Abstract
IN spite of Waddington's1 clear statement to the contrary, the recent correspondence2,3 on polygenes tends to create the impression among biologists who are not geneticists that polygenes are a new development. It is worth pointing out, therefore, that not only is the concept traceable to Mendel himself, but that the very word “polygene” (equivalent to the English adjective) appears to have first been used extensively by Plate in his 1913 text-book4. The word did not meet with general approval at the time, and indeed objections against it very similar to Waddington's1 were made by that pioneer of quantitative inheritance, Johannsen5. Thus on page 669: “Darum ist es auch unzulässig von ‘monogenen’ oder ‘digenen’ Merkmalen, als Gegenstück zu (polygenen) Merkmalen zu reden, wie Plate es neuerdings tut. Selbst im populären Abhandlungen dürfen solche prinzipiell unrichtige, eigentlich nur auf Zufälligkeiten der unvolkomenen Kreuzungsanalysen sich beziehende Ausdrücke nicht verwendet werden, weil sie ja nur verwirren können. Es steckt darin ein Rest veralteter Vorstellungen über ‘Merkmahle’ und deren einheitlich ‘Anlagen’,—wir müssen aber wirklich aus dem Banne diese Konzeption heraus”, and a similar paragraph on p. 561.
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References
Waddington, C. H., NATURE, 151, 394 (1943).
Mather, K., NATURE, 151, 68 (1943).
Mather, K., NATURE, 151, 560 (1943).
Plate, L., “Vererbungslehre” (Leipzig, 1913).
Johannsen, W., “Elemente der Exakten Erblichkeitslehre”, 2nd ed. (Jena, 1913).
Fisher, R. A., “The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection” (Oxford, 1930).
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FABERGÉ, A. The Concept of Polygenes. Nature 151, 643 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151643b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151643b0
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