"If species had really arisen by the natural selection for impalpable differences, intermediate forms should abound, and the limits between species should be on the whole indefinite. As this conclusion follows necessarily from the premisses, the selectionists believe and declare that it represents the facts of nature. Difference between species being by axiom indefinite, the differences between varieties must be supposed to be still less definite. Consequently the conclusion that evolution must proceed by insensible transformation of masses of individuals has become an established dogma."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheists from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge alumniFellows of the Royal SocietyBiologists from EnglandGeneticists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 3
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Bateson
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
William Bateson
William Bateson (8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926) was an English geneticist, most noted as 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.
17 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by William Bateson →
Related Quotes
"Misconception was especially brought in by describing descent in terms of "blood". The common speech uses expressions…"
"Truer notions of genetic physiology are given by the Hebrew expression "seed". If we speak of a man as "of the blood-…"
"It was in the attempt to ascertain the interrelationships between species that experiments n genetics were first made…"
"I well remember receiving from one of the most earnest of my seniors the friendly warning that it was waste of time t…"
"Of the contributions made during the essayist period three call for notice: Weismann deserves mention for his useful …"
"The concept of evolution as proceeding through the gradual transformation of masses of individuals by the accumulatio…"
"That the variations are controlled by physiological law, we have now experimental proof; but that this control is gui…"
"In the light of the new knowledge various plausible, but frequently unsatisfying, suggestions put forward, especially…"
"As systematic inquiry into the natural facts was begun it was at once found that the accepted ideas of variation were…"
"Few who are familiar with the facts that genetic research has revealed are now inclined to speculate as to the manner…"