Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was a British polymath, mathematician, statistician, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science" and "the single most important figure in 20th century statistics". In genetics, his work used mathematics to combine Mendelian genetics and natural selection; this contributed to the revival of Darwinism in the early 20th-century revision of the theory of evolution known as the modern synthesis. For his contributions to biology, Fisher has been called "the greatest of Darwin’s successors".
Fisher held strong views on race and eugenics, insisting on racial differences; however, evidence suggests that, even though he was clearly a eugenist, he did not support scientific racism. Notably, he was a dissenting voice in the 1950 UNESCO statement The Race Question. In his own words: "Available scientific knowledge provides a firm basis for believing that the groups of mankind differ in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development".