Abstract
In 1922 the British mathematical biologist Ronald Fisher published a very influential article on population genetics. This chapter considers only one section of the article, which focuses on a variant of the Hardy–Weinberg model including natural selection. Fisher showed that if the heterozygote is favoured, then both alleles can coexist. If one of the two homozygotes is favoured, then the other allele disappears. The underlying problem is that of explaining why some genes can have several alleles.
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Further reading
Fisher Box, J.: R.A. Fisher, The Life of a Scientist. John Wiley & Sons, New York (1978)
Fisher, R.A.: On the dominance ratio. Proc. R. Soc. Edinb. 42, 321–341 (1922). digital.library.adelaide.edu.au
Fisher, R.A.: The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1930). www.archive.org
Yates, F., Mather, K.: Ronald Aylmer Fisher 1890–1962. Biog. Mem. Fellows R. Soc. 9, 91–120 (1963). digital.library.adelaide.edu.au
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© 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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Bacaër, N. (2011). Fisher and natural selection (1922). In: A Short History of Mathematical Population Dynamics. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-115-8_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-115-8_14
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-85729-114-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-115-8
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