Abstract
THE implications of modern genetics have been so little considered by biologists in this country that the criticism of my address by Dr. Cunningham (NATURE, June 17), though in purpose destructive, is not unwelcome. Of the points he raises one chiefly calls for reply. I directed once more the attention of naturalists to the fact that we still await the production of an indubitably sterile hybrid from completely fertile parents which have arisen under critical observation from a single common origin. So far as our knowledge goes, all the domesticated races—for example, of dogs, of pigeons, of fowls among animals; and of cabbages, of peas, of Primula sinensis, and many more among plants—when intercrossed among themselves never produce this sterility in their mongrels, though the races are often distinct enough to pass for species. But if we begin crossing natural species, even those which on our reckoning must be very closely allied, we constantly find either that they will not interbreed, or that, if they can be crossed, the result is more or less sterile. Dr. Cunningham takes exception to my speaking of this interspecific sterility as the chief attribute of species, but he will not dispute that it is a chief attribute of species.
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BATESON, W. Interspecific Sterility. Nature 110, 76 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110076a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110076a0
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