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On the "Discovery" of Genetics
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Studying the
cultivation of peas in his abbey, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) wrote and presented
his paper, "Experiments in Plant Hybridization," on the nature of genetics
in biological inheritance and variation in 1865, and published a year
later.
Specifically, the nature and role of dominant and recessive
genotypes in the intergenerational transmission of inheritance was articulated.
It was highly criticized at the time, and went unnoticed for almost thirty
years. He died in 1884, having abandoned his theory.
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In 1900 the Dutchman De Vries and German Correns, who were studying heredity, re-discover what Mendel had "discovered" almost thirty years before, establishing Mendel's First and Second Laws of Inheritance. Mendel is credited as the "founder of the science of genetics," though not in his lifetime.