Step 1: Understanding the Question:
This question is a historical scientific query regarding the origin of genetic terminology. We need to identify the scientist who coined and introduced the term "Genetics".
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
• The term "Genetics" is derived from the Greek word "genesis", meaning "origin" or "generation". It was coined by the English biologist William Bateson in 1905 to describe the study of inheritance and variation.
• William Bateson was a strong defender and popularizer of Mendelian inheritance principles in the early 20th century. He officially proposed the term "Genetics" in a letter to Alan Sedgwick and later popularized it during the Third International Conference on Plant Hybridization in 1906.
• Gregor Mendel is universally recognized as the "Father of Genetics" because of his pioneering breeding experiments on pea plants (Pisum sativum). He discovered the laws of segregation and independent assortment, but he never used the word "Genetics" in his publications; he referred to it as the study of "factors" or "elements of inheritance".
• Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher and biologist who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" in the context of evolutionary biology, but he did not coin "Genetics".
• Ernst Haeckel was a famous German naturalist who coined several biological terms including "Phylum", "Phylogeny", and "Ecology", but he was not responsible for coining "Genetics".
Step 3: Final Answer:
The term "Genetics" was introduced by William Bateson in 1905.