Abstract
No one can have read without interest Dr. Bateson's admirable address on evolution published in NATURE of April 29. While Dr. Bateson's reputation is justly high and his views necessarily command respect, it must be admitted that some of his arguments are very difficult to follow. When, for example, he says that “the conclusion that species are a product of a summation of variations, ignored the chief attribute of species, that the product of their crosses is frequently sterile in greater or less degree,” I am frankly puzzled. The proposition is certainly not self-evident. If a sword and its scabbard are bent in different directions, it will happen sooner or later that the sword cannot be inserted, and the result will be the same whether the bending be effected by a single blow, or whether it be, in Dr. Bateson's words, “a product of a summation of variations.” Is this illustration inapt? The sword and its scabbard are the homologous chromosomes. These presumably have to co-operate to produce the somatic cell of the hybrid, and their co-operation might be expected to require a certain resemblance, but for the production of sexual cells they must do more, they must conjugate; and for conjugation it is surely reasonable to suppose that a much more intimate resemblance would be needed.
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CROWTHER, C. Evolutionary Faith and Modern Doubts. Nature 109, 777 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/109777a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/109777a0
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