Scientists today know a lot about how and why humans – and most all living things for that matter – are the way we are. The secrets in genes and DNA that used to be a mystery are being unlocked at a quick pace. We no longer wonder why one person has blue eye and another has brown eyes. We know of many diseases that are passed down through families and why. We breed animals and plants for specific traits like size and color. It is truly amazing what we know about how life and living things work.
It wasn’t like that in the 1800s. That’s when Gregor Mendel was alive. Mendel was a scientist. He loved math and science. Although his father wanted him to run the family farm, Mendel joined a monastery instead. One of his favorite things to do there was work in the garden. It was through experiments in this garden at the monastery that Mendel discovered the basic principles of heredity. His findings were considered so significant that he is known as the father of modern genetics. So what did he learn that set the field of genetic study in motion?
He used pea plants to show that certain inheritable traits in pea plants follow a pattern. It may not sound like much now, but by cross-fertilizing pea plants with opposite traits (he mixed tall with short, smooth with wrinkled, etc.) he was able to show that there are dominant and recessive traits that are passed from parents to offspring. That bit of information turned out to be a building block for many scientists that went on to study biology, botany and many other life sciences.
