Gregor Mandel's Life And Life Of Gregor Mendel

On July 22, 1822, Gregor Mendel was born in Heinzendorf, Moravia of the Austrian Empire (present day Czechoslovakia). His family, who spoke German, was a farming family. While he was still young, he worked as a gardener. Ironically, farming did not suit him well, and Mendel did not plan to further his efforts in this particular field of work. Fortunately, Mendel caught the attention of one of his teachers with his intelligence. As a young man, he attended the Philosophical Institute in Olomouc. Eventually, however, Mendel could not bear the expense of his education, so he left the University. In 1843, Mendel decided to join the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno; his incentive was to attempt to elude his financial problem, as well as reside in an environment that promoted experimentation and education.1 It is very likely that Mendel never felt a religious calling but saw the order as a free way to further his studies. He remained with the Augustinian Abbey for the entirety of his life. While he lived in the Abbey, Mendel changed his first name from Johann to Gregor upon entering monastic life; he was later ordained as a priest in 1847. In 1851, he was transferred to the University of Vienna for studious purposes, and he returned to the Abbey in 1853. It was at the University of Vienna where Mendel acquired the scientific knowledge that made his research with plants and heredity possible. Gregor Mendel, whose studies were integral to the foundation of modern genetics, contributed to the preamble of scientific discovery that is seen today, causing revolutionary ideas and a resurgence in scientific progression.

Prior to Mendel’s work with pea plants, he bred mice. Since the local bishop deemed the breeding of the mice offensiv...

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...rded people, and Negroes reproducing. Many experiments were done on people who were in jail or committed a crime. Most white people agreed with these laws and didn’t mix with other races during that time. People were warned by being told that children of mixed marriages between contrasted races belong to the ‘lower type’. They also warned that racial mixing was “a social and racial crime.” Also that intermarriage would lead America toward “racial suicide” and the eventual disappearance of white civilization.

These ideas sparked from Gregor Mendel’s discovery on how genes are passed down from plant to plant and the same from human to human. Mendel’s discovery has affected many different things such as agriculture, eugenics in the United States of America, and has even helped people understand the theory of evolution better and answered many questions on the topic.