Thus the science of heredity developed long after practical observations of breeding and of parent-child resemblance had been noted and also after the theory of evolution had been established. In the 18th cent. the popular concept of heredity was the theory of preformation: that the prototypical members of each organism (e.g., Adam and Eve among humans) contained within them all future generations, perfectly formed but in miniature, arranged one inside the next like a series of Chinese boxes. In the early 19th cent. Lamarck developed a theory of evolution in which the then current belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics
served as an explanation of its mechanism. The theory of pangenesis, as it was termed in a modified version in Darwinism concept of genetics
Genetics is the study of how heritable traits are transmitted from parents to offspring. Humans have long observed that traits tend to be similar in families. It wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that larger implications of genetic inheritance began to be studied scientifically.
concept of heredity-
heredity is d process of transmission from generation to generation through the process of reproduction in plants and animals of factors which cause the offspring to resemble their parents
