Did R.A.Fisher’s interest in eugenics stimulate his interest in both statistics and genetics?

Abstract

In June 2020 Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge issued a press announcement that its College Council had decided to ‘take down’ the stained-glass window which had been placed in its Hall in 1989 ready for the centenary of Sir Ronald Fisher the following year. The window depicted the colourful Latin-Square pattern from the jacket of Fisher’s 1935 book The Design of Experiments. The window was one of a matching pair, the other commemorating John Venn with the famous three-set ‘Venn diagram’, each window requiring seven colours which were the same in both (Edwards, 2002; 2014a). One of the arguments advanced for this action was Fisher’s interest in eugenics which ‘stimulated his interest in both statistics and genetics’*. In this paper I challenge the claim by examining the actual sequence of events beginning with 1909, the year in which Fisher entered Gonville and Caius College. I show that the historians of science who promoted the claim paid inadequate attention to Fisher’s actual studies in statistics as part of his mathematical education which were quite sufficient to launch him on his path-breaking statistical career; they showed a limited understanding of the magnitude of Fisher’s early achievements in theoretical statistics and experimental design, which themselves had no connection with eugenics. Secondly, I show that Fisher’s knowledge of natural selection and Mendelism antedated his involvement in eugenics; and finally I stress that the portmanteau word ‘eugenics’ originally included early human genetics and was the subject from which modern human and medical genetics grew.