International Journal of Epidemiology 2003;32:925-928
© International Epidemiological Association 2003
Symposium |
Fisher, Bradford Hill, and randomization
2 Reading Road, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 9DP, UK. E-mail: peter.armitage@spc.ox.ac.uk
Accepted 30 June 2003
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In the 1920s RA Fisher presented randomization as an essential ingredient of his approach to the design and analysis of experiments, validating significance tests. In its absence the experimenter had to rely on his judgement that the effects of biases could be discounted. Twenty years later, A Bradford Hill promulgated the random assignment of treatments in clinical trials as the only means of avoiding systematic bias between the characteristics of patients assigned to different treatments. The two approaches were complementary, Fisher appealing to statistical theory, Hill to practical needs. The two men remained on good terms throughout most of their careers.
Two great scientists, Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890–1962) and Austin Bradford Hill (1897–1991), were influential proponents of randomized treatment assignment in comparative experiments: Fisher in the 1920s and 1930s, Hill in the 1940s and 1950s. Yet they rarely, if ever, referred to each other in their publications on this topic.
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