fisher is a concern since it doesn't give Fair use rationale.

Lincher 16:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

The following infobox has been removed from the Fisher page. Please discuss arguments for or against inclusion to reach a concensus. Here is what it looked like for reference:

bunix 13:04, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, it is really badly executed. Have you read the article because his achievements two achievements listed are scratching the surface?

Secondly, do you think you are really going to fit all of Fisher's achievements, pupils, children, etc in the box?

Thirdly, Wikipedia has a very simple (really an overly simple) database structure. It is not suited to carrying information like this. In other words, KISS principle. — Dunc|☺ 13:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dunc, Thank you for your comments. (1) Yes I am well aware of his acheivements and use many of them in a professional context. As wiki is collaborative, I deliberately didn't put all his achievements etc in the box. I leave that up to the evolutionary process of successive editors...that way a consensus of the important essence will emerge. (2) Does he have more than two students? I would be interested in hearing the source of your information. If he has more, then the idea is to only list the important ones. (3) Please explain why the database structure is more complicated than the many of the other infoboxes on the wikipedia, such as: [3]. Also if you can point me to a wiki policy or info page that discusses its database structure and what the prefered wiki way is, I would like to read up on it. Best regards. bunix 14:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems a resolution has been reached on my Talk page with a message from Dunc. So in view of this, I am now putting the box back as of now, given there were no comments from anyone else.bunix 15:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I have been told recently (August 2011) at a conference that Donald Michie has been a doctoral student of Fischer. Unfortunately I cannot confirm this from a published source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.168.141.201 (talk) 23:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Critics

Jaynes

Hello everyone!

I had recently read parts of E. T. Jaynes' Probability Theory: The Logic of Science, where an amazingly zealous criticism against Fisher was made (along with equally zealous praising that went to Harold Jeffreys). I just wondered if his criticism was worth adding to the article about Fisher. (It's not that I'm interested in Jaynes' opinions, but I just thought it would be interesting for the reader to see the detractions noted in the article about a renowned man like Fisher). -- 213.6.23.91 20:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Fisher is frequently (ah, but what do I mean by "frequently"?) the target of criticism by the Bayesians, and this warrants at least brief "Criticism" section that links to the appropriate pages. earwicker (talk) 09:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Ramsey

Frank Ramsey called Fisher's so-called "method" of assuming independent sampling from an "infinite population" (sic.) a "stupid fiction" in his essay on Truth and Probability.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Carnap

Rudolph Carnap explained to another logician "But Fisher is just wrong, don't you see that?", I believe. Does anybody know a source for an extended discussion? 08:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Ian Hacking

Among philosophers, only Ian Hacking seems to have taken Fisher as a serious philosopher of probability or statistical inference. (Perhaps Teddy Seidenfeld has written more about Fisher than "know your enemy" studies?) Hacking long ago dropped Fisher for Peirce as his hero. It would be interesting to discover Hacking's account of his change.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Peirce of the United States or Pierce of the United Kingdom? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.67.175.254 (talk) 03:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Null hypothesis

The infobox declares that he is known for "Coining the term 'null hypothesis'" -- yet there is no mention of this (and in particular when he coined it) in the article. Anyone know first use? From the OED it looks like 1935. quota (talk) 06:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing [This is no place for guessing.] that the term "null hypothesis" was coined by Neyman and Egon Pearson, to distinguish the null hypothesis from the alternative hypothesis. Testing hypotheses goes back to Francis Bacon and was discussed by Charles Sanders Peirce and Karl Pearson, before Fisher. I would guess that the Wiley books by Hald (not his Springer book) and the Harvard UP books by Stigler are reliable.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:31, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that Anders Hald is most likely correct that Fisher 'coined the term' null hypothesis. He says this in a terse paragraph:

He characterized estimates as discussed above by the properties of consistency, efficiency and sufficiency, and introduced the concept of "information" in the sample and in an estimate. He coined the terms null hypothesis, test of significance, level of significance, and percentage point. In the design of experiments he introduced randomization, factorial design, and interaction as new concepts.

In context, Hald's claim seems OK. Fisher should get credit for term-coining, but Hald does not say he invented the concept of significance testing, or the null hypothesis. The *concept* of the null hypothesis probably comes from Neyman and Pearson's 1932 paper, where they introduce the symbol H₀. They do not call it the null hypothesis. Fisher *does* call it that in his 1935 book, The Design of Experiments, though he does not acknowledge Neyman and Pearson. The fact that he is commenting on their terminology is made obvious by the fact that he mentions the "error of the so-called "second kind" on the following page. The comments are on page 15 of my edition, which is in a whole section called "The Null Hypothesis" in Chapter 2 of the 8th edition of The Design of Experiments, published in 1966, first edition 1935. By saying "coined the term" Hald is avoiding any comment on whether Fisherian significance testing was the same as the kind of testing recommended by Neyman and Pearson. Certainly Fisher thought they were different. So he manages to scold Neyman and Pearson for their errors while taking over their concept and putting a new name on it, "null hypothesis". Pretty clever. So in my opinion the article does not need to be corrected about "coining" but people should check if it assigns credit for the underlying idea in a balanced way. EdJohnston (talk) 19:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

That book by Hald sometimes contradicts Hald's more scholarly book, which has been accused of attributing too much to Laplace (and Thiele) before. Unfortunately, I don't have the scholarly book handy. The last yellow book by Hald attributes too much to Fisher, imho, and in the opinion of Hald (blue).

Fisher's polemical ability was extraordinary. You know the saying that mathematical talent is inherited, it passes from the father to the son in law?! It is clear that Fisher's polemical skills passed on to George E. P. Box! :) Fisher popularized randomization, but Hacking and others have insisted on Peirce's priority, but I've inserted those references in enough articles .... Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It is incredible to be going around in your life not knowing the difference beween "coined the term" and "invented the idea or thing". Incredible!

For another example, Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley of Bell Laboratories invented the transistor, but they did not name it. It is recorded and validated that John R. Pierce, also of Bell Labs, named the thing. See the article on Pierce, and other sources.
In mathematics, Niels Henrik Abel developed the concept of the abelian group, but he did not name it that. Somebody else did. Who did it?
Isaac Newton developed mathematical things in calculus that he called "fluxions" and "fluents", but we don't call them that. Someone else later on named then "derivatives" and "antiderivatives". I would like to know who that was. It couldn't have been the Baron Gottfried von Leibnitz because he was German and he had German (or Latin or Greek) names for them.
Likewise, differential equations and their methods of solution were probably developed by German or Swiss-German mathematicians. Who? Euler? Some of the Bernoullis? However, they had German or Latin names for them, and not the English term "differential equation". Who came up with that name?
98.67.175.254 (talk) 03:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

British people so glibly state....

British people so glibly state, and so often, "When World War II broke out in 1939". I think that it is because of their Eurocentric attitude that they do not know that World War II had already started when the Japanese Empire invaded the Republic of China in 1937 or earlier. They must not recognize the murder of millions of Chinese people during this invasion.
These events were of great concern to the Government of the United States, and President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull spoke out against the Japanese aggression. The U.S. Government was not ready to go to war over those events, but during 1937 - 41, it took other measures against Japan, including setting up embargoes against the export of iron, steel, and petroleum to the Japanese Empire. Also, the U.S. Government decided to export weapons such as fighter planes to the Chinese, but those had to go by cargo ship via Burma. Then in 1942, the Japanese Army overran Burma, including its very important seaport of Rangoon.
During those years, no other country seemed to be willing to do anything to help the Chinese at all: Not the U.K., not the U.S.S.R., not France, not Canada, not Australia...
98.67.175.254 (talk) 03:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Reference for first use of computers in biology

I have a reference for the bit about the first use of a computer in biology - http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-010-1122-x - but I don't know how to insert it into the article (I don't know Wikipedia markup). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.24.102.42 (talk) 13:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Its fine just to do it as plain text with all the details there. Others can fix it later. You could look at {{cite journal}} or {{citation}} for how to do it properly.--Salix (talk): 14:03, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Last sentence

The last sentence says (with several tags), "In 1934, Fisher moved to increase the power of scientists within the Eugenics Society, but was ultimately thwarted by members with an environmentalist point of view, and he, along with many other scientists, resigned." A (poor) source says that the issue causing conflict was contraception. It cites page 97 of the Joan Box biography. I don't have a copy of her book to check.172.249.8.109 (talk) 18:44, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Re-organize

The comments here merely confirm my belief we need to separate the strictly biographical from the scientific. the opening is somewhat clearer but the main text focuses far too much on personal detail, given he was a scientist and not an adventurer, whereas our coverage of him as this incredibly significant statistician and biologist tends to got lost but that is what is important. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 18:03, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

hi @Squeakbox, Qwfp, and Smasongarrison:. i agree with Squeakbox and Smasongarrison that the Academic career section needs to be re-done. however it does not seem to be a simple case of changing a few sentences here and there, as the current form is formulaic ("date, fisher achieved X. on date 2 (> date 1), fisher then did Y."). i therefore think the section is in need of an entire rewrite, so that the current content in the section could potentially be integrated. this does seem very tricky and non-trivial, given this is sir ronald fisher we are talking about. i think we'd need to read a book on him so that the current content fits nicely. i will start looking. cheers 174.3.155.181 (talk) 00:43, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

update @Squeakbox, Qwfp, and Smasongarrison:: book is super expensive so I won't be able to make the edits i'd like for a while. i really do feel that reading his biography is necessary to fix the issues, unless someone has enough knowledge of this great scientist to go ahead and do it. sorry for the excessive pings, just keeping you posted! 174.3.155.181 (talk) 20:30, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

biologist or geneticist?

The article's lead currently describes Fisher as a "British statistician and biologist". British and statistician are certainly valid. I suspect that biologist is not really optimal, though; perhaps geneticist would be a better fit? For comparison, the Encyclopedia Britannica describes Fisher as a "British statistician and geneticist". Another alternative is evolutionary biologist. BetterMath (talk) 12:50, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Honestly, none of the above. He was a statistician who became interested in theoretical biology. His work on population genetics contributed to the modern synthesis which formed the 20th century's understanding of the theory of evolution. The one-word labels are at best a poor substitute for understanding and at worst seriously misleading. I'd go with "statistician" or "statistician interested in theoretical population genetics". Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:55, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

About one-word labels, I agree that they can be problematic. Even so, the article has "British statistician and biologist", and I believe that something along those lines is helpful, for a first sentence. About "theoretical population genetics", that seems inappropriate, because Fisher also did experimental work.

I have just found "Some quotations from R.A.Fisher" (compiled by A. W. F. Edwards). One of the quotations is the following.

“I am a well-known statistician and a fairly well-known geneticist, but I have never been consulted on any appointment to a University post in statistics or genetics outside my own Department”.
1957. Quoted by A.W.F.Edwards (1990), R.A.Fisher, Twice Professor of Genetics: London and Cambridge, or, “A Fairly Well-Known Geneticist”. Biometrics 46, 897-904.

Thus, Fisher referred to himself as a "statistician and … geneticist". That strongly supports changing the article from saying "British statistician and biologist" to saying "British statistician and geneticist"—as the Encyclopedia Britannica says.  BetterMath (talk) 23:04, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed that at the University of Adelaide—where Fisher spent the last five years of his life—the library has a special collection of Fisher's papers. The collection is entitled "Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962) - Statistician and geneticist".

Considering all the above, I changed "statistician and biologist" to "statistician and geneticist". BetterMath (talk) 08:58, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

That's fine. However the agricultural work consisted of applying statistics to the biology: "appointment as a statistician at the Rothamsted Experimental Station. He was initially to spend 6 months or so there to find out whether useful analyses could be made of the extensive data on crop yields that had been obtained at Rothamsted over many years." [4] It would thus be fair to say his contributions were theoretical, though he contributed powerfully to experimental design (so as to make results statistically reliable). Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:42, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

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Eugenics under Personal Beliefs?

Hi all!

I wanted to ask what people's thoughts were on reclassifying the "Eugenics" section in some way. Right now it is under personal beliefs. I think we should integrate this section in some way with his Academic work. It would be disingenuous to separate the two, since he applied his statistics and space in his academic works to discussion the issue. Darmok1701 (talk) 02:26, 18 December 2017 (UTC)Darmok1701

Seems a very good point to me. It was not just a 'personal' belief but a part of his professional career. The way chronological format currently used for the rest of his professional life makes it less than entirely straightforward... If you have time to tackle this, you could WP:Be bold!. Qwfp (talk) 07:41, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I definitely agree that eugenics was part of his professional work, and so should be discussed in that context. (My suspicion is that his personal beliefs about eugenics arose from the work, although I do not have a reference for that.)

The edits that you made (since undone) go beyond this though. If "the journal The Annals of Eugenics, [is] now known as the Annals of Human Evolution", then there should a reference for that. Additionally, saying that Fisher "seemed to contradict his own work" might be a violation of WP:NOR, unless you can find a source for it.

The two quotes that you cited are nice to have. I believe that the second quote is highly valuable. Note that references can be named: use <ref name="refname"> and then later cite.

BetterMath (talk) 10:45, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Publication name

The article previously noted that Fisher "published as R. A. Fisher". The note was then deleted. I believe that the note is valuable, and so have undone the deletion. As per WP:BRD, I have created this Talk section for discussion.  BetterMath (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Seems of value to me. Qwfp (talk) 20:19, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Why do you think the detail that Fisher used his initials in publications is valuable in this case, when it is obvious that "R. A." means Ronald Aylmer? Hrodvarsson (talk) 00:46, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

He could have used "R. Fisher" or "Ronald Fisher" or "Ronald A. Fisher" or "Ronald Aylmer Fisher". Instead he used "R. A. Fisher". Thus, it is information about Fisher and Fisher's work. The information tells what the reader will see when looking at Fisher's publications. It explains why there is a book R.A. Fisher: An Appreciation, why there is another book (by Fisher's own daughter) R. A. Fisher: The Life of a Scientist, why Savage entitled his famous paper "On rereading R. A. Fisher", why the R. A. Fisher Lectureship has the name that it does, why the cited OED quote refers to "R. A. Fisher", etc.  BetterMath (talk) 05:14, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

All of those are variations of his name, WP:QUOTENAME. If he used a pseudonym such as "John Jenkins" (or a similar name that is not related to his real name) when publishing, it would be important to list. In this case, it is the same as saying "Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin" published as "Friedrich Hölderlin", redundant. Hrodvarsson (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

That he published under the name "R. A. Fisher" is information, which would not otherwise be known: it is not redundant, contrary to your apparent claim. Such information should obviously not be removed. Additionally, I do not see any conflict with WP:QUOTENAME.  BetterMath (talk) 00:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

It is redundant as "R. A." is a variation (initials) of his name, Ronald Aylmer. It would be useful information if he published using initials which did not relate to his name but that is not the case. Hrodvarsson (talk) 23:46, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• How is it obvious that "R. A." means Ronald Aylmer? It could equally mean Richard Anthony, or Rupert Adrian. I'd studied statistics and been aware of RA Fisher's work for a several years before I found out what his initials stood for. Qwfp (talk) 08:39, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

See the first three words of this article: "Ronald Aylmer Fisher". It is obvious that R. A. means Ronald Aylmer. If you think Fisher's common name is R. A. Fisher, then consider requesting a move to "R. A. Fisher", as Joseph John Thomson is "J. J. Thomson", but that is irrelevant to the WP:QUOTENAME argument I made. (You could have put "RA Fisher" in a search engine at any point during your studies and found out what the initials stood for by the way, so I am not sure what argument you are trying to make.) Hrodvarsson (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)