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Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine ((PHME,volume 75))

Abstract

The time has come to dissolve the concept of dominance in genetics. The concept is a vestige of history, a frozen accident that may have aided Mendel’s important discovery but is hardly essential as a basic principle of genetics (section 2). Moreover, the concept of dominance is ill-framed and often misleading in terms of heredity, natural selection, and molecular and cellular processes (section 3). More direct language is available to refer to the key relevant principles in inheritance and the phenotypic expression of genetic states (section 4).

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Allchin, D. (2002). Dissolving Dominance. In: Parker, L.S., Ankeny, R.A. (eds) Mutating Concepts, Evolving Disciplines: Genetics, Medicine, and Society. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 75. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0269-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0269-1_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-3959-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0269-1

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