William Bateson

Infobox Scientist
name = William Bateson
box_width =


image_width =150px
caption = William Bateson
birth_date = August 8, 1861
birth_place =
death_date = February 8, 1926
death_place =
residence =
citizenship =
nationality = British
ethnicity =
field = genetics
work_institutions =
alma_mater =
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for = heredity and biological inheritance
author_abbrev_bot =
author_abbrev_zoo =
influences =
influenced =
prizes =
religion =
footnotes =

William Bateson (Robin Hood's Bay, August 8, 1861 – February 8, 1926) was a British geneticist, a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, where he eventually became Master. He was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity and biological inheritance, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns.

Career

In 1894 Bateson published "Materials for the study of variation: treated with special regard to discontinuity in the origin of species", in which he catalogued unusual physical variations in animal specimens, and classified each variation as either a deviation from the expected number of a certain body part; or as one in which an expected body part has been replaced by another (which he called "homeotic"). The animal variations he studied included bees with legs instead of antennae; crayfish with extra oviducts; and in humans, polydactyly, extra ribs, and males with extra nipples. [Sean B. Carroll (2005). "Endless Forms most beautiful: the new science of Evo Devo." W. W. Norton. pp. 46, 48.] Bateson became famous as the outspoken Mendelian antagonist of Walter Raphael Weldon, his former teacher, and Karl Pearson who led the biometric school of thinking. This concerned the debate over saltationism versus gradualism (Darwin had been a gradualist, but Bateson was a saltationist). Later, Ronald Fisher and J.B.S. Haldane showed that discrete mutations were compatible with gradual evolution: see the modern evolutionary synthesis.

Bateson was the first to suggest the word "genetics" (from the Greek genno, "γεννώ"; "to give birth") to describe the study of inheritance and the science of variation in a personal letter to Alan Sedgwick, dated April 18, 1905. Bateson first used the term "genetics" publicly at the Third International Conference on Plant Hybridization in London in 1906. Although this was three years before Wilhelm Johannsen used the word "gene" to describe the units of hereditary information, De Vries had introduced the word "pangene" for the same concept already in 1889 and etymologically the word genetics finds its origin in Darwin's concept of pangenesis.

Bateson co-discovered genetic linkage with Reginald Punnett, and he and Punnett founded the "Journal of Genetics" in 1910. Bateson also coined the term "epistasis" to describe the genetic interaction of two independent traits.

In his later years he was a friend and confidant of the German Erwin Baur. Their correspondence includes their discussion of eugenics.

His son was the anthropologist and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson.

References

*Citation
id = PMID:17322045
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17322045
id = PMID:17095659
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17095659
last=Schwartz
first=Jeffrey H
publication-date=February 23, 2007
year=2007
title=Recognizing William Bateson's contributions.
volume=315
issue=5815
periodical=Science
pages=1077
doi = 10.1126/science.315.5815.1077b
*Citation
id = PMID:16133188
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16133188
last=Harper
first=Peter S
publication-date=2005 October
year=2005
title=William Bateson, human genetics and medicine.
volume=118
issue=1
periodical=Hum. Genet.
pages=141-51
doi = 10.1007/s00439-005-0010-3
*Citation
id = PMID:15668943
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15668943
last=Hall
first=Brian K
publication-date=January 15, 2005
year=2005
title=Betrayed by Balanoglossus: William Bateson's rejection of evolutionary embryology as the basis for understanding evolution.
volume=304
issue=1
periodical=J. Exp. Zool. B Mol. Dev. Evol.
pages=1-17
doi = 10.1002/jez.b.21030
*Citation
id = PMID:12532036
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12532036
last=Bateson
first=Patrick
publication-date=2002 August
year=2002
title=William Bateson: a biologist ahead of his time.
volume=81
issue=2
periodical=J. Genet.
pages=49-58
*Citation
id = PMID:11779782
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11779782
last=Gillham
first=N W
publication-date=2001 December
year=2001
title=Evolution by jumps: Francis Galton and William Bateson and the mechanism of evolutionary change.
volume=159
issue=4
periodical=Genetics
pages=1383-92
*Citation
id = PMID:11441497
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11441497
last=Richmond
first=M L
publication-date=2001 March
year=2001
title=Women in the early history of genetics. William Bateson and the Newnham College Mendelians, 1900-1910.
volume=92
issue=1
periodical=Isis; an international review devoted to the history of science and its cultural influences
pages=55-90
*Citation
id = PMID:11615278
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11615278
last=Harvey
first=R D
publication-date=1995 January
year=1995
title=Pioneers of genetics: a comparison of the attitudes of William Bateson and Erwin Baur to eugenics.
volume=49
issue=1
periodical=Notes and records of the Royal Society of London
pages=105-17
*Citation
id = PMID:11612343
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11612343
last=Olby
first=R
publication-date=1987 October
year=1987
title=William Bateson's introduction of Mendelism to England: a reassessment.
volume=20
issue=67
periodical=British journal for the history of science
pages=399-420
*Citation
id = PMID:11620779
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11620779
last=Harvey
first=R D
publication-date=1985 November
year=1985
title=The William Bateson letters at the John Innes Institute.
volume=
issue=25
periodical=The Mendel newsletter; archival resources for the history of genetics & allied sciences
pages=1-11
*Citation
id = PMID:11615930
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11615930
last=Cock
first=A G
publication-date=1983 January
year=1983
title=William Bateson's rejection and eventual acceptance of chromosome theory.
volume=40
issue=
periodical=Annals of science
pages=19-59
*Citation
id = PMID:11615869
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11615869
last=Cock
first=A G
publication-date=1980
year=1980
title=William Bateson's pilgrimages to Brno. Cesty Williama Batesona do Brna.
volume=65
issue=15
periodical=Folia mendeliana
pages=243-50
*Citation
id = PMID:11609980
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11609980
last=Cook
first=A G
publication-date=1977 June
year=1977
title=The William Bateson papers.
volume=14
issue=
periodical=The Mendel newsletter; archival resources for the history of genetics & allied sciences
pages=1-4
*Citation
id = PMID:11615639
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11615639
last=Darden
first=L
publication-date=1977
year=1977
title=William Bateson and the promise of Mendelism.
volume=10
issue=1
periodical=Journal of the history of biology
pages=87-106
*Citation
id = PMID:11609732
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11609732
last=Cock
first=A G
publication-date=1973
year=1973
title=William Bateson, Mendelism and biometry.
volume=6
issue=
periodical=Journal of the history of biology
pages=1-36

External links

* William Bateson 1894. [http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=chla;idno=3111077 "Materials for the Study of Variation, treated with special regard to discontinuity in the Origin of Species"]
* William Bateson 1902. [http://books.google.com/books?id=d9up5VV70dIC&pg=PA1&dq=Heredity#PPR3,M1 "Mendel's Principles of Heredity, a defence"]
* [http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/concept_5/con5bio.html Punnett and Bateson]
* [http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/bateson3.htm Opposition to Bateson] - Documents by, or about, Bateson are on Donald Forsdyke's webpages