 Such selection changed the relative proportion of genotypes in the population, not any genotype itself. There could have been room here for reconciliation with the biometrical view of variation in non-experimental populations, but that avenue was not pursued by Johannsen. Instead, like many other exponents of Mendel’s rediscovered work, he chose to dispute the idea that different types of organism could be “evolved from each other by extremely small steps in genotypical change”. Instead, “the mutations really observed in nature have all shown themselves as considerable, discontinuous saltations” (1911: 158; i.e., jumps).