Abstract
WITH regard to Mr. Yule's view that there is a fundamental misunderstanding in our notice of Prof. Johannsen's book, we must direct attention to the problem at issue summed up in the words “Der Rückschlag ist vollkommen ganz bis zum Typus der Linie.” The character selected for measurement by Prof. Johannsen either fully determines the type or it does not, i.e. in the latter case it may be subject to somatic variations having no influence on offspring as Mr. Yule suggests. If it does determine the type, then the correlation between the parent and the mean of the offspring should be perfect, and this it certainly is not. If it does not determine the type, the correlation might be imperfect because the character of the line would not be perfectly known. But since the parental character is in this case not perfectly known, it is clearly impossible for Prof. Johannsen to determine the type, and thus his experiments must fail to show whether the “Rückschlag” is perfect or not. This point is referred to in the reviews cited by Mr. Yule, but it seems to have escaped his notice.
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Prof. Johannsen on Heredity. Nature 69, 224 (1904). https://doi.org/10.1038/069224a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/069224a0
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