She Has Her Mother's Laugh

[Darviridis]

I started reading She Has Her Mother's Laugh. This is a popular science book, which is interesting about genetics and heredity.

[Darviridis]

In medieval Europe, it was believed that heredity is transmitted through blood. In Spain, before marriage, it was necessary to provide a document confirming that a person had "pure blood", that is, there were no Jews in his family. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limpieza_de_sangre

Then the concept of race appeared, which was first applied to animals, and then to people. Anti-Semitism appeared in Europe. there was no concept of heredity at all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism

People had no understanding of heredity. Scientists in Antiquity had a variety of ideas about heredity: Theophrastus proposed that male flowers caused female flowers to ripen Hippocrates speculated that "seeds" were produced by various body parts and transmitted to offspring at the time of conception;and Aristotle thought that male and female fluids mixed at conception.[28] Aeschylus, in 458 BC, proposed the male as the parent, with the female as a "nurse for the young life sown within her". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heredity

The triumph of human misunderstanding of heredity was the Habsburg family ruling in Spain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Habsburg

Robert Bakewell is the first person to understand heredity. He did not understand her reasons, but he brought out a new kind of sheep, crossing among themselves only those that met the requirements he had chosen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bakewell_(agriculturalist)

Grigor Mendel, who discovered the laws of inheritance, was ahead of his time and no one was interested in his research then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel

Then Darwin wrote his theory of the origin of species. His book opened the eyes of the public. Although he also did not understand the causes of heredity. He was interested in hereditary diseases because his wife was his cousin. He proposed that each part of the body continuously emitted its own type of small organic particles called gemmules that aggregated in the gonads, contributing heritable information to the gametes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangenesis

[Darviridis]

Luther Burbank (March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926)[1] was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank