Question

Why did Mendel’s work remain unrecognized from 1865 to 1900?

Answer 1

Hint: Mendel is known as the father of genetics. He was the first person to describe a biological theory by using mathematical and statistical explanation.

Complete answer: Mendel's work remained unrecognized from 1865 to 1900. The reasons are as follows:
1. The communication procedure to publish a research work was not easy in those days and his work got lack of publicity.
2. His concept of genes as stable and discrete units that controlled the expression of traits and of the pair of alleles that did not blend with each other was not accepted by other scientists of that time as an explanation for the apparently continuous variation that is generally seen in nature.
3. Mendel was the first person to approach using mathematics to explain biological phenomena, which was totally new concept so it was unacceptable to many of the biologists of that time. He could not provide any physical proof for the existence of factors, a discrete unit, and what they were made of. So, it was unacceptable.
4. A Punnett square is a graphical representation of the possible genotypes of an offspring arising from a particular cross – this was a totally new concept at that time.
5. Scientists at that time were engaged to evaluate Darwin's work and his theory of evolution and Mendel's theories of inheritance and heredity was just opposite to that of Darwin's theories. So, it was unrecognized.

Note: Later, Hugo de Vries explained and established the concept of Mendel, and the factor mentioned by Mendel was recognized as gene and thus, Mendel’s theory of inheritance got acceptance.