William Bateson: a biologist ahead of his time

William Bateson coined the term genetics and, more than anybody else, championed the principles of heredity discovered by Gregor Mendel. Nevertheless, his reputation is soured by the positions he took about the discontinuities in inheritance that might precede formation of a new species and by his reluctance to accept, in its fullblooded form, the view of chromosomes as the controllers of individual development. Growing evidence suggests that both of these positions have been vindicated. New species are now thought to arise as the result of genetic interactions, chromosomal rearrangements, or both, that render hybrids less viable or sterile. Chromosomes are the sites of genes but genes move between chromosomes much more readily than had been previously believed and chromosomes are not causal in individual development. Development, like speciation, requires an understanding of the interactions between genes and the interplay between the individual and its environment.     

William Bateson and the promise of Mendelism

Journal of the History of Biology -     

William Bateson, human genetics and medicine

The importance of human genetics in the work of William Bateson (1861–1926) and in his promotion of Mendelism in the decade following the 1900 rediscovery of Mendel’s work is described. Bateson had close contacts with clinicians interested in inherited disorders, notably Archibald Garrod, to whom he suggested the recessive inheritance of alkaptonuria, and the ophthalmologist Edward Nettleship, and he lectured extensively to medical groups. Bateson’s views on human inheritance were far sighted and cautious. Not only should he be regarded as one of the founders of human genetics, but human genetics itself should be seen as a key element of the foundations of mendelian inheritance, not simply a later development from knowledge gained by study of other species.     

From Documentation to Representation: Recovering the Films of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson

Although the seven films made by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, based on footage shot in Bali and New Guinea during 1936–39, are identified as a landmark in various histories of ethnographic film, these films have been the subject of remarkably little analysis in the anthropological literature. In contrast, their photographic work has received much more extended commentary. Making a close reading of the films in their final edited form, this article aims to recover this aspect of Mead and Bateson's work from its relative neglect. We consider the circumstances under which the films were made, the theoretical ideas that informed them, and the methods employed in shooting and editing. Notwithstanding recent skepticism about both the theoretical ideas and the quality of the research on which Mead and Bateson's work in Bali was based, as well as the naiveté of some of the filmmaking ideas found in the films themselves, when considered as a group, they continue to be interesting examples of a particular transitional phase in the history of ethnographic film.