:Statistical Methods for Research Workers

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According to Denis Conniffe:

Ronald A. Fisher was "interested in application and in the popularization

of statistical methods and his early book Statistical Methods for Research Workers, published in 1925, went through many editions and

motivated and influenced the practical use of statistics in many fields of

study. His Design of Experiments (1935) [promoted] statistical technique and application. In that book he

emphasized examples and how to design experiments systematically from

a statistical point of view. The mathematical justification of the methods

described was not stressed and, indeed, proofs were often barely sketched

or omitted altogether ..., a fact which led H. B. Mann to fill the gaps with a rigorous mathematical treatment in his well-known treatise, {{harvtxt|Mann|1949}}."{{cite news|title=R. A. Fisher and the development of statistics—a view in his centenary year|last=Conniffe|first=Denis| publisher=Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland |location=Dublin|journal=Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland| volume=XXVI|number=3|year=1990–1991|page=87 |hdl = 2262/2764|issn=0081-4776 |url=http://www.tara.tcd.ie/jspui/handle/2262/2764 }}

Even reviewers who were not offended by Fisher's attack on traditional methods found much to criticize. In particular, they complained about Fisher's dogmatism, the lack of proofs, the emphasis on small samples, and the difficulty of the book. However, a review by Harold Hotelling, which was submitted to the Journal of the American Statistical Association in 1927, did justice to Fisher's achievement. Hotelling stated in his review that "most books on statistics consist of pedagogic rehashes of identical material. This comfortably orthodox subject matter is absent from the volume under review, which summarizes for the reader the author's independent codification of statistical theory and some of his brilliant constributions to the subject, not all of which have previosuly been published".{{Cite book |last=Lehmann |first=Erich L. |title=Fisher, Neyman, and the creation of classical statistics |date=2011 |publisher=Springer Science+Business Media, LLC |isbn=978-1-4419-9500-1 |location=New York, NY |pages=21}}

• Prefaces

1. Introduction
2. Diagrams
3. Distributions
4. Tests of Goodness of Fit, Independence and Homogeneity; with table of χ²
5. Tests of Significance of Means, Difference of Means, and Regression Coefficients
6. The Correlation Coefficient
7. Intraclass Correlations and the Analysis of Variance
8. Further Applications of the Analysis of Variance

• SOURCES USED FOR DATA AND METHODS INDEX

In the second edition of 1928 a chapter 9 was added: The Principles of Statistical Estimation.

• The Design of Experiments

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book|last=Mann|first=H. B.|authorlink=Henry Mann|title=Analysis and design of experiments: Analysis of variance and analysis of variance designs|publisher=Dover Publications, Inc|location=New York, N. Y.|year=1949|pages=x+195|mr=32177}}

{{refend}}

• The March 1951 issue of the Journal of the American Statistical Association contains articles celebrating the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first edition.
• A.W.F. Edwards (2005) "R. A. Fisher, Statistical Methods for Research Workers, 1925," in I. Grattan-Guinness (ed) Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics: Case Studies, 1640-1940, Amsterdam: Elsevier.
• {{Cite journal | last = Savage | first = Leonard J. | authorlink = Leonard Jimmie Savage | title = On Rereading R. A. Fisher | doi = 10.1214/aos/1176343456 | journal = Annals of Statistics | volume = 4 | issue = 3 | pages = 441–500 | year = 1976 | doi-access = free }}

• Nature anonymous review of Fisher’s Statistical Methods [https://web.archive.org/web/20210305005008/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/fisherguide/Nature.htm]
• BMJ anonymous review of Fisher’s Statistical Methods [https://web.archive.org/web/20210305013530/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/fisherguide/bmj.htm]
• Student’s [https://web.archive.org/web/20211006230626/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/fisherguide/Student.htm review of Fisher’s Statistical Methods]
• Egon Pearson’s [https://web.archive.org/web/20210305012455/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/fisherguide/esp.htm reviews of Fisher’s Statistical Methods]
• Harold Hotelling’s [https://web.archive.org/web/20210618153848/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/fisherguide/Hotelling.htm review of Fishers’ Statistical Methods]
• Leon Isserlis’s [https://web.archive.org/web/20211130204429/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/fisherguide/Isserlis.htm review of Fishers’ Statistical Methods]
• W. P. Elderton’s[https://web.archive.org/web/20190904093452/http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/fisherguide/wpe.htm review of Fisher’s Statistical Methods]

• [http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Fisher/Methods/ Text of first edition]
• [https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0198522290 The 14th edition (prepared from notes left by Fisher when he died in 1962) is reprinted as the first part of Statistical Methods, Experimental Design and Scientific Inference]

Category:History of probability and statistics

Category:Statistics books

Category:1925 non-fiction books