Gregor Mendel was an Austrian monk who is known as the "father of modern genetics." The problem is that his work, done in the 1860's, was only rediscovered in the 20th century. During his own lifetime it was little known, and no further work was done on genetics until the early 20th century, when his work was rediscovered. Mendel did no self-promotion, and once his discoveries were largely rejected, he did nothing to defend his work. He abandoned his work in 1868, and never returned to it.
So what if he is a self-promoter, who knows that has made a great and ground-breaking discovery? He promotes his discoveries, answers his critics, and keeps on working at his pea-plants. Due to his labors, genetics becomes a much wider known science, and widely debated, even accepted in some circles.
I've been trying to think of what the effects of this would be, and I'm sure that there will be real scientific breakthroughs happening well in advance of OTL. Another of my lines of thinking is that Darwin's discoveries
led to social darwinism. Mendel's discoveries could produce an equally ugly ism, but this one is based on actual evidence of breeding, rather than vague ideas of survival of the fittest. Social Darwinism + Eugenics + Genetics= scary ATL.
Thoughts?
So what if he is a self-promoter, who knows that has made a great and ground-breaking discovery? He promotes his discoveries, answers his critics, and keeps on working at his pea-plants. Due to his labors, genetics becomes a much wider known science, and widely debated, even accepted in some circles.
I've been trying to think of what the effects of this would be, and I'm sure that there will be real scientific breakthroughs happening well in advance of OTL. Another of my lines of thinking is that Darwin's discoveries
led to social darwinism. Mendel's discoveries could produce an equally ugly ism, but this one is based on actual evidence of breeding, rather than vague ideas of survival of the fittest. Social Darwinism + Eugenics + Genetics= scary ATL.
Thoughts?