Neo-Darwinism, the modern version of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, incorporates the laws of Mendelian genetics and emphasizes the role of natural selection as the main force of evolutionary change. The term neo-Darwinism was first used in the 1880s by August Weismann, a German naturalist, who incorporated his theory of the germ plasm into Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Weismann advocated the theory that the body is divided into germ cells, which can transmit hereditary information, and somatic cells, which cannot. Weismann thereby added a mechanism of heredity different from Jean Baptiste de Lamarck's inheritance of acquired characteristics, which prepared the ground for the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance by Erich von Tschermak, Hugo deVries, Carl Correns, and William Bateson around 1900.

The rediscovery of Mendel's work led first to a critique of...