A. W. F. Edwards facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
A. W. F. Edwards
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Edwards at the Royal Society admissions day in 2015
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| Born |
Anthony William Fairbank Edwards
4 October 1935 London, England
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| Education | University of Cambridge |
| Known for | Mathematical genetics |
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| Relatives | John H. Edwards (brother) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Statistics, genetics |
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| Academic advisors | Ronald Fisher |
| Doctoral students | Elizabeth A. Thompson |
Anthony William Fairbank Edwards (born in 1935) is a British scientist. He is an expert in statistics, genetics, and evolutionary biology. Edwards is known as one of Britain's top geneticists. He is also one of the most important mathematical geneticists ever.
His father, Harold C. Edwards, was a surgeon. His brother, John H. Edwards, was also a medical geneticist. Anthony Edwards was guided by another famous scientist, Ronald Fisher. Because of this, he was sometimes called "Fisher's Edwards." He greatly admired Fisher's work and wrote many articles about it.
In 1963 and 1964, Edwards worked with Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. They created new ways to figure out how living things are related. They did this by looking at their genetic information.
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Edwards's Career and Discoveries
Anthony Edwards is a special member of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He is also a retired Professor of Biometry at the University of Cambridge. Biometry is about using statistics in biology. He has written several books and many science papers.
With Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, he did important work on phylogenetics. This is the study of how different species are related through evolution. He also strongly supported Ronald Fisher's idea of "likelihood." This idea helps scientists make good guesses based on data.
Edwards has also written a lot about the history of genetics and statistics. He looked into whether Gregor Mendel's famous pea plant results were "too perfect." He also wrote about pure math topics, like Venn diagrams. These diagrams use circles to show how different groups overlap.
After a year of special research, he went to the University of Pavia in Italy. There, from 1961 to 1964, he worked with Cavalli-Sforza. They started using statistics and early computers to build "evolutionary trees." These trees show how different living things evolved from common ancestors.
He then spent a year at Stanford University. After that, he taught statistics at the University of Aberdeen for three years. Then he spent two years at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. During this time, he wrote his book Likelihood.
Edwards spent the rest of his career at Cambridge. He became a Professor of Biometry. He published many works, including books on Venn diagrams, mathematical genetics, and Pascal's triangle. Pascal's triangle is a special number pattern.
Important Books by Edwards
Edwards has written many books that are important in his fields. Here are some of them:
- Likelihood (1972): This book explains his ideas about "likelihood" in statistics.
- Foundations of Mathematical Genetics (1977): This book covers the basic math behind genetics.
- Pascal's Arithmetical Triangle: The Story of a Mathematical Idea (1987): This book explores the history and uses of Pascal's triangle.
- Annotated Readings in the History of Statistics (2001): He co-wrote this book, which looks at important writings in statistics history.
- A Century of Mendelism in Human Genetics (2004): He helped edit this book about Mendel's ideas in human genetics.
- Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy (2008): This book discusses a long-standing debate about Mendel's famous experiments.
Awards and Recognition
In 2015, Edwards was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the United Kingdom. He also received the Telesio-Galilei Academy Award for Biology in 2011.
Personal Life
Edwards enjoys gliding, which is flying in a special aircraft called a sailplane. He has written about his experiences in a magazine called Sailplane and Gliding.
