Ronald Fisher: Phrasing

Ronald Fisher was English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist. Explore interesting quotes on phrasing.
Ronald Fisher: 56   quotes 24   likes

“[We are now] in a position to judge of the validity of the objection which has been made, that the principle of Natural Selection depends on a succession of favourable chances. The objection is more in the nature of an innuendo than of a criticism, for it depends for its force upon the ambiguity of the word chance, in its popular uses. The income derived from a Casino by its proprietor may, in one sense, be said to depend upon a succession of favourable chances, although the phrase contains a suggestion of improbability more appropriate to the hopes of the patrons of his establishment. It is easy without any very profound logical analysis to perceive the difference between a succession of favourable deviations from the laws of chance, and on the other hand, the continuous and cumulative action of these laws. It is on the latter that the principle of Natural Selection relies.”

Ronald Fisher book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection

On the objection (still often made by creationists) that the theory of evolution predicts evolution occurs "only by chance", Ch. 2, p. 37.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

Law , Hope , Nature , Sense

“In scientific subjects, the natural remedy for dogmatism has been found in research. By temperament and training, the research worker is the antithesis of the pundit. What he is actively and constantly aware of is his ignorance, not his knowledge; the insufficiency of his concepts, of the terms and phrases in which he tries to excogitate his problems: not their final and exhaustive sufficiency. He is, therefore, usually only a good teacher for the few who wish to use their mind as a workshop, rather than a warehouse.”

Ronald Fisher

Eugenics, academic and practical. Eugenics Review, 27, 95-100, 1935.
The original has ‘to store it as’ inserted before the final words ‘a warehouse’, likely a mistake left from an earlier draft.
1930s

Nature , Knowledge , Problem , Teachers

“(Coining phrase "null hypothesis") In relation to any experiment we may speak of this hypothesis as the “null hypothesis,” and it should be noted that the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation. Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of disproving the null hypothesis.”

Ronald Fisher book The Design of Experiments

The Design of Experiments, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1935, p. 18
1930s

Chance

“(Coining the phrase ‘test of significance’): Critical tests of this kind may be called tests of significance, and when such tests are available we may discover whether a second sample is or is not significantly different from the first.”

Ronald Fisher book Statistical Methods for Research Workers

Statistical Methods for Research Workers, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1925, p. 43.
1910s–1920s

“There is, then, in this analysis of variance no indication of any other than innate and heritable factors at work. (Coining of the phrase ‘analysis of variance’.)”

Ronald Fisher

The causes of human variability. Eugenics Review 10, 213-220, 1918.
1910s–1920s