By the time students reach this course, they have either encountered Mendel in their high school biology course or, at Mercer with our above 50% pre-health track, they have taken both the introduction to biology and likely an advanced genetics class. Mendel’s inclusion in the Mercer list of “great books” allows the students to see how an example of science in the nineteenth century had begun the move to rigorous scientific methodology and a willingness to follow the findings wherever they may lead.
Mendel, an Augustinian monk – like Martin Luther – whose scientific interests were broad, performed a multi-year study of pea plants within the confines of the monastery. Monks generally have tasks they are required to perform within the monastic life for the proper functioning of the monastery. In most cases, the task is aligned with the monk’s interests. In this case, Mendel the naturalist is also a monk. Given the time, space, and resources, he sets out to understand how traits within plants – here specifically – peas move from one generation to another. Farmers had for generations worked at genetics. Hardy plant or livestock traits that produced the results the farmer needed were utilized in the next cycle, and as best as possible, weaker traits were removed. In the now famous 3 to 1 framework, Mendel “discovered” that dominant traits are important but that recessive traits can be “passed” through generations (inherited) until those traits appear in the right set of circumstances. The longterm study revealed through detailed documentation and statistical analysis that creation, at least in peas, was anything but ordered and fixed. Though Mendel is contemporary with Darwin, his work fell into that wonderful academic category of interesting but not groundbreaking. The “father of genetics” was almost forgotten. The paper can be daunting in both its level of detail and its its now highly mediated reception. The scientific challenge to faith claims that dominated the nineteenth century, however, is the equal to Darwin’s work.
Great Books 407 