Bateson's two Toronto addresses, 1921: 1. Chromosomal skepticism

William Bateson gave two addresses at the Toronto meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in December 1921. Although both were controversial, the text of the second, "The Outlook of Genetics," was never published. I present a transcript of a partial text and notes of this address in which Bateson explains, for the first time in public, a recent change in his views on the chromosome theory of heredity which resulted from a week spent with T. H. Morgan's group in New York en route to Toronto. He now accepts "the main essentials" but withholds assent from what he calls "the many extensions" of chromosome theory (such as linkage theory). He devotes considerably more space to discussing what he sees as difficulties precluding an unqualified acceptance of chromosome theory in its entirety. All in all, his tone is defiant rather than penitent.