Abstract
Darwin realized that a clear understanding of inheritance was essential to an appreciation of the evolutionary processes. Yet he got entangled with a theory which worked against natural selection, ‘diluting’ rather than ‘concentrating’ advantageous variants. It was Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) who developed a theory of inheritance more compatible with Darwinian evolution, and who laid the foundations of the modern science of genetics. He gave a paper on the results of his breeding experiments to the Brünn Natural History Society in 1865,and this was published in the transactions of that society the following year. However, his work went largely unnoticed until 1900 when Correns (in Germany), de Vries (in Holland) and von Tschermak (in Austria) rediscovered it and recognized its significance and importance for Darwin’s theory.
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© 1983 Blackie & Son Ltd
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Calow, P. (1983). Mechanisms of Inheritance. In: Evolutionary Principles. Tertiary Level Biology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-1518-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-1518-6_2
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