Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics, is renowned as one of the
world's most ingenious and influential scientists. Nonetheless, he
remains misunderstood and enigmatic, his history shrouded in
controversy and myth. Escaping poverty, he joined a scholarly
community of Augustinian friars in a monastery and studied at the
University of Vienna under some of Europe's most accomplished
scientists. He returned to a tumultuous milieu at the monastery as
he and his fellow friars suffered a harrowing investigation
accusing them of secularism and pantheistic philosophy. Against
this backdrop, Mendel initiated an epic set of experiments with the
common garden pea that would lead him to reveal the mystery of
inheritance. The article he published would become a classic in the
history of science. Darwin's Origin of Species shook the world in
1859. Its impact eclipsed Mendel's discovery, presented just a few
years after Darwin's pivotal book. Unlike Darwin, who witnessed his
work attain immediate worldwide fame (and infamy), Mendel would
never know how powerfully his discoveries would impact science and
humanity; his achievements languished in obscurity until well
beyond his death. "The laws governing inheritance are quite
unknown," Darwin lamented just a few pages into the Origin of
Species. Mendel had discovered and presented those laws, which
ultimately would bridge the most gaping chasm in Darwin's theory.
In 1900, at the dawn of the twentieth century, several influential
scientists independently rediscovered Mendel's theory, elevating it
to the highest echelon of scientific triumph. The new science,
christened genetics, immediately generated controversies, some of
which continue to the present. Throughout modern history,
proponents and detractors alike have coopted Mendel's theory to
buttress their worldviews, fueling the flames of disputes and
prolonging political battles. Unquestionably, however, it has
served as the foundation for some history's greatest scientific
advances. This book commemorates Mendel's life and legacy at the
bicentennial of his birth. It interweaves traditional accounts of
his history with newly discovered evidence to reveal an
extraordinary teacher, a resolute priest and abbot, and a complex
and guileless scientist whose momentous discoveries have remained
essentially unchanged for more than a century and a half.
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