To formulate the Hardy-Weinberg principle, what imaginative leap did both Godfrey Hardy and Wilhelm Weinberg have to make?

If your choices include: a) They had to imagine what might cause a species to become extinct; b) They had to imagine which alleles each new species would have; c) They had to imagine a world in which evolution did not happen; d) They had to imagine how many offspring an individual could produce

The answer here would be C . Here is why:

The Hardy-Weinberg principle is also known as the Law of Genetic Equilibrium. This simply states that allele or gene frequencies in a population will forever be the same throughout the generations in the absence of evolutionary influences. There are five conditions or imaginative leaps in order to satisfy this state:

1) It has to be a very large breeding population

2) Random mating

- - 1 and 2 fits very close with each other; this is to ensure that no two close relatives breed with each other. An example in reality that goes against these two conditions is the breeding of dogs. Bulldogs and pugs for example have been bred with close relatives so much that recessive genes have started manifesting and causing all kinds of abnormalities. Conditions 1 and 2 ensure that this absolutely does not happen.

3) There is no mutation of genes - self-explanatory

4) No immigration or emigration - this just means that there is no introduction of a new organism in the population that would add a new set of genes into the mix; also, no exit of an organism that would affect the gene pool

5) No natural selection - this just means that no one trait gives an evolutionary advantage over the other