from the Billie-Genes-says-the-kid-is-my-son dept.
The team, from KeyGene in the Netherlands and the John Innes Centre in the UK, draw on newly-discovered historical information to conclude that, when his proposals are viewed in the light of what was known of cells in the mid-19th century, Mendel was decades ahead of his time.
"Uncovering hidden details about Mendel has helped to build a picture of the scientific and intellectual environment in which he worked. At the outset Mendel knew nothing about Genetics and had to deduce it all for himself. How he went about this is highly instructive," said Dr Noel Ellis from the John Innes Centre, one of the contributors to the study.
The new information shows that Mendel began his work with the practical objectives of a plant breeder, before he became interested in the underlying biological processes that condition the heritable differences between organisms. It also shows that Mendel recognised the importance of understanding the formation of reproductive cells and the process of fertilisation.
[...] Thanks to modern technology, the authors were able to extract valuable information from 19th-century newspaper articles, proceedings, and yearbooks that have recently been digitised. These show how advanced the ideas and work of Mendel were as he used cell biological theory to come to conclusions on how traits of plants are transmitted from parents to their offspring.
Unfortunately paywalled. This looks like it would have made for some fascinating reading, but at least an interesting appendix is made available.
Journal Reference:
van Dijk, P.J., Jessop, A.P. & Ellis, T.H.N. How did Mendel arrive at his discoveries?. Nat Genet (2022). 10.1038/s41588-022-01109-9
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday July 13 2022, @12:05PM (1 child)
The alternative thought is that Mendel was just like students today -- he took forever to get his paper(s) in order and became another forever-student. Or that things moved at another pace back then, if you sit on your findings for two decades today you just lost the science race to someone else. Or naturally he worked with plants and they take time to grow so it took a long time to gather the data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 13 2022, @12:19PM
Newton was one of the bigger names known to sit on work, then whip it out ten years later when someone else published something.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeRandomGeek on Wednesday July 13 2022, @03:19PM (4 children)
Not to diminish Mendel's accomplishments, but I've always wondered why his discoveries weren't discovered much earlier, thousands of years even. Humans have practiced selective breeding for a long time. Witness corn, cauliflower, and dog breeds.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 13 2022, @03:48PM (2 children)
The big discovery was that of genetically enginering STEM-type people [xkcd.com]. Truth be told, though, it may have been more a matter of rigor [tested.com].
(Score: 2, Informative) by SomeRandomGeek on Wednesday July 13 2022, @04:09PM (1 child)
Granted that Mendel's work relies on the invention of the controlled experiment (By Ibn Al-Haytham, circa 1000 AD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham). [wikipedia.org] But that still leaves a whole millennium for someone else to get there first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @07:07PM
But what do you mean by controlled experiment? Something like this? https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+1%3A8-16&version=ESV [biblegateway.com]
Even if some may claim "that didn't happen" it does show the concept was around a fair bit earlier than 1000 AD.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday July 16 2022, @03:51AM
Mendel was extraordinarily lucky in the pea plants he was observing. They had rather simple characteristics and gene pairings and reproduced in ratios that any mind with a mathematical orientation might notice. Most plants have many other factors that influence their reproduction, and could not be noticed without more modern calculating machinery. If I remember correctly, he experimented at one time with mice, but being a monk, he was forced to give that up as his superiors thought that focused his mind too much on sex. Not sure if that was before or after the peas.
At any rate, most selective breeders probably paid little or no attention to ratios of reproduction, they only chose the characteristics they liked and discarded any others.
(Score: 1) by kvutza on Wednesday July 13 2022, @09:21PM
Mendel's work required to use math in biology. That was quite a new thing, unusual then and still decades after that.
BTW For those who don't know it: Mendel's work was refuted in his time and forgotten then. Therefore it had to be rediscovered again.