Chapter 30 Chapter 8 Exploration of the Relationship between Parents and Offspring

In the Warring States Period, "Lu's Spring and Autumn Period·Yongmin Pian" said: "If a husband grows wheat, he will get wheat, and if he grows millet, he will get millet. People are not surprised." It shows that there is a clear understanding of the stability of biological trait inheritance.How is the inheritance of biological traits achieved?Ancient Chinese scholars tried to come up with their own explanations. Wang Chong (27-104 A.D.) of the Eastern Han Dynasty is the earliest researcher with outstanding achievements in the study of trait transmission between parents and offspring.When he was debating with Confucian scholars, he had a debate on whether there were Ruixiang gods and animals.Wang Chong said: "Tortoises give birth to tortoises, and dragons give birth to dragons. The shape, color and size are the same as before. Seeing the father and observing the descendants, what is unknowable?" Traits are passed on to their offspring.Therefore, the color, shape, and size of the offspring are always like their parents. When you see a certain creature, you can predict the traits of the offspring of this creature.He also said in "Lunheng Strange Chapter": "All things are born of their own kind." In between, heterogeneous things are connected with each other, and there is no such thing." Wang Chong's "this species" here obviously includes the concept of "species", and he lists whether they can mate with each other and produce offspring under natural conditions as a species. one of the characteristics. More than 2,000 years ago, Wang Chong's concept of "species" was somewhat similar to that of the 18th-century taxonomist Linnaeus (AD 1707-1778).Wang Chong believes that the inheritance of the traits of various organisms is realized through seeds during the reproductive process.He said: All things "come into being because of Qi, and their types are produced together, and all things are one reality between heaven and earth."He also took plants as an example and said: "Grass and trees are born in the nucleus, and when they are unearthed, they grow stems and leaves, and the length and size depend on the nucleus." The understanding of relatively stable traits has strongly refuted the existence of the so-called auspicious dragons and tortoises.He believes that normal creatures have types.

Wang Tingxiang (1474-1544 A.D.) of the Ming Dynasty further proposed the "qi species theory" of genetic material on the basis of previous understandings.He said in "Shen Yan Dao Ti Pian": "After human transformation, the shape is self-similar." He pointed out the continuity of trait inheritance.He also said: "People have their own species, and things have their species. For example, hardware has its own species, and vegetation has its own species, each of which is complete, and does not violate or borrow from each other." It illustrates the stability and specificity of species.So why are species stable?He said: "All things have different talents in size, rigidity and softness, and their sounds, colors, smells and smells have their own characteristics. Those that remain unchanged through the ages have a fixed aura." He believes that it is due to the stability of genetic material - aura.Regarding the phenomenon in the process of trait inheritance that "a person does not resemble his father, he resembles his mother; after several generations, there must be someone who has the same physical appearance as his ancestors", his explanation is "returning to its original nature." In fact , which is already understood from the depth of the law of transmission and expression of genetic material.The "qi species" mentioned by Wang Tingxiang here is very close to the genetic material we know now, but it has not been confirmed physically due to the lack of necessary scientific means and scientific experiments. The "air species theory" is very similar to the "germplasm theory" proposed by Weissmann in 1892, which was very valuable at that time.Dai Zhen in the Qing Dynasty inherited these ideas. He said: "Like flying submerged animals and plants, the nature of all things is based on their aura category." and also".Trying to implement the genetic material into the specific parts of the plant, unfortunately, it can only be implemented into the seeds, which is the limitation of objective conditions.However, the concept of understanding that genetic material determines heredity and biological traits is still very clear.