International Journal of Epidemiology 2003;32:932-937
© International Epidemiological Association 2003
Symposium |
Rigorous uncertainty: why RA Fisher is important
Institute of the History of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, 1900 E Monument St, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. E-mail: hmarks@jhmi.edu
Accepted 1 July 2003
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Two epistemological claims underwrite the randomized clinical trial (RCT).1 The first, associated with Austin Bradford Hill, asserts that randomization prevents biased estimates of the value of new therapies. The second, associated with RA Fisher, maintains that randomization is necessary for the valid interpretation of statistical significance.
This paper places Fisher’s views on randomization in the larger context of his views on statistical inference and the nature of science. Fisher’s life-long interest in the problem of induction, how to draw valid empirical conclusions about the world, led him to emphasize the provisional character of knowledge. The statistical methods he developed—randomization, likelihood—were aimed at producing what Fisher termed ‘rigorously specified uncertainty’. Fisher’s highly technical arguments about the nature of probability and likelihood are rooted in his more general concerns about the evolutionary and political importance of intellectual autonomy—concerns rooted in his early eugenical views but strongly reinforced by his ideological critique of
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