RA Fisher, statistician and geneticist extraordinary: a personal view.

was among the last of RA Fisher's students and disciples and, as a result, he had an enormous influence both on my career and on my attitudes to science and scientific research. In the summer before I started taking Fisher's lecture courses in statistical and mathematical population genetics, I was given a reading list that included Fisher's three outstanding books, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, 1 Statistical Methods for Research Workers, 2 and The Design of Experiments. 3 These formed a little light recommended reading over a summer vacation! Later in that year, I went to see Fisher in the Genetics Department about the possibility of doing research with him. I then wrote in my diary.… 'very promising, looks as though all will be well. I hope it's the right subject.' Well, it undoubtedly was and has remained with me for the following 47 years, and hopefully more to come. Fisher was very supportive of the young as is evident from Joan Box's outstanding biography of her father. 4 He was disparaging of authority for authority's sake, and his dismissive statements about distinguished geneticists and statisticians were a lesson in appreciating scientists for their actual contributions rather than their, perhaps sometimes inflated, reputations. Towards the end of January 1956 I went to see him to get his support for applications for a research studentship stipend to do my PhD with him, starting later that year. In my diary I wrote, 'He is a nice man. I should almost say " sweet ". Went for a long walk with him in pouring rain and talked. Then he dictated two rather good letters applying for a grant for me.' This was characteristic of his charm and concern for those he wished to help. And yet, as Joan Box says in her biography: He seemed inhuman sometimes in his lack of consideration for the feelings of others.… Capable of rough handling those who opposed him with ready-made arguments that he treated with contempt: He was sometimes arbitrary and disagreeable: and he was recalcitrant to any form of coercion. It is this complexity of his character that needs to be understood in order to interpret his relations with other scientists, and so sometimes his attitude to scientific viewpoints that did not coincide with his own. Fisher is often portrayed as the supreme theoretician and analyst, without reference to his concern for practical applications …