| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
| |
| atavism |
| |
| |
( t´ vizm) (KEY) , the appearance in an individual of a characteristic not apparent in the preceding generation. At one time it was believed that such a phenomenon was thought to be a reversion of “throwback” to a hypothetical ancestral prototype. The term is seldom used today since science has shown that such abnormal characteristics can be explained by the inheritance of a pair of recessive genes. See Mendel. |
| |
| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
|
|
