Ronald Fisher

Ronald Fisher ( London , February 17 1890 - Adelaide ( Australia ), July 19 1962 ) was a British scientist in the field of statistics , theory of evolution and genetics . He explained with Sewall Wright and JBS Haldane the basis of population genetics, which would later lead to the Modern Synthesis of evolutionary biology.

Fisher was born in London on February 17, 1890. He began his study of mathematics and astronomy at Cambridge in 1909 and earned a degree in mathematics and physicsin 1912. In April of that year he had published an article about what the "method of maximum likelihood "(maximum likelihood) is called. He corresponded about it with WS Gosset, also known under the pseudonym "Student", and came to the conclusion that a clear distinction should be made ​​between the population and the sample therefrom.

Fisher introduced what is now ANOVA hot and the method of "randomization" in the study of experimental designs ( experimental design ).

Fisher worked after graduating several months as a statistician at the firm "Mercantile and General Investment" in London. When he was in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War did in the Army, he was rejected because of his poor eyesight.

He was a teacher of mathematics and physics at several schools, to him, in 1919, two courses were offered, one by Karl Pearson, whose attention he had drawn, as headstatistic when Galton testing station and as a statistician at Rothamsted agricultural research station in Harpenden. Fisher accepted the last position and worked there until he was appointed in 1933 as successor to Pearson, who retired as Professor of eugenics at University College in London. In 1943 he was appointed professor of genetics at Cambridge.

In 1948, Fisher received the Darwin Medal . In 1952 he was knighted. In 1955 he was awarded the Copley Medal . Sir Ronald Fisher was retired in 1957 but remained two years in Cambridge. In 1958 he was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal from the Linnean Society of London . In 1959 he moved to Australia, where he spent the last three years of his life at the Department of Mathematical Statistics of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.