history/biology question...(yes, another one)?

Question

How far back, historically, do theories about inheritance date

(in the passing parents passing genes onto child way)

Answer 1

People have know kids look like their parents, you can breed dogs, crops, ect. for millennia.

As to the modern genetic theory, that would be the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's work with pea plants. It was rediscovered at the turn of the 20th century.

Larmackism, a theory now know to be false, was popular in the 19th century before genetics. It stated that parents passed traits they got during their life on to the offspring. i.e. a giraffe streching its neck would have offspring with longer necks.

I'm sure there were others before, but they aren't as influential.

Answer 2

>>There is reference made in Scripture of the DNA being readable and that would include genes being passed on to our children from the beginning of humanity!

Please note King Davids' referral to the process of birth:

(Psalm 139:13-16) “. . .For you yourself produced my kidneys; You kept me screened off in the belly of my mother. 14 I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, As my soul is very well aware.
--15 My bones were not hidden from you When I was made in secret, When I was woven in the lowest parts of the earth.
--16 Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, And in your book all its parts were down in writing, As regards the days when they were formed And there was not yet one among them. . .”

>>IF YOU noticed the make-up of David was formed in the expression "....all its parts were down in writing" as in the dna record.
>>ALSO PLEASE understand that Davids expression "you yourself produced..." is just in general reference to the conception process of Davids parents, nothing miraculous, although giving his God creative credit!
>>>This writing was made about 2500 years ago!

**Also note Moses biography of Job and reference is again made to birthing:

(Job 31:15) “. . .Did not the One making me in the belly make him, And did not just One proceed to prepare us in the womb?”
>>Writing by Moses was 3500 years ago!

>>WITH REFERENCE TO OUR first 2 parents(which could very well have been Adam & Eve --about 6,000 years ago) of which we have genetic connection please note:

“A race is simply one of the partially isolated gene pools into which the human species came to be divided during and following its early geographical spread. Roughly one race has developed on each of the five major continental areas of the earth. . . 
.... Man did indeed diverge genetically during this phase of history and we can measure and study the results of this divergence in what remains today of the old geographical races. As we would expect, divergence appears to be correlated with the degree of isolation. . . .
.....When race formation took place on the continents, with the bottlenecking of thousands of populations in isolated gene pools all over the world, the gene-frequency differences we now see were established. . . . The paradox which faces us is that each group of humans appears to be externally different YET UNDERNEATH (my caps) these differences there is fundamental similarity.” (Heredity and Human Life, New York, 1963, H. L. Carson, pp. 151, 154, 162, 163) (Thus, early in human history, when a group of people were isolated from others and married within the group, certain distinctive combinations of genetic traits were emphasized in their offspring.)

>>Luke the Physcian & Bible biographer made this inheritence statement:
(Acts 17:26) “. . .And he made out of one [man](and woman --my comment) every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and the set limits of the dwelling of [men],”