(1861-1926) English geneticist who was one of the founders of the science of genetics (a term he introduced), and a leading proponent of Austrian biologist Gregor Mendel's work on heredity. Bateson also made contributions to embryology.
Bateson was born in Whitby, Yorkshire, and educated at Cambridge, where in 1908 he became the first professor of genetics. He was director of the John Innes Horticultural Institution in Surrey 1910–26.
Doing embryological research in the US in the 1880s, Bateson discovered evidence that chordates had evolved from echinoderms —a theory now widely accepted. He spent the next years investigating the fauna of the salt lakes of Europe, central Asia, and Egypt. In his book Material for the Study for Variation 1894, he put forward his theory of discontinuity to explain the long process of evolution. According to this theory, species do not develop in a predictable sequence of very gradual changes but instead evolve in a series of discontinuous jumps. Mendel’s work, which he translated and championed, provided him with supportive evidence.
Bateson also carried out breeding experiments, described in Mendel’s Principles of Heredity 1908. He showed that certain traits are consistently inherited together; this phenomenon (called linkage) is now known to result from genes being situated close together on the same chromosome.

(1904-1980)
English-born US anthropologist and cyberneticist. His interests were wide-ranging—from the study of ritual in a New Guinea people to the exploration of communication methods in schizophrenics and dolphins—but all his work shows an interest in how systems operate and a willingness to break down the boundaries between intellectual disciplines. His publications include Steps to an Ecology of Mind 1973 and Mind and Nature 1978.