Gregor Mendel · Science

Independent Assortment and the Shuffling of Life

How Mendel’s second great law - that different traits are inherited independently of one another - explained the endless reshuffling of characters across generations, and laid bare the combinatorial engine that makes every offspring a unique new deal of the hereditary cards.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned Mendel’s law of independent assortment - that the factors for different traits separate and recombine independently of one another, producing new combinations and the 9:3:3:1 ratio in a two-trait cross. Explain why this independent shuffling, multiplied across many traits, generates the vast variety among…

Leads to Aristotle.

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