3. Principles of Inheritance

Question 1

Who is often regarded as the father of genetics? What did he do?

Answer 1

• Gregor Mendel
• crossed varieties of pea plants that had different characteristics and, from his results, he deduced the principles on which inheritance is based

Question 2

Was Gregor Mendel the first to attempt to deduce the principles of inheritance? If not, why was he successful?

Answer 2

• no
• he obtained numerical rather than descriptive results
• and used large numbers of pea plants (it is important in science to have enough replicates to ensure reliability)

e.g. in ‘seed=smooth/wrinkled’ example, he counted 7,324 seeds in F2 generation:
- smooth: 5,474
- wrinkled: 1,850
with such large numbers, he could be very confident that the basic ration was 3:1