My initial sample was chosen haphazardly before May 30, 2018. On May 30, 2018 I also calculated the i scores of some other famous biologists. I report these here.
Fisher had the highest i of anyone at i = 412k. Fisher invented the concept of variance, the statistical analysis method ANOVA, and various other statistical methods. Fisher’s methods are now used in fields other than biology, contributing to his very high i score. Indeed, Fisher got more credit for Statistical Methods for Research Workers than The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection.
Figure 1. Top three in the extended sample (excluding those in the original sample). In bold italics are works in the original sample’s Fig. 1.
This extended sample shows a couple of other interesting things. First, E.O. Wilson (bold) now emerges as having one of the most impress i / h combinations. In fact, Wilson is now the only individual in the overall top 10 of i and h (Table 2). Wilson thus has a very unique position. According to one article, “Wilson is unquestionably the most famous biologist and arguably the most famous person to have ever graduated from the University of Alabama (https://www.press.jhu.edu/news/blog/alabama-harvard-and-back-story-e-o-wilson).”
Figure 2 and Table 1. The fourteen famous biologists in the extended sample.
Some biologists may be surprised to see Stuart Kauffman in the top ten of i. Landing Kauffman in the top 10 were his books Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe, and his paper Metabolic stability and epigenesis in randomly constructed gene nets. Perhaps even more surprising is the position of John Holland, who many biologists do not know. Putting Holland on the map are his books Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems, Emergence, and Genetic Algorithms. The first book is one of the most cited books in evolutionary theory ever, with 59k citations. It contributed to the i score of Fisher’s Genetical Theory of Natural Selection and Dawkins’s Blind Watchmaker (Fig. 1). Holland was in the BACH (Burks, Axelrod, Cohen, Holland) group at University of Michigan, along with W. D. Hamilton. Hamilton learned computer methods working with the BACH group.
Table 2. The overall top 15 of i (left) and h (right). Darwin and Wilson are now the only two individuals in the top of i and h (May dropped out because of relatively low i).
One interesting thing about i is that it causes you to look at the whole field, not just your narrow subsection. Here, among other things, it brings attention to the importance of statistics (Fisher) and computer simulation studies (Holland). It also brings attention to the importance of old-school biology (Wilson).
Finally, I note that Google constantly updates its citations. It will be interesting to see how much has changed after a year.