List of Ronald Fisher Quotes

Natural Selection Is Not Evolution. Yet, Ever Since The Two Words Have Been In Common Use, The Theory Of Natural Selection Has Been Employed As A Convenient Abbreviation For The Theory Of Evolution By Means Of Natural Selection, Put Forward By Darwin And Wallace. This Has Had The Unfortunate Consequence That The Theory Of Natural Selection Itself Has Scarcely Ever, If Ever, Received Separate Consideration.

The Neutral Zone Of Selective Advantage In The Neighbourhood Of Zero Is Thus So Narrow That Changes In The Environment, And In The Genetic Constitution Of Species, Must Cause This Zone To Be Crossed And Perhaps Recrossed Relatively Rapidly In The Course Of Evolutionary Change, So That Many Possible Gene Substitutions May Have A Fluctuating History Of Advance And Regression Before The Final Balance Of Selective Advantage Is Determined.

It Was Darwin's Chief Contribution, Not Only To Biology But To The Whole Of Natural Science, To Have Brought To Light A Process By Which Contingencies A Priori Improbable, Are Given, In The Process Of Time, An Increasing Probability, Until It Is Their Non-occurrence Rather Than Their Occurrence Which Becomes Highly Improbable.

No Practical Biologist Interested In Sexual Reproduction Would Be Led To Work Out The Detailed Consequences Experienced By Organisms Having Three Or More Sexes; Yet What Else Should He Do If He Wishes To Understand Why The Sexes Are, In Fact, Always Two?

Inductive Inference Is The Only Process Known To Us By Which Essentially New Knowledge Comes Into The World.

Natural Selection Is Not Evolution.

[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.

More Attention To The History Of Science Is Needed, As Much By Scientists As By Historians, And Especially By Biologists, And This Should Mean A Deliberate Attempt To Understand The Thoughts Of The Great Masters Of The Past, To See In What Circumstances Or Intellectual Milieu Their Ideas Were Formed, Where They Took The Wrong Turning Or Stopped Short On The Right Track.

Professor Eddington Has Recently Remarked That 'the Law That Entropy Always Increases - The Second Law Of Thermodynamics - Holds, I Think, The Supreme Position Among The Laws Of Nature'. It Is Not A Little Instructive That So Similar A Law [the Fundamental Theorem Of Natural Selection] Should Hold The Supreme Position Among The Biological Sciences.

Fairly Large Print Is A Real Antidote To Stiff Reading.

Although No Explanation Can Be Expected To Be Satisfactory, It Remains A Possibility Among Others That Mendel Was Deceived By Some Assistant Who Knew Too Well What Was Expected. This Possibility Is Supported By Independent Evidence That The Data Of Most, If Not All, Of The Experiments Have Been Falsified So As To Agree Closely With Mendel's Expectations.

After All, It Is A Common Weakness Of Young Authors To Put Too Much Into Their Papers.