JSM 2004 - Toronto

Abstract #300494

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Activity Number: 25
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Sunday, August 8, 2004 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
Abstract - #300494
Title: History of Science and Statistical Education: Examples from Fisherian and Pearsonian Schools
Author(s): Chong Ho Yu*+
Companies: Aries Technology/Cisco Systems
Address: 331 West Musket Place, Chandler, AZ, 85248,
Keywords: Fisher ; Pearson ; philosophy ; biology ; Mendelism ; evolution
Abstract:

Many students share a popular misconception that statistics is a subject-free ethodology derived from invariant and timeless mathematical axioms. It is proposed that statistical education should include a component regarding the aspect of history/philosophy of science. This article will discuss how biological themes and philosophical presumptions drove Karl Pearson and R.A. Fisher to develop their statistical schools. Pearson is pre-occupied with between-group speciation and thus his statistical methods, such as the chi-squared test, are categorical in nature. On the other hand, variation within species plays a central role in Fisher's framework and therefore Fisher's approach, such as partitioning variance, is more quantitative than Pearson's in terms of the measurement scale. In addition, Fisher adopted a philosophy of embracing causal inferences and theoretical entities, such as infinite population and gene, while Pearson disregarded unobservable and insisted upon description of the data at hand. These differences lead to the subsequent divergence of two hypothesis-testing methods, developed by R.A. Fisher and Neyman/E.S. Pearson, son of Karl Pearson, respectively.

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