Does Greg Mendel concepts for genetic support evolution?
It’s not true that ‘offspring can only have traits inherited from parents’ — two heterozygous parents with a dominant trait can produce an offspring with a recessive trait. But more to the point, mutation — which is outside Mendelian genetics — is NOT the only source of the genetic variation that drives natural selection. Sexual reproduction allows reshuffling of genes to produce individuals with novel new traits, particularly if the phenotype depends on more than one gene for its expression. Mendel is still highly relevant in evolution.
I’m unfamiliar with his work, but I LOVE the way your questions are improving. Very well done! Since I don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground on the subject of genetics, let me offer my thoughts like so: offspring cannot soley be the embodiment of parents. In order for the human species to evolve, we must be able to adapt. For example, our evolution has yet to catch up with the fact that we stand upright, even though we’ve been doing it for millions of years. Back problems (specifically the lower back) plague our species today as a direct result of our upright stance. But if we hadn’t evolved at all, we’d still be dragging our knuckles on the ground like our ancestors did.
