{"id":75341,"date":"2022-08-12T20:43:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-13T00:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=75341"},"modified":"2022-08-23T14:24:08","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T18:24:08","slug":"hugo-de-vries-theory-of-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/hugo-de-vries-theory-of-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo de Vries&#8217;s Theory of Evolution: Filling in the Gaps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is Hugo de Vries known for? How did Hugo de Vries&#8217;s theory of evolution differ from Darwin&#8217;s? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hugo de Vries is known for filling the gaps in Charles Darwin&#8217;s theory of evolution by adding the concept of mutations. Mutations are a critical part of the evolutionary theory: There must be a chance, however small, that genetic information could spontaneously change during reproduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s why without mutations, evolution is not possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-de-vries-fills-in-the-gaps\"><strong>de Vries Fills in the Gaps<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 1890s, Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries made the next major step toward modern genetics by recognizing that a self-contained unit of heredity perfectly explained Darwin\u2019s observations of how species evolve. <strong>In other words, Mendel and Darwin\u2019s discoveries were both parts of a single, cohesive theory of evolution.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hugo de Vries&#8217;s theory of evolution supplemented Darwin&#8217;s theory by adding the concept of <em>mutations.<\/em>\u00a0Mutations are important because evolution requires diversity\u2014natural selection can\u2019t \u201cselect\u201d genes that don\u2019t exist\u2014and <strong>without mutations, there would be no way for new traits to appear.<\/strong> For example, Darwin\u2019s finches couldn\u2019t have developed different types of beaks unless there were already slight beak differences coded into their genes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sources of Genetic Diversity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As de Vries noted, evolution needs diversity\u2014there must be a large pool of genes and gene combinations for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/natural-selection-in-evolution\/\">natural selection<\/a> to \u201cselect\u201d from.&nbsp;<br><br>Broadly speaking, there are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/the-selfish-gene\/chapter-3#the-paradox-of-sexual-reproduction\">two sources of genetic diversity:<\/a><br><br><strong>Mutations. <\/strong>Sudden changes to the DNA in a sperm or egg cell. You could think of these as genetic errors that happen during reproduction. Some mutations are harmless, while others (as with genetic diseases) are devastating. Rarely, by pure chance, a mutation could also be beneficial\u2014for example, a slight change in eye structure might help someone see far away more easily.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br><strong>Sexual reproduction. <\/strong>Combining genes from two different organisms results in offspring with unique combinations of traits. For example, if one parent has blond hair and blue eyes, while the other has brown hair and brown eyes, their child might have blond hair and brown eyes. Part of the reason for these unique combinations is a process called <em>crossing over<\/em>, which we\u2019ll discuss in the next section.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is Hugo de Vries known for? How did Hugo de Vries&#8217;s theory of evolution differ from Darwin&#8217;s? Hugo de Vries is known for filling the gaps in Charles Darwin&#8217;s theory of evolution by adding the concept of mutations. Mutations are a critical part of the evolutionary theory: There must be a chance, however small, that genetic information could spontaneously change during reproduction. Here&#8217;s why without mutations, evolution is not possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":32925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,160],"tags":[715],"class_list":["post-75341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-science","tag-the-gene","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hugo de Vries&#039;s Theory of Evolution: Filling in the Gaps - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hugo de Vries introduced the concept of mutations to the theory of evolution. 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