By what chance was Gregor Mendel deservedly recognized as the founder of the theory of heredity? Detailed answer

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By what chance was Gregor Mendel deservedly recognized as the founder of the theory of heredity? Detailed answer

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By what chance was Gregor Mendel deservedly recognized as the founder of the theory of heredity?

In the middle of the 1822th century, the Austrian monk and amateur botanist Gregor Mendel (1884-XNUMX) conducted experiments on crossing (through artificial pollination) plants of the same species (at first it was peas, later - beans) with different characteristics.

Mendel was interested in how, after crossing, such traits as the color of peas (green and yellow), their appearance (smooth and wrinkled), and the length of the plant stem (long and short) are transmitted to subsequent generations.

Within 8 years, Mendel made 355 experiments and received about 13 thousand mutant plants, carefully recording the results of observations, which allowed him to draw conclusions that we still call Mendel's laws. In 1863, he completed the experiments, carefully described their results, and sent a copy to the then highly respected German botanist Carl Wilhelm von Nägel.

The professor considered the conclusions of an unknown amateur, moreover, obtained on the basis of a simple count of plants, not worthy of attention and gave them a negative review. In 1866, Mendel published the results of his research in one of the provincial Austrian journals, but this publication did not attract the attention of his contemporaries either. The double failure discouraged Mendel, and he returned to his monastic duties, abandoning his studies.

The name of Mendel and his achievements would probably have remained unknown to posterity if one of the most amazing cases in the history of science had not occurred three decades later. In the same year, at least three people - the Dutchman Hugo de Vries, the German Carl Erich Correns, and the Austrian Erich von Tschermak - independently arrived at the same conclusions as Mendel.

Not being familiar with each other or with the work of Mendel, all three in 1900 prepared materials for publication; all three, while working with the literature on this topic, to their great surprise, came across an article by Mendel; all three published their material in the same 1900. And all three referred to the publication of Mendel, thereby giving him the palm and relegating their work to the rank of only confirming the discovery made earlier.

Author: Kondrashov A.P.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What did the philosopher Auguste Comte consider the most striking example of such knowledge, which will forever remain hidden from man, and why was he wrong?

In 1844, the philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was looking for an example of such knowledge that would forever remain hidden from mankind. He focused on the chemical composition of distant stars and planets. Comte believed that a person would never visit them and, having no samples of a substance in his hands, was forever deprived of the opportunity to know its composition.

Auguste Comte chose an extremely unfortunate example. Just three years after his death, it became clear that the spectrum of their radiation could be used to determine the chemical composition of distant objects.

Astronomical spectroscopy made it possible to determine the composition of the gas shells of the planets of the solar system, the chemical composition of the Sun, distant stars and galaxies.

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