Why Is Mendel Called The Father Of Genetics ?
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Gregor Mendel is called the father of genetics because he was the first person in the world to observe the fact that characteristics were passed on from the parents to the children. However, he did not take much interest in human characteristics. He had more interest in the plants. Also, he realized that it was a lot easier to study certain types of plants.
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He knew that passing down traits also existed in plants, and that is why he chose to study plants. He did try studying animals, but he was not successful with his attempt.
Gregor Mendel was accredited with the title, father of genetics, much later after his death. Until the 1900s, nobody from the scientific community was really interested in his theory, and several scientists rubbished it.
Only in the 19th century there was a breakthrough in this field when three individual scientists from Germany and France observed the same phenomenon in their individual ways. Later, the monastery in which Gregor Mendel lived in Austria decided to publicize his findings. That is when it was known that Gregor Mendel was the first person to observe that there was something called heredity, and that parental characteristic traits were passed down to the offsprings.
The findings of Gregor Mendel were also used by Charles Darwin to support his theory of natural selection and also the theory of survival of the fittest. Even Darwin always knew that there was something in all species which makes them sustainable to change, and he called it evolution. After Gregor Mendel discovered the heredity units, or genes as we know them today, even the theory of evolution changed.
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