Was RA Fisher Right?

Abstract

Randomized controlled trials have become the most respected scientific tool to measure the effectiveness of a medical therapy. The design, conduct and analysis of randomized controlled trials were developed by Sir Ronald A. Fisher, a mathematician in Great Britain. Fisher propounded that the process of randomization would equally distribute all the known and even unknown covariates in the two or more comparison groups, so that any difference observed could be ascribed to treatment effect. Today, we observe that in many situations, this prediction of Fisher does not stand true; hence, adaptive randomization schedules have been designed to adjust for major imbalance in important covariates. Present essay unravels some weaknesses inherent in Fisherian concept of randomized controlled trial.

Keywords: Adaptive trials; RA Fisher; Randomization.