pangenesis

American  

[pan-jen-uh-sis] / pænˈdʒɛn ə sɪs /

noun

Biology.

1. the theory that a reproductive cell contains gemmules or invisible germs that were derived from the individual cells from every part of the organism and that these gemmules are the bearers of hereditary attributes.

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pangenesis British  

/ pænˈdʒɛnɪsɪs, ˌpændʒəˈnɛtɪk /

noun

1. a former theory of heredity, that each body cell produces hereditary particles that circulate in the blood before collecting in the reproductive cells See also blastogenesis

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Other Word Forms

• pangenetic adjective
• pangenetically adverb

Etymology

Origin of pangenesis

1868; pan- + genesis; term introduced by Charles Darwin

Example Sentences

Buried in the text of that review was the most powerful argument against pangenesis that Darwin would encounter in his lifetime.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

It was a name that protested its own origin: even though he had systematically demolished Darwin’s theory of pangenesis, de Vries paid his mentor a final homage.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Yet it is not at all so, and this fact seems to amount almost to an experimental demonstration that the hypothesis of pangenesis is an insufficient explanation of individual evolution.

From On the Genesis of Species by Mivart, St. George

This theory—which is not unlike a combination of Darwin's pangenesis with De Vries's neo-pangenesis—is very significant, for it discloses Spencer's hypothesis as to the modus operandi of the transmission of acquired characters.

From Herbert Spencer by Thomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur)

But I shall have to recur, in the chapter on pangenesis, to the abnormal multiplication of organs, and likewise to their occasional transposition.

From The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) by Darwin, Charles