Heredity

Abstract

PROF. SHULL'S textbook presents the essentials of Mendelian heredity with special reference to human problems. It is intended for students, the majority of whom have no biological training and do not intend to specialise in that science, reading genetics as part of a general education. The second edition is bulkier than the first (1926), owing mainly to expansion of the chapters dealing with human inheritance. The absence of any mention of natural selection, either in the chapter on the mechanism of evolution or in the index, is surprising; for the chief problem confronting the Mendelian who sets out to explain evolution is to show how progressive modification of a race, continuing through vast numbers of generations, can be brought about by random mutation, and here the hypothesis of natural selection offers at least a plausible explanation. The recent discussions by Haldane, Fisher, Hogben, and others of the effect of selection on Mendelian populations should receive attention in this context, and would also illuminate the chapter on eugenics. Heredity. Prof. A. Franklin Shull By. (McGraw-Hill Publications in the Zoological Sciences.) Second edition. Pp. xv + 345. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.; London: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Ltd., 1931.) 15s. net.