The Methods and Scope of Genetics: An inaugural lecture delivered 23 October 1908 — John Shaqi
The Methods and Scope of Genetics: An inaugural lecture delivered 23 October 1908Bateson, William
Science
The Methods and Scope of Genetics: An inaugural lecture delivered 23 October 1908
Bateson, William
Genetics; Heredity
Lastly I suppose it is self-evident that they have a bearing on the
problem of Evolution. The facts of heredity and variation are the
materials out of which all theories of Evolution are constructed. At
last by genetic methods we are beginning to obtain such facts of
unimpeachable quality, and free from the flaws that were inevitable in
older collections. From a survey of these materials we see something of
the changes which will have to be made in the orthodox edifice to admit
of their incorporation, but he must be rash indeed who would now attempt
a comprehensive reconstruction. The results of genetic research are so
bewilderingly novel that we need time and an exhaustive study of their
inter-relations before we can hope to see them in proper value and
perspective. In all the discussions of the stability and fitness of
species who ever contemplated the possibility of a wild species having
one of its sexes permanently hybrid? When I spoke of adventures to be
encountered in genetic research I was thinking of such astonishing
discoveries as that.
There are others no less disconcerting. Who would have supposed it
possible that the pollen-cells of a plant could be all of one type, and
its egg-cells of two types? Yet Miss Saunders' experiments have provided
definite proof that this is the condition of certain Stocks, of which
the pollen grains all bear doubleness, while the egg-cells are some
singles and some doubles. We cannot think yet of interpreting these
complex phenomena in terms of a common plan. All that we know is that
there is now open for our scrutiny a world of varied, orderly and
specific physiological wonders into which we have as yet only peeped. To
lay down positive propositions as to the origin and inter-relation of
species in general, now, would be a task as fruitless as that of a
chemist must have been who had tried to state the relationship of the
elements before their properties had been investigated.
For the first time _Variation_ and _Reversion_ have a concrete, palpable
meaning. Hitherto they have stood by in all evolutionary debates,
convenient genii, ready to perform as little or as much as might be
desired by the conjuror. That vaporous stage of their existence is over;
and we see Variation shaping itself as a definite, physiological event,
the addition or omission of one or more definite elements; and Reversion
as that particular addition or subtraction which brings the total of the
elements back to something it had been before in the history of the
race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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