Rich Ulrich said on 10/22/02 12:08 PM:

>On 22 Oct 2002 09:19:09 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Warren) wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> I've been reading a little about Fisher and the Eugenics movement.  In
>> talking to my class about Gossett's t and Fisher's F distribution, I
>> presented a little bit of the controversy surrounding Fisher and
>> Eugenics.  I assigned one of Fisher's papers in which he talks a
>> little about Social Darwinism.
>[ ... ]
>
>As I understand from reading Stephen Jay Gould, Fisher
>was a founder of modern genetics.  That is worth mentioning.
>
>Gould also described Fisher as (my recollection,  and  *my* 
>words) a bit of a racist fool when it came to the social implications.
> - mention it, perhaps.  It might be overdoing it, to assign old,
>contentious texts to young people ...  non-historians who are 
>not accustomed to translating *anything*  across social periods.
>
>History:  I have enjoyed reading Stigler.


I think it is well worth it, however, to mention how much statistics owes 
to beer, because of Gosset's t test. Students usually get a kick out of 
that.

Paul
.
.
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