Mendelian controversies: A botanical and historical review

Gregor Mendel was a 19(th) century priest and botanist who developed the fu ndamental laws of inheritance. The year 2000 marked a century since the red iscovery of those laws and the beginning of genetics. Although Mendel is no w recognized as the founder of genetics, significant controversy ensued abo ut his work throughout the 2(th) century. In this paper, we review five of the most contentious issues by looking at the historical record through the lens of current botanical science: (1) Are Mendel's data too good to be tr ue? (2) Is Mendel's description of his experiments fictitious? (3) Did Mend el articulate the laws of inheritance attributed to him? (4) Did Mendel det ect but not mention linkage? (5) Did Mendel support or oppose Darwin? A synthesis of botanical and historical evidence supports our conclusions: Mendel did not fabricate his data, his description of his experiments is li teral, he articulated the laws of inheritance attributed to him insofar as was possible given the information he had, he did not detect linkage, and h e neither strongly supported nor opposed Darwin.