Pangenesis
Pangénesis
- Date
- 1868 · confidence high
- Place
- Downe, Kent, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Charles Darwin
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Darwin's hypothesis of heredity proposing that every body part emits particles called gemmules that gather in the gonads and pass heritable information to the gametes.
Presented as a 'provisional hypothesis' in 'The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication' (1868); it was discarded after the development of Mendelian genetics and chromosome theory.
What it led to
- An attempt to fill the explanatory gap on heredity within evolutionary theory
- Popularity among neo-Lamarckians for allowing inheritance of acquired characteristics
Built on
- Theory of evolution by natural selection