Question

Who is called the father of genetics?
(a) Charles Darwin
(b) Gregor Mendel
(c) Aristotle
(d) Robert Hooke

Answer 1

He was an Austrian monk who experimented on garden pea and gave the basic principles and laws of inheritance. The works of this scientist were rediscovered by three scientists namely Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich von Tschermak.

Complete answer:
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) is widely considered as the father of experimental genetics for his pioneer work in the field of genetics. He experimented on pea plants (Pisum Sativum) and discovered the basic rules of inheritance of genes.
There are three laws of inheritance proposed by Mendel:
(1) Law of dominance – It states that in heterozygous conditions, among the two alleles of a character, the allele which expresses itself is dominant and the one which can’t express is recessive.
(2) Law of segregation – It states that although the alleles of a character remain together for a long time they do not mix with each other and separate at the time of gametogenesis. This results in the gametes having only one allele of a particular character or trait, either dominant or recessive.
(3) Law of Independent assortment – It states that the alleles of a character can undergo any sort of combination to give rise to a phenotype that may be different from both the parents.
Charles Darwin, an English naturalist also proposed his theory, Darwinism, a theory of biological evolution. It states that all species of organisms develop through natural selection. Jean Baptiste Lamarck proposed the theory Lamarckism in 1809. It states that the variations in any organ acquired by an organism are the result of the use or disuse of that organ and can pass from one generation to another. T.H. Morgan was an eminent biologist who studied inheritance in fruit fly after the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance.
So, the correct answer is, “Father of genetics is Gregor Mendel.”

Note: There are a few exceptions to the laws of Mendel: Multiple alleles- Mendel studied just two alleles of his pea genes, but real populations often have multiple alleles of a given gene. Incomplete dominance - When the two different alleles are present they will produce a phenotype which is a mixture of both alleles instead of producing only one phenotype from the allele. Codominance- Two alleles may be simultaneously expressed when both are present, rather than one allele fully determining the phenotype. Sex linkage- Genes closely situated, carried on sex chromosomes of humans, show different inheritance patterns than genes on autosomal (non-sex) chromosomes.