Discipline | Statistics |
---|---|
Language | English |
Edited by | Paul Fearnhead |
Publication details | |
History | 1901–present |
Publisher | Oxford University Press on behalf of the Biometrika Trust |
Frequency | Quarterly |
2.445 (2020) | |
Standard abbreviations | |
ISO 4 | Biometrika |
Indexing | |
CODEN | BIOKAX |
ISSN | 0006-3444 (print) 1464-3510 (web) |
LCCN | 25005151 |
JSTOR | 00063444 |
OCLC no. | 934140435 |
Links | |
Biometrika is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press for the Biometrika Trust. The editor-in-chief is Paul Fearnhead (Lancaster University). The principal focus of this journal is theoretical statistics. It was established in 1901 and originally appeared quarterly. It changed to three issues per year in 1977 but returned to quarterly publication in 1992.
Biometrika was established in 1901 by Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and Raphael Weldon to promote the study of biometrics. The history of Biometrika is covered by Cox (2001). [1] The name of the journal was chosen by Pearson, but Francis Edgeworth insisted that it be spelt with a "k" and not a "c". Since the 1930s, it has been a journal for statistical theory and methodology. Galton's role in the journal was essentially that of a patron and the journal was run by Pearson and Weldon and after Weldon's death in 1906 by Pearson alone until he died in 1936. In the early days, the American biologists Charles Davenport and Raymond Pearl were nominally involved but they dropped out. [2] On Pearson's death his son Egon Pearson became editor and remained in this position until 1966. David Cox was editor for the next 25 years. So, in its first 65 years Biometrika had effectively a total of just three editors, and in its first 90 years only four. Other people who were deeply involved in the journal included William Palin Elderton, an associate of Pearson's who published several articles in the early days and in 1935 became chairman of the Biometrika Trust. [3]
In the very first issue, the editors presented a clear statement of purpose:
It is intended that Biometrika shall serve as a means not only of collecting or publishing under one title biological data of a kind not systematically collected or published elsewhere in any other periodical, but also of spreading a knowledge of such statistical theory as may be requisite for their scientific treatment. [4]
Its contents were to include:
Early volumes contained many reports on biological topics, but over the twentieth century, Biometrika became a "journal of statistics in which emphasis is placed on papers containing original theoretical contributions of direct or potential value in applications." Thus, of the five types of contents envisaged by its founders, only the second and to a lesser extent the third remain, largely shorn of their biological roots. In his centenary tribute to Karl Pearson, J. B. S. Haldane likened him to Columbus who "set out for China, and discovered America." [5] The same might be said of Pearson's journal.
Of note, Karl Pearson had adopted as the motto of the journal a declaration of Charles Darwin that resonated with Karl Pearson's focus on biological topics and the large data sets that biology generated. In a letter to William Darwin Fox in 1855, Charles Darwin declared “I have no faith in anything short of actual measurement and the Rule of Three.” [6] Karl Pearson adopted this declaration as the motto of his newly founded journal Biometrika. [7] This rule of three referred to cross-multiplication, however, and not the statistical rule of three.
To mark the centenary of "one of the world's leading academic journals in statistical theory and methodology" a commemorative volume was produced, [8] containing articles that had appeared in a special issue of the journal and a selection of classic papers published in the journal in the years 1939–1971. [9]
The editors of the journal have been: [10]
The journal is abstracted and indexed in:
According to the Journal Citation Reports , the journal has a 2020 impact factor of 2.445. [15]
Sir Francis Galton was a British polymath in the Victorian era. He was a proponent of social Darwinism, eugenics, and scientific racism. Galton was knighted in 1909.
William Sealy Gosset was an English statistician, chemist and brewer who served as Head Brewer of Guinness and Head Experimental Brewer of Guinness and was a pioneer of modern statistics. He pioneered small sample experimental design and analysis with an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. Gosset published under the pen name Student and developed most famously Student's t-distribution – originally called Student's "z" – and "Student's test of statistical significance".
Karl Pearson was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London in 1911, and contributed significantly to the field of biometrics and meteorology. Pearson was also a proponent of social Darwinism and eugenics, and his thought is an example of what is today described as scientific racism. Pearson was a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton. He edited and completed both William Kingdon Clifford's Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885) and Isaac Todhunter's History of the Theory of Elasticity, Vol. 1 (1886–1893) and Vol. 2 (1893), following their deaths.
Centaurus. Journal of the European Society for the History of Science is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on the history of mathematics, science, and technology. It is the official journal of the European Society for the History of Science. The journal was established in 1950. In January 2022, Centaurus was relaunched in open-access format by the ESHS and Brepols as Centaurus. Journal of the European Society for the History of Science. The editor-in-chief is Koen Vermeir.
The Annals of Human Genetics is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering human genetics. It was established in 1925 by Karl Pearson as the Annals of Eugenics, with as subtitle, Darwin's epigram "I have no Faith in anything short of actual measurement and the rule of three". The journal obtained its current name in 1954 to reflect changing perceptions on eugenics.
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon FRS, was an English evolutionary biologist and a founder of biometry. He was the joint founding editor of Biometrika, with Francis Galton and Karl Pearson.
The Journal of the American Chemical Society is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the Journal of Analytical and Applied Chemistry and the American Chemical Journal. It covers all fields of chemistry. Since 2021, the editor-in-chief is Erick M. Carreira. In 2014, the journal moved to a hybrid open access publishing model.
Studia Mathematica is a triannual peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics published by the Polish Academy of Sciences. Papers are written in English, French, German, or Russian, primarily covering functional analysis, abstract methods of mathematical analysis, and probability theory. The editor-in-chief is Adam Skalski.
Bradley Efron is an American statistician. Efron has been president of the American Statistical Association (2004) and of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1987–1988). He is a past editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, and he is the founding editor of the Annals of Applied Statistics. Efron is also the recipient of many awards.
Arthur Black (1851–1893) was an English mathematician. He killed himself and his wife and son. His daughter survived.
The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. It was founded in 1885, although there had been international statistical congresses since 1853. The institute has about 4,000 elected members from government, academia, and the private sector. The affiliated associations have membership open to any professional statistician.
Sir William Palin Elderton KBE PhD (Oslo) (1877–1962) was a British actuary who served as president of the Institute of Actuaries (1932–1934). Elderton also had a very long association with the statistical journal Biometrika. In its early days he published several articles, and in 1935 he became chairman of the Biometrika Trust.
Scientometrics is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of scientometrics. It publishes original studies, short communications, review papers, letters to the editor, and book reviews. It is published by Akadémiai Kiadó and Springer Science+Business Media and was established in 1978. Its founder and first editor-in-chief was Tibor Braun.
Karl Gustav Jöreskog is a Swedish statistician. Jöreskog is a professor emeritus at Uppsala University, and a co-author of the LISREL statistical program. He is also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Jöreskog received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees at Uppsala University. He is also a former student of Herman Wold. He was a statistician at Educational Testing Service (ETS) and a visiting professor at Princeton University.
Howell Tong is a statistician who has made fundamental contributions to nonlinear time series analysis, semi-parametric statistics, non-parametric statistics, dimension reduction, model selection, likelihood-free statistics and other areas. In the words of Professor Peter Whittle (FRS): "The striking feature of Howell Tong's … is the continuing freshness, boldness and spirit of enquiry which inform them-indeed, proper qualities for an explorer. He stands as the recognised innovator and authority in his subject, while remaining disarmingly direct and enthusiastic." His work, in the words of Sir David Cox, "links two fascinating fields, nonlinear time series and deterministic dynamical systems." He is the father of the threshold time series models, which have extensive applications in ecology, economics, epidemiology and finance. Besides nonlinear time series analysis, he was the co-author of a seminal paper, which he read to the Royal Statistical Society, on dimension reduction in semi-parametric statistics by pioneering the approach based on minimum average variance estimation. He has also made numerous novel contributions to nonparametric statistics, Markov chain modelling, reliability, non-stationary time series analysis and wavelets.
The Weldon Memorial Prize, also known as the Weldon Memorial Prize and Medal, is given yearly by the University of Oxford. The prize is to be awarded
without regard to nationality or membership of any University to the person who, in the judgement of the electors, has, in the ten years next preceding the date of the award, published the most noteworthy contribution to the development of mathematical or statistical methods applied to problems in Biology.
Terence Michael Frederick Smith was a British statistician known for his research in survey sampling.
Alice Lee (1858–1939) was a British mathematician, one of the first women to graduate from London University. She was awarded a PhD in 1901. She worked with Karl Pearson from 1892. She demonstrated that the correlation between cranial capacity and gender was not a sign of greater intelligence in men compared to women.
David Firth is a British statistician. He is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Warwick.