Question

Why was Mendel's work not recognized? Give any three reasons.

Answer 1

The general belief is that Mendel was a monk who worked alone in a scientifically isolated environment. His thesis was overlooked because it wasn't widely circulated, and he didn't make any attempt to promote himself.

Complete answer:
Mendel published his dissertation in 1866, explaining the behavior of unseen "factors"—now called genes—to predictably determine the characteristics of the organism. The profound importance of Mendel's work was not known until the turn of the 20th century (more than three decades later) when his laws were rediscovered.
Three botanists-Hugo DeVries, Carl Correns and Erich von Tschermak-rediscovered Mendel's work independently in the same year, a century after Mendel published his papers. They helped to raise knowledge of Mendelian heritage laws in the scientific world.

1. He used statistical methods and mathematical logic for the interpretation of the results. These techniques were unfamiliar to most biologists of the period.
2. The mind of biologists was concerned with Darwin's Theory of Evolution in his book Origin of Species.
3. Mendel did not have any physical evidence of the existence of variables.

Laws of inheritance were given by Gregor Mendel after his experiments on pea plants. He stated that traits are present in pairs and get inherited as separate units where each one comes from each parent.

Note: Law of Segregation by Mendel states that there are two alleles in an individual and thus passes one allele to offspring. Law of the Independent Assortment states that the inheritance of genes is independent of the inheritance of the opposite pair.