Genetics is One: Mendelism and quantitative traits

In the early 20th century there was a rather strange (in hindsight) debate between two groups of biological scientists attempting to understand the basis of inheritance and its relationship to evolutionary processes. The two factions were the biometricians and Mendelians. As indicated by their appellation the Mendelians were partisans of the model of inheritance formulated by Gregor Mendel. Like Mendel many of these individuals were experimentalists, with a rough & ready qualitative understanding of biological processes. William Bateson was arguably the model's most vociferous promoter. Set against the Mendelians were more mathematically minded thinkers who viewed themselves as the true inheritors of the mantle of Charles Darwin. Though the grand old patron of the biometricians was Francis Galton, the greatest expositor of the school was Karl Pearson.* Pearson, along with the zoologist W. F. R. Weldon, defended Charles Darwin's conception of evolution by natural selection during the darkest days of ...