central dogma

In genetics and evolution, the fundamental belief that genes can affect the nature of the physical body, but that changes in the body (acquired character, for example, through use or accident) cannot be translated into changes in the genes.

The elements of this idea were outlined by the German biologist August Weismann in the 1880s, when he claimed that the soma (body) and germ (reproductive) parts were separate lines. In the 1950s, following the discovery of the structure of DNA, Francis Crick formulated the central dogma as we now know it, on the basis that genetic information can only flow out of DNA, not into it, because RNA (and thus proteins) can be made using DNA as a template, but not vice versa. The more recent discovery of retroviruses has shown this to be partly untrue: DNA can be copied from RNA. However, the fundamental idea of the central dogma is still valid. See also acquired character.