Abstract
So long as naturalists persist in using ill-defined terms, the meaning of which they have not clearly thought out, the controversy about the inheritance of so-called “acquired characters” is bound to be sterile and interminable. If it be once granted that organisms are the product of the interaction of two sets of factors—the factors of the inheritance and the factors of the environment—it becomes obvious that not only every organism, but every “character” of an organism, must be the result of both sets of factors. And if by “character” we mean any such resulting structure or property as it appears to our senses, as we see it before us, then it becomes manifest that no character can be due wholly to inheritance or wholly to environment. The very words “acquired character” involve a fatal fallacy—suggesting as they do that one character may be more acquired than another. Since such wholly acquired characters do not exist, it is waste of time to discuss their possible inheritance.
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GOODRICH, E. Heredity. Nature 89, 6 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/089006a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/089006a0
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