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Heredity produced : at the crossroads of biology, politics, and culture, 1500-1870

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The cultural history of heredity: scholars from a range of disciplines discuss the evolution of the concept of heredity, from the Early Modern understanding of the act of "generation" to its later nineteenth-century definition as the transmission of characteristics across generations.

Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the biological makeup of an organism was ascribed to an individual instance of "generation"—involving conception, pregnancy, embryonic development, parturition, lactation, and even astral influences and maternal mood—rather than the biological transmission of traits and characteristics. Discussions of heredity and inheritance took place largely in the legal and political sphere. In Heredity Produced, scholars from a broad range of disciplines explore the development of the concept of heredity from the early modern period to the era of Darwin and Mendel.

The contributors examine the evolution of the concept in disparate cultural realms—including law, medicine, and natural history—and show that it did not coalesce into a more general understanding of heredity until the mid-nineteenth century. They consider inheritance and kinship in a legal context; the classification of certain diseases as hereditary; the study of botany; animal and plant breeding and hybridization for desirable characteristics; theories of generation and evolution; and anthropology and its study of physical differences among humans, particularly skin color. The editors argue that only when people, animals, and plants became more mobile—and were separated from their natural habitats through exploration, colonialism, and other causes—could scientists distinguish between inherited and environmentally induced traits and develop a coherent theory of heredity.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology

Call Number

580 HER

Publisher

Cambridge, Mass. : : MIT Press,., 2007

Collation

1 online resource (x, 496 pages, 2 pages of plates) : illustrations (some color).

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262280334

Classification

580

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

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Subject(s)

Heredity

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

edited by Staffan Muller-Wille and Hans-Jorg Rheinberger.

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Source

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Validator

maya

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/3482.001.0001

Journal Volume

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Journal Issue

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