Overview

In a monastery garden rather far removed from the rest of the scientific community, Gregor Mendel studied the transmission of physical characteristics from one generation of pea plants to the next, thereby deciphering the basic principles governing heredity. Mendel was not the first person to study heredity, but he was the first to carefully study the inheritance of traits with planned experiments, carefully recorded data, and statistical analysis of results. His quantitative approach allowed him to translate his findings into a coherent and reproducible theory of how traits are passed from one generation to the next. Mendel's contribution was not appreciated during his lifetime but became the foundation for our understanding of genetics in the twentieth century.

Background

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was not the first...