R. A. Fisher Lectureship

The R. A. Fisher Lectureship, named for statistician, geneticist and eugenicist Ronald Aylmer Fisher, is a very high recognition of achievement and scholarship in statistical science, and recognizes the highly significant impact of statistical methods on scientific investigations. The R. A. Fisher Lecture is given at the Joint Statistical Meetings in North America and is subsequently published in a statistics journal. The lecturer receives a plaque and a cash award of US$1000. The award was established in 1963 by the North American Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) "to honor both the contributions of Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher and the work of a present–day statistician for their advancement of statistical theory and applications."[1] It is given every year if a nominee considered eligible and worthy is found, which one was in all but five years up to 1984, and in all years since until its retirement in June 2020.

Ronald Fisher in 1913

R. A. Fisher Lecturers

Discussion on renaming the lectureship

On June 4 2020, one of the Lectureship award committee members, Daniela Witten (UW), started a discussion on renaming the Fisher Lectureship on Twitter, following national movements to fight systemic racism and police brutality in response to the death of George Floyd. A petition to "Rename The Fisher Lecture After David Blackwell" was initiated by Miles Ott (Smith) on Change.org. The COPSS leadership responded by soliciting input via an online form on the official website.

Harry Crane (Rutgers), Joseph Guinness (Cornell) and Ryan Martin (NCSU) posted a comment arguing against the renaming on June 13,2020.[2] They argue that the lectureship was established to honor Fisher's scientific achievement, not the scientist. They argue that the scientific community has a responsibility to show its ability to separate the value of scientific achievements from the "virtues and vices" of the scientists behind these achievements. Renaming the lectureship, they argue, would jeopardize the public trust in the separation between scientific advances and social acceptance. They propose to amend the description of the lectureship instead of renaming it.

On June 15 the Executive Director of ASA, Ron Wasserstein, notified its members that the leadership has recommended changing the lectureship name to COPSS. The process that led to the decision was unclear. Some anonymous ASA fellows complained in personal communications that they did not receive any information about this renaming proposal before ASA made the public statement, even if most of the senior statisticians inquired by Daniela Witten disagreed with the proposal. Ron commented on Twitter that "There is no principle of greater value than the principle of strengthening the statistical community by moving forward to form a more just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive society".

On June 23, the lectureship is officially retired [3]. The chair of COPSS, Bhramar Mukherjee, made the announcement on Twitter. The award in 2020 is "the COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship". The process that led to this decision is also undisclosed.

Other lecture series named after R. A. Fisher

Two other series of lectures are also named after R. A. Fisher:

See also

References
  1. "Fisher Lecturer Award". Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies. Retrieved 2016-06-30.
  2. Crane, Harry; Guinness, Joseph; Martin, Ryan. "Comment on the Proposal to Rename the R.A. Fisher Lecture". Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  3. ASA. "R.A. Fisher Award and Lectureship". Retrieved 2020-06-23.

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