R. A. Fisher—twice Professor of Genetics: London and Cambridge, or‘A fairly well-known geneticist’

Abstract

Summary. Fisher held in succession the two senior chairs of genetics in Great Britain, the Galton Professorship at University College London (1933–1943) and the Arthur Balfour Professorship at Cambridge (1943–1957), yet his fame as a statistician is such that his contributions to genetics and evolutionary biology are not well known in statistical circles. In the paper his genetical work, and that of his colleagues, is summarized, and his influence in evolutionary biology, especially through The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930), is sketched.