Quotation from Darwin (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 29, 2008, 01:39 (5871 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George Jelliss commented: "It was not until 1900 that the work of Mendel was rediscovered and provided clues to the correct explanation. In fact some of the geneticists thought their discoveries disproved Darwin's thesis. It took twenty years or more to achieve a "neo-Darwinian" synthesis of genetics and natural selection, thanks to the work of Fisher, Haldane and others." - I don't understand the phrase :provided clues to the correct explanation. What explanation did Mendel provide? - And I also want to know if any Darwin scientist has ever satisfactorily answered the issue of "Haldane's Dilemma"? I refer to his article, "The Cost of Natural Selection", J. Genetics 55, pp 511-524, 1957, in which he calculated that harmful mutations would outnumber beneficial mutations before an older species could evolve into a new one.