Which scientist coined the term “genetics” in 1906?

William Bateson coined the term “genetics” in 1906.

Bateson was a British biologist who became a prominent defender of Mendel’s inheritance principles after their rediscovery around 1900. He helped establish a vocabulary for the emerging field and proposed the word genetics for the study of heredity and variation.

He also introduced the terms homozygote and heterozygote, which describe whether an organism carries identical or different versions of a gene at a locus. Bateson’s work connected Mendelian ratios with observations from breeding experiments in plants and animals.

The word gene itself was coined later, in 1909, by Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen. Johannsen also introduced genotype and phenotype, so these scientists are often confused in questions about genetics terminology.