Quotation from Darwin (Evolution)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Saturday, March 29, 2008, 10:32 (6093 days ago) @ David Turell

David asked: "I don't understand the phrase :provided clues to the correct explanation. What explanation did Mendel provide?" - As I understand it, Darwin's inadequate genetic theory didn't work because new traits once inherited would just dilute and revert to the average in subsequent generations, whereas Mendel's experiments with peas indicated that traits were passed on in some permanent discrete form, later identified in terms of chromosomes and genes. But there are lots of good sites on Mendel and genetics that explain these things better than I can. This one seems exceptionally clearly laid out: - http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_1.htm - David also asks: "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." - You are getting a bit technical here. I googled and found this on wikipedia which reproduces Haldane's mathematics and provides links to more recent work as well as to creationist exploitation of it: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane's_dilemma - It seems to show that it is best to change one genetic trait at a time, which is what usually happens, rather than several at once.