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SUMMARY:Hybrid or chimera? Reinterpreting the botanical exchange of Willia
 m Bateson and Erwin Baur - Matt Holmes (CRASSH)
DTSTART:20191111T130000Z
DTEND:20191111T140000Z
UID:TALK131749@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jules Skotnes-Brown
DESCRIPTION:After several years fighting in defence of Mendelian genetics\
 , William Bateson was appointed Director of the John Innes Horticultural I
 nstitution in 1910\, where he investigated the development of plant chimer
 as. Recent scholarship has portrayed this research as something of a misst
 ep by Bateson\, which left him out of touch with modern developments in bi
 ology\, including the chromosome theory of heredity. This paper argues tha
 t Bateson's interest in plant chimeras was partly an attempt to address a 
 longstanding controversy in the annals of natural history: the existence\,
  or non-existence\, of graft hybrids. Previously unpublished correspondenc
 e between Bateson and the German botanist Erwin Baur reveals that Bateson 
 sought to expose graft hybrids as chimeras in order to preserve Weismann's
  distinction between somatic and germ cells. For his part\, Baur helped Ba
 teson to grasp the true nature of plant chimeras and sent him specimens to
  display at the Royal Society. The timing of this exchange is significant.
  In Germany\, a former debunker of the graft hybrid hypothesis\, botanist 
 Hans Winkler\, claimed to have created a genuine botanical graft hybrid. I
 n the United States\, leading Mendelian William Castle was engaged in a he
 ated exchange with physiologist Charles Guthrie over the existence of anim
 al graft hybrids. Castle portrayed this clash as an attempt by neo-Lamarck
 ians to overthrow both Weismann and Mendel. This wider context revises our
  picture of Bateson's interest in plant chimeras from that of a scientific
  misstep to a necessary effort to tackle an immediate threat to the future
  of Mendelian genetics.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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