From evidence to understanding: a commentary on Fisher (1922) ‘On the mathematical foundations of theoretical statistics’

The nature of statistics has changed over time. It was originally concerned with descriptive ‘matters of state’—with summarizing population numbers, economic strength and social conditions. But during the course of the twentieth century its aim broadened to include inference—how to use data to shed light on underlying mechanisms, about what might happen in the future, about what would happen if certain actions were taken. Central to this development was Ronald Fisher. Over the course of his life he was responsible for many of the major conceptual advances in statistics. This is particularly illustrated by his 1922 paper, in which he introduced many of the concepts which remain fundamental to our understanding of how to extract meaning from data, right to the present day. It is no exaggeration to say that Fisher's work, as illustrated by the ideas he described and developed in this paper, underlies all modern science, and much more besides. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.