The journal Biometrika: the statistics of life gets a journal of its own
A journal that became the organ of a biology that counts: it measured continuous variation, correlations between relatives, selection and inheritance in samples of thousands of individuals. It was the place where the tables of correlation of stature between relatives appeared, which Fisher would later explain.
The journal's first issue came out in October 1901. In November 1900 the Englishman William Bateson, newly converted to Mendelism, had savaged Pearson's memoir on homotyposis at the Royal Society. The Englishman Karl Pearson wrote to Galton that if papers were to be sent to Bateson for refereeing there was no hope of getting them printed, and called it a 'practical notice to quit'; the zoologist Raphael Weldon asked whether a journal of their own would be too expensive; Pearson supplied the title and the word 'biometry'. Weldon, Pearson and the American Charles Davenport became editors, and Galton agreed to be consulting editor.
Thus the dispute of biometricians and Mendelians produced an institution, onto which were strung the Biometric Laboratory (1903) and the first course in mathematical statistics.
Why this date
The decision to start a journal was taken in the correspondence of Weldon and Pearson in November and December 1900, after the Royal Society, on Bateson's refereeing, had savaged Pearson's memoir on homotyposis; the first issue appeared in October 1901 (Eisenhart, DSB). Magnello dates the founding to November 1900. The axis takes the year of the first issue, the label both years.
What it grew from
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Pearson's correlation coefficient and the chi-square test
influenced · Confidence: high
The journal was founded so that statistical work of this kind could be published at all. In December 1900 Pearson wrote to Galton that Bateson's report applied not to that one memoir but to all his work and to any work 'on similar statistical lines', and called it a practical notice to quit; hence Weldon's proposal to start a journal and the title Pearson supplied.
Link sources
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Pearson was enthusiastically in favor of the idea-on 13 December 1900 he wrote to Galton that Bateson’s adverse criticism “did not apply to this memoir only but to all my work,. . . if the R. S. people send my papers to Bateson, one cannot hope to get them printed. It is a practical notice to quit. This notice applies not only to my work, but to most work on similar statistical lines.”
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Pearson replied with the suggestion that “the science in future should be called Biometry and its official organ be Biometrika
- M. Eileen Magnello, Karl Pearson and the Origins of Modern Statistics: An Elastician becomes a Statistician, The Rutherford Journal 1 (2005) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Pearson also established the professional accoutrements necessary to establish and to institutionalise the new discipline of mathematical statistics: with Weldon he founded Biometrika in November 1900, he established the Drapers’ Biometric Laboratory in 1903, and set up the first-ever degree course in mathematical statistics in 1917.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
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Three papers of 1900: de Vries, Correns and Tschermak bring back Mendel's laws
influenced · Confidence: medium
The immediate impulse to found the journal was the report of Bateson, newly converted to Mendelism, on Pearson's memoir on homotyposis: Bateson was chosen as a referee by the Royal Society, savaged the paper at the meeting of 15 November 1900, and the very next day Weldon proposed to Pearson that they start a journal of their own.
Dispute: Eisenhart's quotation ties the founding of the journal to Bateson's conversion to Mendelism, not to the rediscovery of 1900 as an event in itself.
Link sources
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
William Bateson, biologist and pioneer in genetics, who had just become a convert to Mendel’s theory, was one of those chosen to referee the memoir
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
In the discussion that followed the presentation, Bateson sharply criticized the paper, its thesis being, in his view, mistaken; and other fellows present added criticism of both its length and its content.
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 20 Sep 2026
Do you think it would be too hopelessly expensive to start a journal of some kind?. . .
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Links under review
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The correlation between relatives on the supposition of Mendelian inheritance: biometry and Mendelism reconciled
influenced · Confidence: low
No historian links the journal as an institution to Fisher's 1918 paper; the sources confirm only that Fisher relied on Pearson and Lee's data printed in Biometrika.
The numbers Fisher was explaining are the tables of correlations between relatives for stature published by the biometricians. Visscher and Goddard point out that Fisher's inference about dominance variance rested on earlier data on human traits, namely Pearson and Lee 1903; the Pearson and Lee paper appeared in the second volume of Biometrika.
Dispute: The confidence is deliberately low: the quotation asserts that Fisher relied on the data of Pearson and Lee 1903, while the fact that they were printed in Biometrika comes from that paper's reference list rather than from a statement about the link. A historian stating outright that the journal as an institution made Fisher's work possible could not be found here.
Link sources
- Peter M. Visscher, Michael E. Goddard, From R.A. Fisher's 1918 Paper to GWAS a Century Later, Genetics 211 (4), 1125-1130 (2019) Verified 25 Sep 2026
In addition, earlier results on human traits (mainly stature) showed a somewhat larger correlation between full siblings than between parent and offspring, consistent with dominance variance (Pearson and Lee 1903), but also consistent with sibs sharing a common environment.
- Peter M. Visscher, Michael E. Goddard, From R.A. Fisher's 1918 Paper to GWAS a Century Later, Genetics 211 (4), 1125-1130 (2019) Verified 25 Sep 2026
Pearson K, Lee A, 1903 On the laws of inheritance in man: I. inheritance of physical characters. Biometrika 2: 357–462.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.
- Peter M. Visscher, Michael E. Goddard, From R.A. Fisher's 1918 Paper to GWAS a Century Later, Genetics 211 (4), 1125-1130 (2019) Verified 25 Sep 2026
Node sources
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
William Bateson, biologist and pioneer in genetics, who had just become a convert to Mendel’s theory, was one of those chosen to referee the memoir
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Pearson was enthusiastically in favor of the idea-on 13 December 1900 he wrote to Galton that Bateson’s adverse criticism “did not apply to this memoir only but to all my work,. . . if the R. S. people send my papers to Bateson, one cannot hope to get them printed. It is a practical notice to quit. This notice applies not only to my work, but to most work on similar statistical lines.”
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Pearson replied with the suggestion that “the science in future should be called Biometry and its official organ be Biometrika
- Churchill Eisenhart, «Pearson, Karl», Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Weldon, Pearson, and C. B. Davenport were to be the editors; and Galton agreed to be “consulting editor.” The first issue appeared in October 1901
- M. Eileen Magnello, Karl Pearson and the Origins of Modern Statistics: An Elastician becomes a Statistician, The Rutherford Journal 1 (2005) Verified 5 Oct 2026
Pearson also established the professional accoutrements necessary to establish and to institutionalise the new discipline of mathematical statistics: with Weldon he founded Biometrika in November 1900, he established the Drapers’ Biometric Laboratory in 1903, and set up the first-ever degree course in mathematical statistics in 1917.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.