For Most Continuously Varying Characters, Offspring are Intermediate Between Their

Question

For most continuously varying characters, offspring are intermediate between their parents because
A) of blending inheritance.
B) genetic transmission involves faithful copying of the genes themselves, followed by the averaging of the gene's effects during development.
C) mutation is constantly introducing new alleles, some of which will produce new phenotypes.
D) natural selection reduces variation.

Accepted Answer

This is due to the principle of segregation and independent assortment during meiosis, where each offspring inherits one copy of each gene from each parent. The genes themselves do not blend, but rather their effects are averaged during development in the offspring, resulting in an intermediate phenotype.