I am a Docent in the Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland. My primary expertise is public health but my current interest is theoretical biology. My latest publication is:


Keith Baverstock

E-mail Keith@kbaverstock.org


Do We Understand Heredity

and Evolution? No




Biosketch Publications Lectures

14 April 2025
I invite reviews on the Qeios preprint Do We Understand Heredity: No, as marking the latest chapter of a challenge I posed to the geneticist and evolutionist community in mid-2021. This challenge began with my paper, The Gene: An Appraisal, which led to the creation of the Online Collection, published in 2024. With this new instalment, my goal is to highlight a critical error made by early 20th-century researchers—led by Bateson and opposed by Pearson and Weldon—when they adopted Mendelism along with Johannsen's genotype conception and.

In the first phase of my challenge, I aimed to question the validity of Johannsen's genotype conception. This concept underpins a key aspect of biological theory that drove the sequencing of the human genome in an effort to uncover the genetic causes of common diseases and behavioural traits. This endeavour sought to identify specific genes deemed responsible for certain traits based on family and twin studies. Despite inviting 15 researchers, whose work I critiqued in my paper, to defend their ideas through journal commentaries, none stepped forward. Nearly four years later, my challenge to the prevailing paradigm remains unanswered.

Perhaps the Mendelian approach to biology has been so entrenched for over a century, that it is seemingly unassailable. Alternatively, researchers may struggle to acknowledge that the rapid pace of human genome sequencing was a costly misstep. Regardless of the reasoning, genome-wide association (GWA) studies have failed to deliver results proportionate to the estimated US$30 billion spent since 2020. Clinically significant achievements remain elusive, and the opportunity costs of persisting down this path are untenable.

This Qeios preprint serves as an opportunity for researchers to defend the genotype conception and GWA studies aimed at identifying genes believed to cause common diseases and behavioural traits by rebutting my arguments.

Reviewing this preprint is entirely free and it will remain open until at least May 1, 2025.