Word: weismannism
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...giraffe is long because its ancestors had to stretch to reach the foliage), was taken over in part by Darwin, who believed it to be one of the methods through which natural selection operates. Biologists then reacted from this doctrine until the opposite extreme was reached in August Weismann, whose theory that the germ-plasm of each generation is handed on and remains distinct from the body cells, logically excludes the transmission of acquired traits. Weismannism has held the field since 1890 and still dominates the thinking of most biologists...