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On the mathematical foundations of theoretical statistics

R. A. Fisher, M. A.
Published 1 January 1922.DOI: 10.1098/rsta.1922.0009
R. A. Fisher
Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Chief Statistician, Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden
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Extract

Several reasons have contributed to the prolonged neglect into which the study of statistics, in its theoretical aspects, has fallen. In spite of the immense amount of fruitful labour which has been expended in its practical applications, the basic principles of this organ of science are still in a state of obscurity, and it cannot be denied that, during the recent rapid development of practical methods, fundamental problems have been ignored and fundamental paradoxes left unresolved. This anomalous state of statistical science is strikingly exemplified by a recent paper entitled "The Fundamental Problem of Practical Statistics," in which one of the most eminent of modern statisticians presents what purports to be a general proof of BAYES' postulate, a proof which, in the opinion of a second statistician of equal eminence, "seems to rest upon a very peculiar -- not to say hardly supposable -- relation."

Footnotes

  • This text was harvested from a scanned image of the original document using optical character recognition (OCR) software. As such, it may contain errors. Please contact the Royal Society if you find an error you would like to see corrected. Mathematical notations produced through Infty OCR.

  • Received June 25, 1921.
  • Scanned images copyright © 2017, Royal Society
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1 January 1922
Volume 222, issue 594-604
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On the mathematical foundations of theoretical statistics
R. A. Fisher, M. A.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 1922 222 309-368; DOI: 10.1098/rsta.1922.0009. Published 1 January 1922
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On the mathematical foundations of theoretical statistics

R. A. Fisher, M. A.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 1922 222 309-368; DOI: 10.1098/rsta.1922.0009. Published 1 January 1922

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