Talk:Ronald Fisher

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)

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 * R. A. Fischer.jpg

Is eugenicist one of Fisher's main identities, even the first one?
Fisher was a eugenicist. That was a terrible, wrong, but not uncommon belief in his time. Is that one of his main identities, or even the first one? Recently it appears that someone has insisted in inserting the word eugenicist as Fisher's first identity.

I do not see that as an identity for Winston Churchill. It appears on Francis_Galton's page but it is after his other identities "statistician, polymath, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist". The question is, what is Fisher known and remembered for? We should include his eugenics views and his work related, but we should put it in perspective too.Js2g (talk) 01:26, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * He was a founding member of "the Committee for Legalizing Eugenic Sterilization" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3704332?seq=1) and was editor of the Annals of Eugenics for 20 years (1934-1954, https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/timeline/543d5b1328f51f0000000004). Seems hard to argue that it wasn't part of his identity Hadleywickham (talk) 22:43, 10 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you for adding these references. It does appear part of his identity, just not what he is remembered for. It seems to me the current order (statistician, geneticist, and eugenicist) of his identities is an acceptable one. Js2g (talk) 02:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Eugenics was part of Fisher's work. But was it important enough, relative to his other work, to mention in the opening paragraph? That seems a much tougher case to make. For example, the article correctly notes that John Maynard Keynes, R. C. Punnett, and Horace Darwin were other founding members of the University of Cambridge Eugenics Society. But none of their articles include eugenicist in their opening paragraphs. Why should only Fisher's? Rubincausalmodel (talk) 11:52, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that if we are willing to consider his work in "biology" or "psychology" prominent enough to be listed in the first sentence, there's no reason to exclude "eugenics". He did far more work in eugenics than in legitimate biology.  As for what he is "remembered for", if he is not remembered as a eugenicist, then that is a misconception which should be corrected in this article. April Sagan (talk) 19:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Indeed. You mention Keynes and Punnett, yet we would have to include Karl Pearson as well. It is worth noting that the journal Annals of Human Genetics was once the Annals of Eugenics. There is a serious problem with the effort to smear Fisher after his death. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:646:8C01:2E70:D0AE:6D62:B6AA:8CBA (talk • contribs)

Karl Pearson's support of eugenics is mentioned in the lead of his article, though not in the first sentence. The fact that the Annals of Eugenics changed its name does not mean that early issues are not problematic. Take Karl Pearson and Margaret Moul's article on the "Problem of Alien Immigration: On the Intelligence of the  Alien Jewish Children", in volumes 1 and 2. which uses an analogy of breeders of cattle to Jewish immigration.

However, it does seem like the Annals took a very different tone when Fisher took over as editor. Gone are the explicitly political aims to of using the scientific study of eugenics, to guide morals and legislation. Instead, it focuses more clearly on Genetics and Mathematical Statistics. Just compare Pearson's VALE! and Fishers new forward. Editorship seems to coincide with taking over the Galton chair of eugenics at UCL.

I'm inclinded to say that it should be mentioned in the Lead, possibly the first paragraph but not the first sentance.--Salix alba (talk): 09:42, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

My concern is about consistency. Wikipedia has several articles about prominent eugenicists (including a Nazi named in this article!) without the same identifier.B1db2 (talk) 21:30, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I reverted my initial deletion because I wanted some feedback about my reasons. B1db2 (talk) 21:34, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERCONTENT is not a reason to change a consensus on Wikipedia. We decide how to write about a subject based on coverage of that subject in independent reliable sources, not based on how different subjects are covered differently in different sources. If there are indeed eugenicists whose role in eugenics is not covered on their pages but is a core part of their encyclopedic notability, I do encourage you to discuss that on the talk pages for those articles. - Astrophobe  (talk) 21:44, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification, although I don’t see a consensus established on this issue. It appears to have been unilaterally decided by one editor. However, I am a bit rusty. I am inclined to delete the identification based on the discussion so far. Advice appreciated. B1db2 (talk) 22:20, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Nope, a cursory search at the talk page history shows that this has been discussed in dozens of edits over several years by more than one editor. - Astrophobe  (talk) 00:20, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I was able to find discussions about his involvement in eugenics, but nothing until the June 2020 edit about the identification in the lead sentence. In fact, for a few years he was not introduced as a eugenicist until an anonymous user added it in June 2020. Then it was deleted and then added again. This is hardly a consensus and the current Talk page doesn't resolve it. B1db2 (talk) 03:18, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I think society as a whole is having a major reassessment of Fisher. When Gonville and Caius College stated in June 2020 that they would remove the window of Fisher that changed the weighting we should give to the eugenics. The we have UCL removing his name from Centre for Computational Biology.. His bio on the UCL page now has a prominent section on Eugenics. --Salix alba (talk): 07:04, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * No doubt we should have a prominent section on eugenics, but I think we should be careful about how we identify people. His role in eugenics is secondary to his occupation and scientific contributions, and I don't think his recent notoriety changes that. Anyway, Wikipedia appears to be the only mainstream reference source that introduces him that way. Not sure that helps credibility B1db2 (talk) 20:48, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Race
The section describing Fisher's involvement with the UNESCO declaration on racial equality (he opposed it) has been removed recently for not being suitably sourced (rather than any other reason). If there's a need for secondary sources, will these do>

The page about Fisher at the Fisher Centre for Computational Biology, University College London: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/departments/genetics-evolution-and-environment/gee-labs/r-fisher-centre-computational-biology/ronald-fisher

This post by the Science History Institute: https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/ronald-fisher-a-bad-cup-of-tea-and-the-birth-of-modern-statistics

This paper from the American Historical Review: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/112/5/1386/41062 Tslumley (talk) 00:55, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I just restored the text, because the stated objection in removing that text was a concern about WP:NOR due to a lack of secondary sources. As you note, there is no actual lack of secondary sources, they just happened to not be included in that subsection yet. I've pulled in what should be more than enough to establish the veracity of the simple factual claims in that section, which are attested in dozens of strong WP:RS, but of course it's good to start the WP:CONSENSUS train often and early. - Astrophobe  (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I should also say, please don't let what I already did discourage you from adding those sources too. To my mind more references on this material are now pretty redundant since the simple claims in the article are thoroughly established in secondary sources from academic journals to major book publishers (and just packing in too many citations for the sake of it runs up against WP:CITEKILL), but those sources probably give lots of ideas for how to expand the subsection's contents. - Astrophobe  (talk) 01:03, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for refs. It seems they pretty much trace to the primary source, which is the UNESCO "The Race Concept: Results of an Inquiry" publication. In my expansion of this section, I simply referred to the primary source, with added page numbers for ease in finding the exact quotes. Charldee (talk) 04:28, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The stated concern, for which I introduced those references, was avoiding WP:NOR. Replacing all of the secondary sources with the same original primary source and cherry-picking quotations from it only sets the text up to be deleted again for the same reason. I have no objection to creating a standalone section for this material, but whatever WP:CONSENSUS eventually emerges from this it's already clear that it needs to be based on in-depth scholarly statements in reliable sources, not just selections from the primary source. - Astrophobe  (talk) 19:09, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * To clarify, the secondary sources aren't there to provide a substantially more in-depth or alternative take on the material that's in the primary source. I introduced them simply to satisfy editors who seemed to want secondary sources that would establish that he really did write these things and it really is notable enough for the article and it really does belong to part of his legacy as a scientist. It can't both be true that the material should be removed because we haven't included secondary sources about it and that the secondary sources need to be removed. So an explicit consensus is needed between those positions. - Astrophobe  (talk) 19:22, 11 June 2020 (UTC)


 * This version seems much better (to me) then the previous version, which I had edited out. Perhaps I was overly concerned about WP:NOR? Rubincausalmodel (talk) 11:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Saying Fisher held "strong" views on race is argumentative and without cited basis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:646:8C01:2E70:B4A8:56CE:2BDB:334C (talk) 00:30, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It doesn't have to be cited in the introduction if it's cited elsewhere in the article. — howcheng  {chat} 23:40, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Dunno; such views may be one of the main reasons nonbiologists and nonstatisticians come to this article now days. Prolly oughta stay in the lede.  Anyway, some of the sources are in the original argumentation itself, where the strength of Fisher's views is noted by a consensus-forming group he was working with, thus secondary.  It seems to me a direct link to the cited work's URL (in my book this is https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/rest/annotationSVC/DownloadWatermarkedAttachment/attach_import_97ea8be3-7f7c-4ee0-b76e-c94c352a77e5?_=073351engo.pdf ) might be in order for our ref named "UNESCO1952," rather than just another page that maybe lets you run a script to get the PDF.  Can this not be improved within the constraints of the citation template we're using here? - phi (talk) 12:19, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

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