Angus John Bateman (1919–1996) was an English geneticist. He is most notable for his 1948 study of sexual selection in

fruit flies Fruit fly may refer to: Organisms * Drosophilidae, a family of small flies, including: ** ''Drosophila'', the genus of small fruit flies and vinegar flies ** ''Drosophila melanogaster'' or common fruit fly ** '' Drosophila suzukii'' or Asian fruit ...

(''Drosophila melanogaster'') which established

Bateman's principle Bateman's principle, in evolutionary biology, is that in most species, variability in reproductive success (or reproductive variance) is greater in males than in females. It was first proposed by Angus John Bateman (1919–1996), an English gen ...

. Bateman was a member of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

during the

Lysenko Lysenko ( uk, Лисенко; russian: Лысенко; be, Лысенка Lysienka) or Lisenko is a Ukrainian surname. It most often refers to: * Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912), Ukrainian composer, after whom the Lysenko music school and Lysenko S ...

affair. He was an anti-Lysenkoist within the Party whilst writing in defense of Lysenko for non-Party audiences.

Career

Bateman received his B.Sc from King's College London in 1940, and later received his Ph.D. and D.Sc. from the same institution. In 1942 he moved to Cyril Darlington's Genetics Department at the John Innes Horticultural Institute in

Merton Park Merton Park is a suburb in the London Borough of Merton. It is situated between Colliers Wood, Morden, South Wimbledon and Raynes Park. It is 11 miles (11.7 km) southwest of Charing Cross. The area is part of the historic parish of Merto ...

. Bateman was an acquaintance of

Ronald Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who ...

and critically discussed the manuscript of his 1948 paper with him. Bateman later moved to the Paterson Institute in Manchester and worked on mutagenicity.

References

English geneticists Alumni of King's College London 1919 births 1996 deaths {{UK-scientist-stub