A theory of Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel was a 19th-century Austrian scientist who revolutionized the field of genetics. His
experiments show that traits are passed from parents to their children in distinctly discrete units or
"genes". He is occasionally referred to as the Father of Genetics, and his name is associated with the
word "gene" due to this work.

The theory of Gregor Mendel suggests that plants and animals have discrete inherited units called
genes. These genes will take on different forms depending on what kind of organism it is, but they will
always be passed down from parent to offspring intact.

These discrete units of inheritance are called "alleles", a word derived from the Greek for "different
forms". The theory is nothing new, but it has been generally accepted since Mendel's time.

Mendel's work was carried out in one of the most dangerous places in his era: the monastery which
he had been living in. He was both a monk and a scientist, and his experiments were done mostly at
night. This made him unpopular with the other monks. They managed to keep him away from public
knowledge for most of his life, although some excerpts of his work were known about by scientists
overseas (such as Charles Darwin).

In the mid-19th century, a new German botanist named J.H. Muller began to hear of Mendel's
discoveries. He traveled extensively through Europe and published a series of articles in Germany on
Mendel's work and findings in 1865(1). After this detail was noticed by some of his colleagues and
tyred on by Darwin, evolutionists were able to start using the theory to support their ideas about how
evolution works.

Mendel's paper was eventually published in 1866(2), but the full details were not made available until
1928, when they were rediscovered by Hugo De Vries (3).