Comments on: Why didn’t Darwin discover Mendel’s laws?

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:13:46 +0000

I’ve always wondered about that myself. Thanks for answering it.

By: Earl S. Schaefer

Earl S. Schaefer — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:52:03 +0000

This discussion of Mendel has many implications for the development of a quantitative science of memes–cultural units. I have proposed a new scientic field of mememetrics–an empirical, quantitative, statistical approach to the study of memes, specifically a domain of ideologies or isms.
Quantitative scores for ideologies yield clear profiles for political party preferences, religious adherence, and domestic partnership as contrasted to marriage. By the way, Rush Limbaugh’s speech at the conservative meeting is a prototype of a conservative ideology.

By: Jim Thomerson

Jim Thomerson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:30:44 +0000

I do think there were differences of nature and background between Darwin and Mendel which are important. Darwin did not do well with algebra. Mendel had extensive knowledge of physics and mathematics. He thought in terms of the physics ideas of discrete particles and complex results from a few simple causes.

Having spent 30+ years teaching Mendelian genetics at the introductory level, I think Mendel’s ideas are difficult to grasp. Dominance really confuses the picture and requires an additional set of assumptions about dominant and recessive. I soon shifted to using some of the later examples where complete dominance is not present: yellow, cream, and white guinea pigs; red, pink and white four o’clock flowers, etc. Then coming back to Mendel and introducing dominance.

Should you get the chance, a visit to the Mendel Museum in the Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno is quite worthwhile.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:24:53 +0000

All very interesting comments. I would like to point out that although the details of genetics were not worked out by Darwin and Mendel had questions and limitations, etc., the basic concept of inheritance, of hidden traits, of dominant traits, of some of the complexities, etc. really did exist in many cultures at that time including in Eruope. It isn’t as though there was either no knowledge whatsoever or perfect knowledge.

What I got from this paper is that the imperfect knowledge is in a sense what was getting in the way.

Also eventually it will be understood that Mendel’s basic dom/recessive binary genetics does not actually explain much of the important stuff anyway.

By: Iain Davidson

Iain Davidson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:03:05 +0000

I made inquiries about the possible mutual knowledge between Darwin and Mendel (from the creator of a site called MendelWeb back in the 1990s <http://www.mendelweb.org/>) and was told that the copy of Origin in Mendel’s library is massively written on by Mendel (I suggested that someone should publish the annotations). I was, further, told that there was a copy of Mendel’s work in Darwin’s library–but the pages were uncut. So Darwin may not even have needed his poor understanding of German.

Iain

By: SLC

SLC — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:03:58 +0000

It is my understanding that a copy of Mendels’ paper was found among Darwins’ papers after his death but, because it was written in German and Darwin had only a poor understanding of German, he failed to realize the its importance. If the paper had been written in Latin or French, things might have been different.

By: Paper Hand

Paper Hand — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:30:51 +0000

What I find odd is that it wasn’t until the 19th century for genes to be discovered. It’s not like it required a certain technology to discover the concept. In principle, an ancient Roman could’ve discovered it. I find it odd that no one ever figured it out in the more distant past

By: Rose

Rose — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:57:44 +0000

I’m a lurker, but I’m willing to de-lurk to discuss history of science! I didn’t read the article though, so my thoughts might have been covered there and I’m just repeating others.

Mendel found that his laws of inheritance worked for seven traits in garden peas. His benefactor suggested that he try the experiment in another pea species, but that species was more complex genetically and had many more chromosomes than the garden pea. IIRC, Darwin did hear of Mendel’s laws, but because they didn’t hold true in all species, he regarded them merely as an interesting curiosity.