Mendel+Darwin

Did Darwin make a big mistake by not recognizing the results from his data that didn't support his theory of evolution?

Darwin produced the data but missed the significance of dominant and recessive traits.

Darwin did a hybrid study on snapdragons. Darwin’s data showed a 3:1 ratio in the F2 generation and he made no comments or conclusions from these results. It is also highly probable that Darwin knew of Mendel’s work. Darwin was investigating the blending theory of inheritance.

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“Did Darwin miss the significance of this one jewel out of the many plant hybrid papers that were being published at the time? He could have easily checked the results for himself. Darwin had personally done and was still doing large numbers of plant breeding experiments using more than 50 plant species including the edible pea, orchid, snapdragon, flax, primrose, etc., but never with the idea of primarily studying the transmission of plant characters. He was more interested in the problem of hybrid vigour and its role for evolution. His main question was whether seeds from cross-fertilized flowers would produce superior plants than seeds derived from self-fertilized flowers. It seems he never thought of performing plant breeding experiments to check the results of Mendel, even though he had the required skill, knowledge, resources and the patience to do this sort of work. In his book on The variation of animals and plants under domestication (1868) he wrote that he had planted 41 varieties of English and French edible pea to study the extent of their variation. He observed the variations that Mendel had studied: smooth vs. wrinkled peas; tall plants vs. short ones; differences in flower colour, etc.; but he did not study any hybrids. However, he did do crosses using the common snapdragon with the rarer (peloric) form. In the second generation of hybrids that he obtained, he counted 90 to be the common variety (with two as an intermediate type) and 37 to be the rarer form. He thus obtained a ratio very close to 3:1; but he made no comments on this. Darwin was still thinking along the lines of blending inheritance where one would never expect to get constant ratios in the inheritance of parental traits. And he held this view until his death in 1882.”

Darwin's wrong idea of how traits are passed on. http://www.genetics.org/content/183/3/757.full

https://releasingthetruth.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/mendel/

Quotes form Darwin's books. https://releasingthetruth.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/etd/

Darwin wrong about chickens and dogs http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080229102059.htm