Mendel's principles of heredity ; a defence / by W. Bateson ... With a translation of Mendel's original papers on hybridisation.

  • Bateson, William, 1861-1926.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mendel's principles of heredity ; a defence / by W. Bateson ... With a translation of Mendel's original papers on hybridisation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    built of statistical data, as Mendel knew long ago ; but, as he also perceived, the ground must be pre- pared by specific experiment. The phenomena of heredity and variation are specific, and give loose and deceptive answers to any but specific questions. That is where our exact science will begin. Otherwise we may one day see those huge foundations of biometry'^ in ruins. But Professor Weldon, by coincidence a vehement preacher of precision, in his haste to annul this first positive achievement of the precise method, dispenses for the moment even with those unpretending forms of precision which conventional naturalists have use- fully practised. His essay is a strange symptom of our present state. The facts of variation and heredity are known to so few that anything passes for evidence; and if only a statement, or especially a conclusion, be negative, neither surprise nor suspicion are aroused. An author dealing in this fashion with subjects com- monly studied, of which the literature is familiar and frequently verified, would meet with scant respect. The reader who has the patience to examine Professor Weldon's array of objections will find that almost all are dispelled by no more elaborate process than a reference to the original records. With sorrow I find such an article sent out to the world by a Journal bearing, in any association,