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Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents.
These inheritance patterns can also be applied to hereditary diseases or conditions in humans or animals. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ 13 ] Some conditions are inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern, meaning individuals with the condition typically have an affected parent as well.
The mediaeval great chain of being as a staircase, implying the possibility of progress: [1] Ramon Lull's Ladder of Ascent and Descent of the Mind, 1305. Alternatives to Darwinian evolution have been proposed by scholars investigating biology to explain signs of evolution and the relatedness of different groups of living things.
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to genetics: . Genetics – science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms. [1] [2] Genetics deals with the molecular structure and function of genes, and gene behavior in context of a cell or organism (e.g. dominance and epigenetics), patterns of inheritance from parent to offspring, and gene distribution ...
With de novo mutations and division errors, the relationship between the offspring's altered genes and gene inheritance from the parents is technically spurious. [13] These genetic errors can affect the mind as well as the body and can result in schizophrenia, [14] [15] autism, [11] bi-polar disorder, [16] and cognitive [17] disabilities.
Autosomal dominant-recessive inheritance is made possible by the fact that the individuals of most species (including all higher animals and plants) have two alleles of most hereditary predispositions because the chromosomes in the cell nucleus are usually present in pairs . Carriers can be female or male as the autosomes are homologous ...
Despite a common misconception, the green/blue eye traits are also inherited in this complex inheritance model. [4] Inheritance can also be complicated when the trait depends on the interaction between genetics and environment. For example, malnutrition does not change traits like eye color, but can stunt growth. [5]