On S.N. Bernstein's derivation of Mendel's Law and 'rediscovery' of the Hardy-Weinberg distribution

Genetics and Molecular Biology

Alan Stark¹  Eugene Seneta¹ 

[1] ,University of Sydney School of Mathematics and Statistics Sydney,Australia

关键词: Bernstein;    Mendel;    Hardy-Weinberg;    axiomatic foundations;    coefficients of heredity;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1415-47572012005000025

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

Around 1923 the soon-to-be famous Soviet mathematician and probabilist Sergei N. Bernstein started to construct an axiomatic foundation of a theory of heredity. He began from the premise of stationarity (constancy of type proportions) from the first generation of offspring. This led him to derive the Mendelian coefficients of heredity. It appears that he had no direct influence on the subsequent development of population genetics. A basic assumption of Bernstein was that parents coupled randomly to produce offspring. This paper shows that a simple model of non-random mating, which nevertheless embodies a feature of the Hardy-Weinberg Law, can produce Mendelian coefficients of heredity while maintaining the population distribution. How W. Johannsen's monograph influenced Bernstein is discussed.

【 授权许可】

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