Question

August Weismann cut off the tails of mice for 22 consecutive generations, yet each generation the descendants were born with long tails. His experiment demonstrated that:

a. acquired characteristics are not heritable.
b. sex cells carry a complete set of genetic information that is passed to offspring.
c. the mice must have produced "tail gemmules" before their tails were cut off.
d. tail length is not genetically determined.
e. Both a and b.

Answer 1

August Weismann's experiment demonstrated that acquired characteristics are not heritable.

Step-by-step explanation:

August Weismann's experiment cutting off the tails of mice for 22 consecutive generations demonstrated that acquired characteristics are not heritable (option a).

This experiment showed that despite the removal of the tails in each generation, the descendants were still born with long tails. This disproved the idea that acquired traits, such as the shortened tails, can be passed down to future generations. We now know that genetic information is carried by sex cells, specifically the genes and DNA sequences, not by acquired characteristics.