Abstract
PROF. WILSON is welcome to any satisfaction he can obtain out of the Mendellan interpretation he gives to our statistics of coat-colour in Shorthorns. As a matter of fact, some readers may consider that the same interpretation is given with greater numerical accuracy on pp. 440–4 of our original memoir (Biometrika, vol. iv.). For example, we give 656 crosses of roan and whole red alone, resulting in 243 whole reds, eighty-five red and whites, and four whites. The remainder consists of 324 roans. Of this we say “the close approximation to the Mendelian number of the roans is noteworthy, but the oappearance of 4(WW) is again impossible unless some of the reds are to be treated as heterozygous”. Why does Prof. Wilson reduce our total red roan crosses to 456, and leave out the inconvenient four whites? Why does he give only three whites crossed by white as giving three whites, while we dealt with ninety-one such crosses giving eighty-six whites, four roans, and one red? Why, further, does he leave out the whole of our Table 1. on p. 441? We followed up the white cattle pedigrees, writing to the breeders about special cases, and finding in the great bulk of instances the crosses and colours stated in the Herd-book confirmed. If it be asserted that the colours given in the Herd-book are incorrect, or, still more vitally, that the confirmation of those facts given to us by reputable breeders are misstatements, then the only conclusion is that Mendelism cannot be discussed on the basis of the Shorthorn data. That is a logical position; it is not, however, logical to use the data, and escape inconvenient facts by the statement that they are due to errors or to deception, or to omission to enter calves (which we found on inquiry among English large breeders to be not so frequent as has been asserted).
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PEARSON, K. Mendelian Characters among Shorthorns . Nature 77, 559 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077559c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077559c0
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