William Bateson (1861 - 1926)
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As a zoology undergraduate at Cambridge, Bateson focused on morphology, the
study of shape; comparing how different animals develop from embryos was
then believed to hold the key to evolution. After Cambridge he went to Johns
Hopkins University in America in 1883, to work on 'a lowly worm of dubious
nature called Balanoglossus'. This worm remained unclassified, hanging
between echinoderms - the group including starfish and sea urchins - and
chordates, animals with spinal cords, including humans. Bateson argued that
Balanoglossus was related to the chordates, the first indication of the
theory - now generally accepted - that chordates evolved from primitive
echinoderm.
Returning to Cambridge, he began to investigate inheritance and variation.
He started by studying the effect of the environment on the inheritance of
characteristics from one generation to the next, abandoning orthodox methods
of inquiry. By 1891, Bateson had developed a 'vibratory theory of repetition
of parts'. He viewed the organism as a whole and reasoned that when
variation occurred it should affect the whole organism. He tried to express
this in terms of waves or vibrations. Later research would demonstrate that
chemical DNA, contained in chromosomes, is responsible for the passage of
characteristics to the next generation.
However, the notion that characters were passed on by waves rather than
particles stayed with Bateson for most of his life, and he resisted later
evidence pointing to chromosomes being the matter of heredity.
Darwin had stressed that all variation would be subtle and continuous within
and between species. Bateson disagreed. He found that there were lots of
cases where there were large jumps in characteristics with nothing in
between, such as extra limbs and fingers. To back up his case he talked to
stockbreeders and horticulturists, gardeners and shepherds, attended flower
shows and animal exhibitions, and scoured the museums and libraries for
zoological facts.
In 1894 he published Materials for the Study of Variation. Over 600 pages
long, it catalogued more than 800 variations in animal form. He stated
flatly that there were no in-between forms in most species. The book
attracted much criticism because he did not provide a theory to explain his
observations: 'Inquiry into the causes of variation is as yet in my
judgement premature.'
Following Materials, Bateson turned from observing nature to experiments. He
bought incubators to store eggs, stocked poultry pens, and focused on
poultry and sweet peas as his experimental systems. In 1899 he suggested
that the results of inheritance might not be a simple blending of parental
components. The following year he read a paper written by Gregor Mendel,
originally published in 1866. According to Mendel, the hereditary elements
were like particles, and took two forms - dominant and recessive. Bateson
realised that the work of his own research group fitted perfectly within
Mendel's framework. He immediately published, setting out new terms to
describe the results, including allelomorphs (shortened later to alleles),
heterozygous and homozygous. The language of genetics was born.
Further breeding experiments, this time on sweet peas, resulted in
observations that purple flowers were inherited almost exclusively along
with long pollen, and that red flowers almost always had round pollen. These
were a surprise, as Mendel had stated that characteristics are inherited
independently of each other. Later research discovered that this phenomenon
- 'linkage' - is due to genes sitting close together on the chromosome.
By now, Bateson was in his mid forties. Applying for a university chair in
1905, he suggested a new word to stand for the study of inheritance and
variation. He wrote, 'such a word is badly wanted and if it were desirable
to coin one, Genetics might do'. He failed to secure the chair, but in 1908
he was awarded the new Chair of Genetics at Cambridge. However, the money
was relatively poor and he left to take up the directorship of the John
Innes Institute in 1910, with an annual salary of £5 000. He died in 1926.
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