Mistrust in Numbers

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Alex Aylward (University of Oxford)
• Wednesday 30 April 2025, 11:45-12:45
• Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact nobody.

MHMW02 - Modern History of Mathematics: Looking Ahead

Modern science is a numbers game. The last century or so has seen the life sciences become ever more quantitative and data-centric. In the anglophone context, few figures have been more influential in this transformation than British statistician, geneticist and eugenicist Ronald Aylmer Fisher. In this talk I will summarise aspects of my research on Fisher’s contributions to evolutionary theory, and his advocacy of eugenics, highlighting contemporary criticisms of his work in both spheres. These critical perspectives, I suggest, underline the need for counter-histories of mathematisation, in science and in public life.

This talk is part of the Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All CMS events
• Featured lists
• INI info aggregator
• Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series
• School of Physical Sciences
• Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute
• bld31

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.