Monthly Archives: February 2022

17 Feb 1890-29 July 1962

In recognition of Fisher’s birthday (Feb 17), I reblog what I call the “Triad”–an exchange between  Fisher, Neyman and Pearson (N-P) a full 20 years after the Fisher-Neyman break-up–adding a few new introductory remarks here. While my favorite is still the reply by E.S. Pearson, which alone should have shattered Fisher’s allegations that N-P “reinterpret” tests of significance as “some kind of acceptance procedure”, they are all chock full of gems for different reasons. They are short and worth rereading. Neyman’s article pulls back the cover on what is really behind Fisher’s over-the-top polemics, what with Russian 5-year plans and commercialism in the U.S. Not only is Fisher jealous that N-P tests came to overshadow “his” tests, he is furious at Neyman for driving home the fact that Fisher’s fiducial approach had been shown to be inconsistent (by others). The flaw is glaring and is illustrated very simply by Neyman in his portion of the triad. Further details may be found in my book, SIST (2018) especially pp 388-392 linked to here. It speaks to a common fallacy seen every day in interpreting confidence intervals. As for Neyman’s “behaviorism”, Pearson’s last sentence is revealing. Continue reading →