Neo-Darwinism is the "modern synthesis" of Darwinianevolution through natural selection with Mendelian genetics, the latter being a set of primary tenets specifying that evolution involves the transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring through the mechanism of genetic transfer, rather than the "blending process" of pre-Mendelian evolutionary science. Neo-Darwinism can also designate Charles Darwin's ideas of natural selection separated from his hypothesis of pangenesis as a Lamarckian source of variation involving blending inheritance.