Evolution and genetics / Thomas Hunt Morgan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 1866-1945, author.

Series:

Vanuxem lectures.

Vanuxem lectures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Evolution (Biology).

Genetics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 211 pages).

Edition:

Second edition.

Other Title:

Evolution and genetics

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : Princeton, University Press, 1925.

Summary:

This book attempts to critique the evolution theory. It pays attention to one of the most debated questions among evolutionists today, namely, the bearing of the recent discoveries in genetics and in mutation on the theory of evolution. While in a general way Darwin's theory of Natural Selection is independent of the origin of the new variations that furnish it with its materials, yet the scientific formulation of the theory is intimately connected with the origin and inheritance of suitable variations. For instance, if most of the observed variability of animals and plants were due directly to the environment, and if the effects thus brought about were not inherited, such variability could no longer be appealed to as material for natural selection. Again, if the variations that appear as mutants are always defective types, they could not, even though they are inherited, be appealed to as furnishing material for progressive evolution. A discussion of these two problems in their historical setting is one of the principal themes treated in the following pages. The four original lectures (chapters) have been subdivided and enlarged into thirteen chapters. Two of these are entirely new, one dealing with the noninheritance of acquired characters (copied with slight changes from the Yale Review for July 1924), the other a criticism of the evidence of human inheritance. The somewhat acrimonious discussion taking place at the present time concerning racial differences in man, a discussion in which "nature" and "nurture" are often confused, may furnish an excuse for the addition of this final chapter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Contents:

Different kinds of evolution.

The four great historical speculations.

The evidence for organic evolution.

The materials of evolution.

Mendel's two laws of heredity.

The chromosomes and Mendel's two laws.

The linkage groups and the chromosomes.

Sex-linked inheritance.

Crossing-over.

Natural selection and evolution.

The origin of species by natural selection.

The non-inheritance of acquired characters.

Human inheritance.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.