Ronald A Fisher
(1890 - 1962).
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890–1962) was
a British statistician, geneticist, and evolutionary biologist.
Born in London, he studied mathematics at the University of
Cambridge, where he became particularly interested in the
application of mathematical methods to genetics and evolution.
Fisher made many important innovations to the
statistical treatment of data, including the concepts of statistical
significance, analysis of variance (ANOVA), F-statistics,
and maximum likelihood estimation. Noting that an interval of close
to two standard deviations (exactly 1.959964) on either side of the mean
encompassed about 95% of the normal distribution, he proposed
the 100% - 95% = '5%' criterion for evaluating an
experimental outcome as 'statistically significant.'
His "Statistical Methods for Research Workers"
(1925) has gone through many editions and remains in use. He
provided tables of values useful in calculation of statistical
probabilities: these he calculated essentially by hand in the
days before digital computers. His "The Genetical
Theory of Natural Selection" (1930) reconciled
particulate Mendelian genetics and continuous Darwinian natural
selection, by showing that particulate substitution of one allele
at a locus for another would proceed by a slow and gradual
process. Along with JBS Haldane and Sewall Wright,
he is regarded as a founder of Population Genetics.
Like other geneticists in the first half of the
20th century, he advocated eugenic ideas and was Editor of the Eugenics
Review. His writings are now seen as support for
eugenics and racial genetic differences, which has led to a
re-evaluation of his place in history. Several memorials to him at
Cambridge and elsewhere have been removed.