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The Royal Society: Science in the Making

Referee's report by William Davidson Niven, on a memoir 'On a property which holds good for all groupings of a normal distribution of frequency for two variables, with applications to the study of contingency-tables for the inheritance of unmeasured qualities' by Reverend E W Barnes and on papers 'On the influence of bias and of personal equation in statistics of ill-defined qualities: An experimental study' by George Udny Yule

Reference number: RR/16/418

Date: 19 December 1905

Description

Sectional Committee: not stated.

The papers relating to Barnes' memoir have just come in. He thinks Forsyth a little unreasonable and notes he 'rides a high horse round the outskirts of the subject of Mr Barnes' work' but does not come to close quarters with the work itself. Suggests printing in extenso some parts of the work but, where no new method is applied, to give the results only. If Larmor takes account of Hobson's recommendation that the memoir, if taken, should be taken in its entirety, and of Forsyth's statement that Barnes is willing to compress as far as possible provided the character of the work is not impaired, Niven thinks [William] Burnside's structures might be satisfied. Burnside is visiting Niven on Thursday or Friday and Niven shall lay the matter before him and let Larmor know the result.

Yules' papers create a difficult question. When he and Burnside conferred they both took the view that Professor Pearson could not reasonably expect papers containing matter at variance with his own results should be excluded, on that account, from the Royal Society's publications. As the Society has been so liberal to Pearson he and Burnside thought that to be a reason for extending something of the same treatment to Yule, if his work was good enough.

[Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 1906].

Endorsed on recto as received 9 January 1906.

Reference number
RR/16/418
Earliest possible date
19 December 1905
Physical description
Letter on paper
Page extent
2 pages
Format
Manuscript

Creator name

William Davidson Niven

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William Davidson Niven, Referee's report by William Davidson Niven, on a memoir 'On a property which holds good for all groupings of a normal distribution of frequency for two variables, with applications to the study of contingency-tables for the inheritance of unmeasured qualities' by Reverend E W Barnes and on papers 'On the influence of bias and of personal equation in statistics of ill-defined qualities: An experimental study' by George Udny Yule, 19 December 1905, RR/16/418, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/rr_16_418/referees-report-by-william-davidson-niven-on-a-memoir-on-a-property-which-holds-good-for-all-groupings-of-a-normal-distribution-of-frequency-for-two-variables-with-applications-to-the-study-of-contingency-tables-for-the-inheritance-of-unmeasured-qualities-by-reverend-e-w-barnes-and-on-papers-on-the-influence-of-bias-and-of-personal-equation-in-statistics-of-ill-defined-qualities-an-experimental-study-by-george-udny-yule, accessed on 24 January 2025

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    Date: 1832-1954

    This collection contains reports on scientific papers submitted for publication to the Royal Society. Started in 1832 when the system was formalised, it is a record of the origins of peer review publishing in practice.

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