WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.480 Imagine you're sitting in this really stuffy, 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:05.879 intimidating room. You're gripping a pen. You're 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:07.820 sweating through your clothes, just trying to 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:10.539 pass a high school teaching exam. Oh, the anxiety? 00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:13.679 Right. And you fail, not just once, but twice. 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:17.399 You are officially deemed entirely unqualified 00:00:17.399 --> 00:00:20.039 to teach. Which is pretty brutal. It's so brutal. 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:22.699 But what the examiners don't know is that you, 00:00:22.780 --> 00:00:24.920 you know, the guy who just bombed this oral exam, 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:28.910 have quietly cracked the fundamental source code 00:00:28.910 --> 00:00:31.190 of biological life. Yeah, you figured out the 00:00:31.190 --> 00:00:33.310 rules that govern literally every living thing 00:00:33.310 --> 00:00:35.789 on earth. Exactly, but the entire scientific 00:00:35.789 --> 00:00:38.229 world is just gonna, well, they're just gonna 00:00:38.229 --> 00:00:41.210 completely ignore you. It is. It's probably the 00:00:41.210 --> 00:00:43.929 ultimate historical irony. The person who maps 00:00:43.929 --> 00:00:46.609 out the blueprint of heredity is practically 00:00:46.609 --> 00:00:48.710 invisible to the scientific establishment of 00:00:48.710 --> 00:00:51.969 his own time. Welcome to today's Deep Dive. Today, 00:00:51.990 --> 00:00:55.189 we're taking a massive stack of research, specifically 00:00:55.189 --> 00:00:58.350 this really comprehensive Wikipedia article tracing 00:00:58.350 --> 00:01:00.649 the life of Gregor Mendel, and we're trying to 00:01:00.649 --> 00:01:04.549 figure out how a 19th century friar, like a substitute 00:01:04.549 --> 00:01:07.469 teacher with major test anxiety, went from an 00:01:07.469 --> 00:01:10.909 obscure farm to posthumously becoming the father 00:01:10.909 --> 00:01:12.909 of modern genetics. Yeah, it's quite a journey. 00:01:13.129 --> 00:01:15.670 Okay, let's unpack this, because it is shocking 00:01:15.670 --> 00:01:18.170 that someone who laid the foundation for modern 00:01:18.170 --> 00:01:21.049 biology was just, you know, quietly working in 00:01:21.049 --> 00:01:23.329 a monastery garden. What we are really looking 00:01:23.329 --> 00:01:26.370 at today is this wild intersection of raw genius, 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:30.769 a very strange kind of luck, and the very real 00:01:30.769 --> 00:01:32.989 danger of being just too far ahead of your time. 00:01:33.030 --> 00:01:35.030 Yeah. Because mental story totally challenges 00:01:35.030 --> 00:01:37.769 this comforting idea we have that science always 00:01:37.769 --> 00:01:40.109 immediately recognizes and rewards great discovery. 00:01:40.409 --> 00:01:42.370 Right, like the genius always gets the parade, 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:45.280 but. To really get why he ended up in that garden 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:47.159 with the famous pea plants, we have to look at 00:01:47.159 --> 00:01:49.120 where he started. Because you might think he 00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:51.239 was born into Victorian high society with a private 00:01:51.239 --> 00:01:54.480 laboratory. Oh, not at all. No. He was born Johann 00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:58.319 Mendel in 1822 into a German speaking family 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:00.659 in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire, 00:02:01.180 --> 00:02:04.640 which is... today's Czech Republic, and his family 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:07.319 had lived and worked on the exact same farm for 00:02:07.319 --> 00:02:09.979 at least 130 years. Yeah, a century and a half 00:02:09.979 --> 00:02:12.659 of grueling physical labor. I mean, that shapes 00:02:12.659 --> 00:02:14.759 a person's entire worldview. Well, definitely. 00:02:14.860 --> 00:02:17.159 It was a life of constant financial struggle. 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:19.360 He was clearly brilliant from a really young 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:22.599 age. But paying for his education was this perpetual 00:02:22.599 --> 00:02:25.319 crisis for the family. And there's this one detail 00:02:25.319 --> 00:02:27.740 from the source that just stopped me in my tracks. 00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:30.639 His younger sister, Theresia, actually gave up 00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:33.590 her own dow - to fund his education. Wow. Right? 00:02:34.069 --> 00:02:36.810 In the 19th century, a woman's dowry was her 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:39.590 livelihood. It was her entire security net. And 00:02:39.590 --> 00:02:41.650 she surrendered that so her brother could study. 00:02:41.830 --> 00:02:44.289 It speaks volumes about the sheer undeniable 00:02:44.289 --> 00:02:47.469 potential his family saw in him. He carried the 00:02:47.469 --> 00:02:49.590 weight of that sacrifice his whole life. I can't 00:02:49.590 --> 00:02:51.770 even imagine that pressure. Yeah, he actually 00:02:51.770 --> 00:02:54.110 ended up helping support her three sons later 00:02:54.110 --> 00:02:56.689 on, two of whom became doctors. Oh, that's incredible. 00:02:57.069 --> 00:03:00.020 But even with her dowry... The financial strain 00:03:00.020 --> 00:03:03.020 of surviving as a student was just crushing him. 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:06.680 So he makes this deeply practical, almost survival 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:09.979 -based decision. He joins the Order of St. Augustine. 00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:12.479 He becomes a monk. And reading his own words 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:15.280 on this, it wasn't driven by some intense burning 00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:17.699 religious zeal, right? Well, exactly, no. He 00:03:17.699 --> 00:03:20.659 wrote that monastic life spared him the perpetual 00:03:20.659 --> 00:03:23.710 anxiety about a means of livelihood. Which makes 00:03:23.710 --> 00:03:26.689 total sense. St. Thomas's Abbey in Brono offered 00:03:26.689 --> 00:03:29.490 a secure roof over his head, regular meals, and 00:03:29.490 --> 00:03:33.610 most importantly, free education. Yeah. And we 00:03:33.610 --> 00:03:35.729 should note, the monastery wasn't just a place 00:03:35.729 --> 00:03:38.669 of quiet prayer. It was a major intellectual 00:03:38.669 --> 00:03:40.710 hub in the region. I was thinking about this, 00:03:40.729 --> 00:03:42.729 and it's basically like landing the ultimate 00:03:42.729 --> 00:03:44.909 all -inclusive research grant. That is a great 00:03:44.909 --> 00:03:47.349 way to put it. You get room, board, and access 00:03:47.349 --> 00:03:50.330 to this massive garden. But this is where he 00:03:50.330 --> 00:03:52.699 hits that wall we talked about. Despite his Obvious 00:03:52.699 --> 00:03:54.919 brilliance. He takes the exam to become a certified 00:03:54.919 --> 00:03:57.520 high school teacher in 1850. And he fails the 00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:00.319 oral part. So the abbot sends him to the University 00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:03.080 of Vienna to get more formal education. He comes 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:07.379 back, takes the exam again in 1856, and fails 00:04:07.379 --> 00:04:10.340 the oral part a second time. Just brutal test 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:12.879 anxiety. Seriously. But it makes you wonder. 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:16.399 Is it possible his failure as a teacher was the 00:04:16.399 --> 00:04:19.060 only reason he had the time to become a groundbreaking 00:04:19.060 --> 00:04:21.439 scientist? Honestly, it's highly probable. I 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:23.879 mean, if he had passed and become a fully certified 00:04:23.879 --> 00:04:26.439 teacher, he would have been buried under a heavy 00:04:26.439 --> 00:04:29.240 teaching load and administrative duties much 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:31.959 earlier in his life. Yeah, grading papers all 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:35.060 night instead of growing peas. Exactly. But that 00:04:35.060 --> 00:04:37.420 failure did something else, too. It pushed him 00:04:37.420 --> 00:04:39.740 toward the exact education he needed to break 00:04:39.740 --> 00:04:42.939 the mold of 19th century biology. How so? Well, 00:04:42.939 --> 00:04:44.720 when the abbot sent him to the University of 00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:47.560 Vienna, Mendel studied physics under a man named 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:50.620 Christian Doppler. Hold on, Doppler. As in the 00:04:50.620 --> 00:04:52.879 ambulance siren Doppler effect? The very same. 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:54.980 What does a physics guy have to do with breeding 00:04:54.980 --> 00:04:57.980 plants? That is the crucial turning point. because 00:04:57.980 --> 00:05:00.680 Doppler instilled in Mendel a rigid mathematical 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:02.980 and statistical approach to the natural world. 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:06.300 And this is the actual mechanism behind Mendel's 00:05:06.300 --> 00:05:09.500 success. Biologists of the time observed plants 00:05:09.500 --> 00:05:12.459 by looking at colors and shapes, writing qualitative 00:05:12.459 --> 00:05:14.399 descriptions. And writing poetry about leaves. 00:05:14.540 --> 00:05:16.560 Right. They treated biology like an art form. 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:20.660 But Mendel, trained by a physicist, treated biology 00:05:20.660 --> 00:05:24.019 like math. He didn't just look at plants, he 00:05:24.019 --> 00:05:26.639 meticulously counted them and looked for statistical 00:05:26.639 --> 00:05:29.689 probabilities. Armed with this mathematical mind 00:05:29.689 --> 00:05:31.889 and safely tucked away at the Abbey after failing 00:05:31.889 --> 00:05:35.230 his exams, Mendel begins his work. And this leads 00:05:35.230 --> 00:05:37.610 to one of the most anti -climactic scientific 00:05:37.610 --> 00:05:40.050 debuts in human history. It really does. Between 00:05:40.050 --> 00:05:44.029 1856 and 1863, he uses the monastery's two -hectare 00:05:44.029 --> 00:05:47.250 experimental garden to cultivate about 28 ,000 00:05:47.250 --> 00:05:50.149 pea plants. 28 ,000. I mean, try to visualize 00:05:50.149 --> 00:05:53.250 the sheer scale of that labor. Insane. Planting, 00:05:53.529 --> 00:05:55.870 cross -pollinating by hand with a tiny paintbrush. 00:05:56.170 --> 00:05:58.850 harvesting and then counting every single pea 00:05:58.850 --> 00:06:00.970 over seven years. It is staggering dedication. 00:06:01.189 --> 00:06:03.769 And he focuses on seven specific traits, things 00:06:03.769 --> 00:06:06.250 like seed shape round or wrinkled in seed color 00:06:06.250 --> 00:06:09.110 like yellow or green. And here is where the physics 00:06:09.110 --> 00:06:12.910 mindset changes everything. He takes a true breeding 00:06:12.910 --> 00:06:15.889 yellow pea plant and a true breeding green pea 00:06:15.889 --> 00:06:19.540 plant and he crosses them. Now, at the time, 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.399 the prevailing theory was blending inheritance, 00:06:22.600 --> 00:06:25.560 right? Yes. The idea was that biological traits 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:28.000 were like liquids. So if you mix yellow paint 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.300 and green paint, you get a yellowish -green paint. 00:06:30.819 --> 00:06:33.959 Exactly. So scientists expected a yellowish -green 00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:36.220 pea. But instead, the resulting generation of 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:40.420 peas was 100 % yellow. Every single one. The 00:06:40.420 --> 00:06:42.959 green didn't blend. It completely vanished. This 00:06:42.959 --> 00:06:45.240 is wild. So weird. But he doesn't stop there. 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:48.000 He takes that new generation of all yellow peas 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.500 and breeds them with each other. And suddenly, 00:06:50.819 --> 00:06:53.079 the green peas reappear. Yes. But they don't 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:55.959 just reappear randomly. They return in a strict 00:06:55.959 --> 00:06:59.339 mathematical ratio. Three yellow peas for every 00:06:59.339 --> 00:07:02.300 one green pea. And this is the massive aha moment 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:04.860 that destroyed the blending theory. Because if 00:07:04.860 --> 00:07:07.040 traits were like liquid paint, you could never 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:09.639 unmix that yellowish green back into pure green. 00:07:09.819 --> 00:07:11.980 Right, you can't unstir the bucket. Exactly. 00:07:13.079 --> 00:07:15.220 The fact that the green trait could vanish entirely 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:17.740 for a generation and then magically reappear 00:07:17.740 --> 00:07:20.779 wholly intact proved that biological traits aren't 00:07:20.779 --> 00:07:22.860 liquid at all. They are like a deck of cards. 00:07:22.899 --> 00:07:24.899 You can shuffle them, deal them out, and even 00:07:24.899 --> 00:07:26.980 if a green P card is hidden at the bottom of 00:07:26.980 --> 00:07:30.279 the deck for a whole generation, it's still a 00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:33.250 distinct indestructible card that can be dealt 00:07:33.250 --> 00:07:35.310 again later. That is a perfect way to look at 00:07:35.310 --> 00:07:38.970 it. He realized traits are passed down as distinct 00:07:38.970 --> 00:07:41.889 invisible packages of information. Which we call 00:07:41.889 --> 00:07:45.490 genes today. Right. And he coined the terms dominant 00:07:45.490 --> 00:07:48.689 and recessive. The yellow was a dominant card 00:07:48.689 --> 00:07:51.810 masking the recessive green card until the math 00:07:51.810 --> 00:07:54.649 aligned to bring the green back. And from this 00:07:54.649 --> 00:07:57.939 he formulates two massive concepts. The law of 00:07:57.939 --> 00:08:00.259 segregation, which basically says those two cards, 00:08:00.500 --> 00:08:02.620 one from each parent separate when forming pollen 00:08:02.620 --> 00:08:04.899 or eggs. Yep. So an offspring only gets one from 00:08:04.899 --> 00:08:07.560 each. And then the law of independent assortment, 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:09.879 meaning the card for P color is dealt completely 00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:11.980 independently of the card for P shape. The universe 00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:14.579 is basically playing biological poker and he 00:08:14.579 --> 00:08:16.779 just figured out the rules of the deal. It is 00:08:16.779 --> 00:08:19.980 a monumental world changing breakthrough. So 00:08:19.980 --> 00:08:22.759 he has the goods. He's cracked the code. Yes. 00:08:23.019 --> 00:08:26.160 In 1865, he presents his findings to the Natural 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:29.139 History Society of Bruno. There are about 40 00:08:29.139 --> 00:08:31.699 scientists in the room. He lays out the math, 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:34.720 the P's, the laws. He publishes the paper in 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:38.809 1866 and the result. Nothing. A few local newspapers 00:08:38.809 --> 00:08:40.950 write a nice little report and then absolute 00:08:40.950 --> 00:08:43.690 deafening silence. It gets cited barely three 00:08:43.690 --> 00:08:46.129 times over the next 35 years. It's unbelievable. 00:08:46.350 --> 00:08:48.870 Even Charles Darwin, who was desperately looking 00:08:48.870 --> 00:08:51.070 for a mechanism to explain his own theory of 00:08:51.070 --> 00:08:53.450 evolution, completely missed it. It is a profound 00:08:53.450 --> 00:08:56.370 tragedy of scientific history because Darwin 00:08:56.370 --> 00:08:58.850 was relying on a highly flawed concept called 00:08:58.850 --> 00:09:02.070 pangenesis to try and explain inheritance. Right. 00:09:02.330 --> 00:09:04.809 Which was causing major holes in his evolutionary 00:09:04.809 --> 00:09:07.009 theory. I mean, if Darwin had read Mendel's paper, 00:09:07.309 --> 00:09:09.570 the entire modern synthesis of evolutionary biology 00:09:09.570 --> 00:09:11.330 might have happened decades earlier. Wait, so 00:09:11.330 --> 00:09:13.429 he hands them the foundational rules of heredity, 00:09:13.529 --> 00:09:15.830 and a room full of 40 scientists just shrugs. 00:09:15.990 --> 00:09:18.009 It's like posting the formula for cold fusion 00:09:18.009 --> 00:09:20.190 online, getting zero likes, and having it go 00:09:20.190 --> 00:09:22.909 viral 35 years after you die. Yeah. How does 00:09:22.909 --> 00:09:26.629 nobody get it? The issue was the power of a prevailing 00:09:26.629 --> 00:09:30.019 paradigm. The biologist listening to him deeply 00:09:30.019 --> 00:09:32.779 believed in that blending inheritance idea. The 00:09:32.779 --> 00:09:34.919 paint mixing. Right. So when Mendel comes in 00:09:34.919 --> 00:09:37.840 talking about invisible mathematical factors 00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:40.919 that perfectly segregate according to algebraic 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:43.639 formulas, it simply did not fit their cognitive 00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:45.879 framework. They just tuned him out. They thought 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:49.059 he was just presenting a hyper -specific, somewhat 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:51.980 tedious paper on how to hybridize a pea plant 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:55.019 to get better crop yields. They literally lacked 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:58.259 the scientific vocabulary, to understand what 00:09:58.259 --> 00:10:00.500 he was showing them. Wow. But Mendel knew what 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:03.200 he had. The source mentions he famously told 00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:06.340 his friend, Gustav von Niesel, my time will come. 00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:09.460 He had a quiet confidence, yeah. But the silence 00:10:09.460 --> 00:10:11.220 from the scientific community definitely took 00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:14.110 a toll on him. Being ignored by your peers is 00:10:14.110 --> 00:10:16.289 incredibly isolating, which brings us to his 00:10:16.289 --> 00:10:18.730 later scientific misadventures. Right, because 00:10:18.730 --> 00:10:21.009 the world ignored his pee data, you can imagine 00:10:21.009 --> 00:10:23.450 Mendel thinking, OK, maybe I just need to prove 00:10:23.450 --> 00:10:26.070 this works in other species. Which leads to a 00:10:26.070 --> 00:10:29.490 series of deeply frustrating experiments. First, 00:10:29.529 --> 00:10:32.169 he tries to replicate his findings using a plant 00:10:32.169 --> 00:10:36.210 called hawkweed. Oh, the hawkweed. He corresponded 00:10:36.210 --> 00:10:38.490 with Carl Nagelli. a leading biologist of the 00:10:38.490 --> 00:10:40.870 time who actually encouraged him to use Hawkeye. 00:10:40.889 --> 00:10:43.549 What is a disaster? A complete disaster. The 00:10:43.549 --> 00:10:46.889 offspring were wildly inconsistent. Nothing matched 00:10:46.889 --> 00:10:49.190 those beautiful three to one ratios he saw in 00:10:49.190 --> 00:10:51.429 the peas. Really? Yeah, the first generation 00:10:51.429 --> 00:10:54.370 was highly variable and the next generation just 00:10:54.370 --> 00:10:57.470 looked exactly like the mother plant. It defied 00:10:57.470 --> 00:10:59.870 all the rules he had just discovered. It's like 00:10:59.870 --> 00:11:02.629 trying to figure out how two parents mix paint 00:11:02.629 --> 00:11:05.210 colors by studying a photocopier. That's a great 00:11:05.210 --> 00:11:07.309 analogy. Because he thought the hawkweed was 00:11:07.309 --> 00:11:09.669 blending treats, but it was just hitting copy 00:11:09.669 --> 00:11:12.769 on the mother plant. He picked the absolute worst 00:11:12.769 --> 00:11:14.850 plant to validate his theory without knowing 00:11:14.850 --> 00:11:16.850 the biological rules were rigged against him. 00:11:17.129 --> 00:11:19.370 Because what neither Mendel nor Nagley knew at 00:11:19.370 --> 00:11:21.730 the time, since it wasn't discovered until the 00:11:21.730 --> 00:11:24.330 end of the century, is that many hawkweed species 00:11:24.330 --> 00:11:27.350 are often apomictic. Apomictic. I mean, they 00:11:27.350 --> 00:11:31.460 produce seeds asexually. The plant was essentially 00:11:31.460 --> 00:11:34.279 cloning itself. It wasn't combining traits from 00:11:34.279 --> 00:11:37.220 two parents at all. Oh man, that's rough. You 00:11:37.220 --> 00:11:39.600 can have the perfect theory, but if you test 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:42.500 it on the wrong model organism, the data will 00:11:42.500 --> 00:11:44.600 make you feel like you are losing your mind. 00:11:44.970 --> 00:11:48.289 The emotional toll of that self -doubt on Mendel 00:11:48.289 --> 00:11:50.710 must have been immense. It didn't go much better 00:11:50.710 --> 00:11:54.129 when he moved on to animals. He bred bees. Yes, 00:11:54.149 --> 00:11:56.830 the bees. He actually designed custom hives and 00:11:56.830 --> 00:11:58.830 affectionately called them my dearest little 00:11:58.830 --> 00:12:02.529 animals. But the specific breeds he used, Cyprian 00:12:02.529 --> 00:12:05.610 and Carniolan bees, were incredibly aggressive. 00:12:05.870 --> 00:12:08.110 Very aggressive. They annoyed the other monks 00:12:08.110 --> 00:12:10.350 and the monastery visitors so much that he was 00:12:10.350 --> 00:12:12.649 eventually forced to get rid of them. It paints 00:12:12.649 --> 00:12:14.769 a very human picture of life at the Abbey, doesn't 00:12:14.769 --> 00:12:16.419 it? You can almost see the other monks complaining 00:12:16.419 --> 00:12:18.139 about getting stung every time they cross the 00:12:18.139 --> 00:12:21.679 courtyard. Right. Gregor, please! The bees! But 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:24.240 speaking of animal experiments, there is a persistent 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:26.779 myth we need to clear up from the source. Ugh. 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:29.799 The mouse myth. Yeah, there is a very popular 00:12:29.799 --> 00:12:32.500 story that Mendel started breeding mice to study 00:12:32.500 --> 00:12:35.440 their traits, but Abbot Knapp, the guy who sponsored 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:38.340 his education, banned him from doing it. Right, 00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:41.399 because observing rodent sex was supposedly unseemly 00:12:41.399 --> 00:12:44.340 for a celibate priest. Exactly. It is a colorful 00:12:44.340 --> 00:12:49.100 story, but a 2022 biography by Daniel Fairbanks 00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:52.610 entirely debunked it. Really? How so? It makes 00:12:52.610 --> 00:12:55.490 no historical sense, because Abbot Knapp himself 00:12:55.490 --> 00:12:59.009 personally oversaw a sheep breeding on the monastery's 00:12:59.009 --> 00:13:01.590 vast agricultural estate. Oh, so he wasn't exactly 00:13:01.590 --> 00:13:04.529 prudish about farm life. No, he understood animal 00:13:04.529 --> 00:13:06.649 husbandry perfectly well and wouldn't have been 00:13:06.649 --> 00:13:08.629 offended by mice reproducing. It makes sense. 00:13:08.850 --> 00:13:10.909 But you can imagine the sheer burnout setting 00:13:10.909 --> 00:13:13.070 in for Memble. He's been ignored by the establishment, 00:13:13.289 --> 00:13:15.549 his hawkweed is cloning itself, the monks are 00:13:15.549 --> 00:13:17.990 sick of his aggressive bees. It was a lot. So 00:13:17.990 --> 00:13:20.169 when the opportunity comes to step up as Abbott 00:13:20.169 --> 00:13:23.409 in 1868, he takes it. His scientific work basically 00:13:23.409 --> 00:13:25.590 ends because he gets completely bogged down in 00:13:25.590 --> 00:13:28.049 administrative duties and a massive tax dispute 00:13:28.049 --> 00:13:29.830 with the civil government. Which is a tragic 00:13:29.830 --> 00:13:33.200 loss for science. He dies in 1884 from nephritis 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:36.559 at age 61. And then suddenly, at the turn of 00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:39.440 the 20th century, the world catches up. Yes. 00:13:39.700 --> 00:13:42.559 In the spring of 1900, the dam finally breaks. 00:13:43.340 --> 00:13:46.659 Three scientists Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, 00:13:46.980 --> 00:13:50.399 and Erich von Schermack all independently duplicated 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:52.899 Mendel's work. Yeah. And de Vries and Correns 00:13:52.899 --> 00:13:54.620 realized they had been beaten to the punch by 00:13:54.620 --> 00:13:57.940 35 years and openly acknowledged Mendel's priority. 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:01.399 This triggered an explosion of research and basically 00:14:01.399 --> 00:14:04.000 the birth of modern genetics. But his vindication 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:07.159 came with a massive academic turf war and eventually 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:09.879 a shocking accusation of fraud. Yeah, the biological 00:14:09.879 --> 00:14:12.179 world split into two warring camps. Over the 00:14:12.179 --> 00:14:14.460 P's. Over the implications. You had the biometricians 00:14:14.460 --> 00:14:17.159 who still focused on continuous statistical variations 00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:19.840 and traits and the Mendelians who advocated for 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:22.820 Mendel's discrete invisible genes. Okay. It was 00:14:22.820 --> 00:14:25.259 incredibly heated until a brilliant statistician 00:14:25.259 --> 00:14:27.879 named R .A. Fisher combined both approaches in 00:14:27.879 --> 00:14:31.509 19 - But then in 1936, this same R .A. Fisher 00:14:31.509 --> 00:14:34.450 drops a bomb on Mendel's legacy. He does. He 00:14:34.450 --> 00:14:37.769 deeply analyzes Mendel's original P data and 00:14:37.769 --> 00:14:40.450 declares that the 3 to 1 ratios are statistically 00:14:40.450 --> 00:14:43.470 too good to be true. Right. He essentially argues 00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:46.289 that in the real messy world of nature, you don't 00:14:46.289 --> 00:14:49.129 get perfectly clean mathematical ratios. There 00:14:49.129 --> 00:14:52.549 is always statistical noise. Fisher called the 00:14:52.549 --> 00:14:56.299 data abominable and cooked. which is a huge accusation, 00:14:56.840 --> 00:14:58.919 and this gave rise to what became known as the 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:01.860 Mendelian paradox. Which is what? Well, on one 00:15:01.860 --> 00:15:05.100 hand, Mendel's data seemed statistically implausible 00:15:05.100 --> 00:15:07.580 under Fisher's microscope. On the other hand, 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:09.600 everything known about Mendel's character, his 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.629 meticulous nature, and his monastic life suggested 00:15:12.629 --> 00:15:14.629 he wasn't a fraud. It really makes you wonder, 00:15:14.789 --> 00:15:16.750 though, as a human being. If you know you've 00:15:16.750 --> 00:15:18.870 discovered a universal truth, but the establishment 00:15:18.870 --> 00:15:21.830 is too stubborn to look at your messy data, is 00:15:21.830 --> 00:15:24.190 it ever ethically okay to just clean it up a 00:15:24.190 --> 00:15:25.990 little to force them to pay attention? That's 00:15:25.990 --> 00:15:28.370 the big question. Scholars debated this for decades. 00:15:28.450 --> 00:15:31.009 Some argued there was a moral imperative at play, 00:15:31.370 --> 00:15:33.830 that this working -class little -known friar 00:15:33.830 --> 00:15:36.889 deliberately smoothed his data just to break 00:15:36.889 --> 00:15:39.549 through the social prejudices of an elite scientific 00:15:39.549 --> 00:15:44.500 audience. between objective, unvarnished data 00:15:44.500 --> 00:15:47.980 reporting and the human reality of trying to 00:15:47.980 --> 00:15:51.039 persuade a deeply skeptical establishment. It's 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:53.659 a fascinating dilemma. It really is. However, 00:15:54.220 --> 00:15:56.559 we have to look at the resolution of this paradox 00:15:56.559 --> 00:15:59.440 because it turns out we don't have to question 00:15:59.440 --> 00:16:03.240 his ethics after all. Right. Modern statistical 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:06.059 analysis, particularly a comprehensive review 00:16:06.059 --> 00:16:10.059 in 2007 and 2008 by Daniel Hartl and Daniel Fairbanks, 00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:12.799 completely exonerated Mendel. Completely cleared 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:15.960 his name. Yes. They proved that Fisher had actually 00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:18.100 misinterpreted Mendel's experimental design. 00:16:18.340 --> 00:16:21.100 How did Fisher get it wrong? Well, Fisher assumed 00:16:21.100 --> 00:16:23.059 Mendel was evaluating all the plants at once. 00:16:23.720 --> 00:16:26.019 But Mendel was actually evaluating them sequentially 00:16:26.019 --> 00:16:28.559 and stopping when he was satisfied with the classification. 00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:31.240 Ah, I see. When analyzed with that context in 00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:33.440 mind, Mendel's data is perfectly within the realm 00:16:33.440 --> 00:16:36.460 of statistical probability. There was no deliberate 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:38.779 fraud. He didn't cook the books to fit a moral 00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:41.350 imperative. He just did good science. So it took 00:16:41.350 --> 00:16:43.710 over a century just to clear his name statistically, 00:16:43.850 --> 00:16:45.909 but it took even longer to prove him right on 00:16:45.909 --> 00:16:48.230 a molecular level. You really did. And this is 00:16:48.230 --> 00:16:50.590 where the story hits the modern day. Because 00:16:50.590 --> 00:16:53.909 those invisible factors Mendel discovered. The 00:16:53.909 --> 00:16:57.429 actual physical genes in the pea plant. The very 00:16:57.429 --> 00:16:59.590 last of those seven traits wasn't fully mapped 00:16:59.590 --> 00:17:03.070 to its specific gene until 2025. Think about 00:17:03.070 --> 00:17:06.849 that. The process took over 150 years of continuous 00:17:06.849 --> 00:17:09.470 scientific advancement. That's staggering. For 00:17:09.470 --> 00:17:12.309 example, the trait for wrinkled peas was finally 00:17:12.309 --> 00:17:15.009 identified as an insertion in what's called the 00:17:15.009 --> 00:17:18.869 PSBE1 gene. and the yellow P color was tracked 00:17:18.869 --> 00:17:23.109 down to a mutation in the PSSGR gene. The sheer 00:17:23.109 --> 00:17:25.650 persistence of science to finally sequence the 00:17:25.650 --> 00:17:28.470 exact molecular DNA that Mendel observed with 00:17:28.470 --> 00:17:31.980 his naked eye is astounding. It totally validates 00:17:31.980 --> 00:17:34.099 his mathematical models on a microscopic level. 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:35.859 But we also have to talk about the dark side 00:17:35.859 --> 00:17:38.259 of this history, because the consequences of 00:17:38.259 --> 00:17:40.180 rejecting Mendel's science haven't just been 00:17:40.180 --> 00:17:42.339 academic debates. They have been historically 00:17:42.339 --> 00:17:44.900 catastrophic. This is a crucial part of the historical 00:17:44.900 --> 00:17:47.099 record provided in our source. Right. In the 00:17:47.099 --> 00:17:49.240 Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, 00:17:49.700 --> 00:17:51.980 Mendelian genetics was officially rejected by 00:17:51.980 --> 00:17:54.720 the state. Instead, they adopted a state -sponsored 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:58.849 policy called lysenkoism. This policy favored 00:17:58.849 --> 00:18:01.670 a form of Lamarckism, which is the idea that 00:18:01.670 --> 00:18:04.190 organisms can pass on traits they acquire during 00:18:04.190 --> 00:18:07.269 their lifetimes rather than through fixed genetic 00:18:07.269 --> 00:18:09.509 inheritance. Which has a certain ideological 00:18:09.509 --> 00:18:11.670 appeal, right? The idea that you can force an 00:18:11.670 --> 00:18:13.910 organism to adapt to its environment and pass 00:18:13.910 --> 00:18:16.609 those adaptations on rather than being locked 00:18:16.609 --> 00:18:19.630 into fixed genetic traits. Yes, but looking strictly 00:18:19.630 --> 00:18:21.910 at the historical facts provided in our source. 00:18:22.450 --> 00:18:25.109 The rejection of Mendel's work in favor of this 00:18:25.109 --> 00:18:27.910 state -sponsored ideology had devastating real 00:18:27.910 --> 00:18:30.170 -world costs. Right. It wasn't just a theory. 00:18:30.670 --> 00:18:33.490 No. Mendelian geneticists were imprisoned and 00:18:33.490 --> 00:18:36.589 executed. And because agricultural policies were 00:18:36.589 --> 00:18:39.029 based on flawed biology rather than Mendelian 00:18:39.029 --> 00:18:41.769 genetics, it contributed to massive famines in 00:18:41.769 --> 00:18:43.930 both countries. It really highlights why foundational 00:18:43.930 --> 00:18:46.569 science is so vital. Mendel's laws weren't just 00:18:46.569 --> 00:18:48.589 academic curiosities. They were the operating 00:18:48.589 --> 00:18:51.130 instructions for the global food supply. Exactly. 00:18:52.019 --> 00:18:54.720 Rejecting objective, verified science in favor 00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:57.319 of an ideology no matter where or when it happens 00:18:57.319 --> 00:19:00.140 always carries a severe cost. It underscores 00:19:00.140 --> 00:19:02.700 the importance of objective data in shaping how 00:19:02.700 --> 00:19:05.339 we interact with the natural world. It's just 00:19:05.339 --> 00:19:08.460 a towering legacy. To quickly recap the incredible 00:19:08.460 --> 00:19:11.119 arc we've been on, we started with a farmer's 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:13.880 son who had to rely on his sister's dowry just 00:19:13.880 --> 00:19:16.660 to go to school. A guy who failed his teaching 00:19:16.660 --> 00:19:20.140 exams twice. Yet, armed with a physics mindset, 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:23.920 he quietly decoded the universe using 28 ,000 00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:26.880 pea plants. Simply amazing. He endured decades 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.059 of being entirely ignored, suffered through frustrating 00:19:30.059 --> 00:19:32.400 failures with asexual hawkweed and aggressive 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:35.019 bees, and weathered a posthumous scandal accusing 00:19:35.019 --> 00:19:38.200 him of fraud. And it wasn't until 2025 that his 00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:41.329 work was fully molecularly vindicated. It is 00:19:41.329 --> 00:19:43.990 a profound reminder for all of us that true impact 00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:46.069 isn't always recognized in the moment. That's 00:19:46.069 --> 00:19:48.250 a great point. Your best work, your most profound 00:19:48.250 --> 00:19:50.450 insights might not be understood by your peers 00:19:50.450 --> 00:19:52.930 right away, but the inherent value of discovering 00:19:52.930 --> 00:19:55.369 the truth remains, regardless of the immediate 00:19:55.369 --> 00:19:57.809 applause. I want to leave you with one final 00:19:57.809 --> 00:20:00.950 haunting detail from our source. OK. When Gregor 00:20:00.950 --> 00:20:04.609 Mendel died in 1884, he was still locked in that 00:20:04.609 --> 00:20:06.710 bitter tax dispute with the civil government. 00:20:06.869 --> 00:20:09.400 Right, the administrative mess. Yeah. And to 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:12.299 mark an end to the dispute, the abbot who succeeded 00:20:12.299 --> 00:20:14.900 him took all the papers in Mendel's collection 00:20:14.900 --> 00:20:17.619 and burned them in the courtyard. Oh man. Every 00:20:17.619 --> 00:20:20.900 note. Every journal. every uncompleted experiment. 00:20:21.099 --> 00:20:23.839 That is heartbreaking. So as you picture that 00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:26.480 stuffy exam room where Mendel failed his tests, 00:20:26.900 --> 00:20:29.039 consider the Abbey courtyard a few decades later. 00:20:29.299 --> 00:20:31.839 We know about the peas. But as the smoke rose 00:20:31.839 --> 00:20:33.700 from those burning papers, you have to wonder 00:20:33.700 --> 00:20:36.400 what other world -changing discoveries did Gregor 00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:38.519 Mendel make that were turned to ash and lost 00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:39.180 to us forever?