Gregor Mendel Discovers the Basic Laws of Heredity While Breeding Pea Plants (1866)
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 statisticalanalysis 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 scientist to question how physical characteristics are transmitted from one generation to the next. Centuries before Mendel began breeding pea plants, humans grasped the idea of inheritance despite having no idea how it worked. Throughout history, inheritance of "familial" traits in humans has been important in social organization. That children often resemble parents or grandparents was noted far back in history.
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