A. W. F. Edwards

Who is A. W. F. Edwards?

Anthony William Fairbank Edwards is a British statistician, geneticist, and evolutionary biologist, sometimes called Fisher's Edwards in the context of 20th century genetics. He is a Life Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and retired Professor of Biometry at the University of Cambridge, and holds both the ScD and LittD degrees. A pupil of R.A. Fisher, he has written several books and numerous scientific papers. He is best known for his pioneering work, with L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, on quantitative methods of phylogenetic analysis, and for strongly advocating Fisher's concept of likelihood as the proper basis for statistical and scientific inference. He has also written extensively on the history of genetics and statistics, including an analysis of whether Mendel's results were "too good", and also on purely mathematical subjects, such as Venn diagrams.

In a 2003 paper, A.W.F. Edwards criticized Richard Lewontin's argument in a 1972 paper that race is an invalid taxonomic construct, terming it Lewontin's fallacy.

His elder brother John H. Edwards was also a geneticist; their father, Harold C. Edwards, was a surgeon. He was awarded the Telesio-Galilei Academy Award in 2011 for Biology.