Fisher in the 21st Century: Alex Aylward

“On reading a book of two halves: A long history of The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection”

Alex Aylward, Departmental Lecturer in the History of Science, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/d...

R. A. Fisher’s The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930) is among the most celebrated and influential works in modern evolutionary thought. Its final five chapters on eugenics, meanwhile, are notorious. This talk takes a long view, following the book through its writing, publication, reception, and longer legacies. In particular, I’ll ask how author and readers understood and negotiated the relationship between the book’s ‘scientific’ and ‘eugenical’
halves.

This talk was part of the Fisher in the 21st Century conference, held at Gonville & Caius College on April 21 and 22, 2022