South Australian Medical Heritage Society Inc

R A Fisher, Medical statistician

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962

From Wikipedia :

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, FRS (17 February1890 – 29 July1962) was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, and geneticist. He was described by Anders Hald as "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science" [1] and Richard Dawkins described him as "the greatest of Darwin's successors". [2]

The website for the above quotation is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher, which should be consulted for an excellent article about him.

From an Adelaide point of view, the central facts of importance are that he worked at the CSIRO here after a glittering career at Cambridge (described in detail at Wikipedia) and that his ashes are interred at St. Peter's Cathedral, barely a stone's throw from where this annotation is being written.

A memorial brass plaque to Fisher on the floor of the right-hand aisle of St Peter's Anglican Cathedral in Adelaide (Fisher was a lifelong "scientific" Christian). The plaque overlies his ashes. It is inscribed "Ronald Aylmer Fisher Kt. ScD. FRS . 1890-1962."

[This and the following caption from Professor John Ludbrook's paper on Fisher]

 

.... on the end of the adjacent pew, in which Fisher is said to have sat on most Sundays, an inscription is carved.

It consists of the coat of arms of Gonville and Caius College , Cambridge and the words "In Memory of Sir Ronald Fisher FRS 1890-1962."

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