WI Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel Get In Touch?

[Tony Jones]

In OTL Charles Darwin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_darwin) and Gregor Mendel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel) lived at the same time and each was aware of the work of the other, yet they neither seem to have made the link between their own work and that of the other, and never communicated with one another. What if they had?

Could something like the Modern Synthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_synthesis) (which introduced the connection between the units of evolution genes with the mechanism of evolution) have come about decades earlier than in OTL? And if so how much more advanced might the biological sciences be by now if they had? What effect would that have had on the world as a whole?

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

It happens in my TL (others make the connection though), and the result is called Darwinism-Mendelism. I don't think it can have such a radical effect because there aren't that many non-theoretical applications for it until you get some 20th century technology. You're not going to discover DNA just yet.