The Origins of Theoretical Developmental Genetics: Reinterpreting William Bateson’s Role in the History of Evolutionary Thought

By considering the traditional history of evolutionary thought, William Bateson has been portrayed as an irrational anti-Darwinist who found in Mendel’s laws the basis of heredity that supported his belief in saltational evolution; in so doing, he delayed the modern synthesis. However, this chapter suggests a very different interpretation. Bateson was one of the first geneticists whose ideas are closely associated with current developmental biology. I demonstrate that Bateson’s studies were focused on how morphological structures arise and are maintained and not just the research of hereditary transmission of characters. From this framework, he attempted to understand how complex structures can emerge from transmission elements (which we know today as genes) during their ontogeny. In other words, he was one of the first scientists who conceived what we know today as the action of genes in controlling development. This view allowed him to criticize the model of gradual evolution, challenging natural selection as a creative force.