Abstract
IN his review of Prof. Poulton's work, “Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species”, Prof. Meldola says (NATURE, November 25, p. 92) that the Darwinian theory is absolutely dependent upon the truth of the belief “in the transmissibility by inheritance of individual differences or ‘fluctuations’”. This is undoubtedly true. There is now available a vast amount of evidence tending to show that “fluctuations” seemingly the direct results of changes in the environment are inherited; but how is it possible to convince Weismann and his followers that such “fluctuations” have not been due, as they will say, to “spontaneous germinal variations”? Surely the onus probandi really rests with them!
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BASTIAN, H. The Inheritance of Acquired Characters. Nature 82, 157 (1909). https://doi.org/10.1038/082157b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/082157b0
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