Talk:Gregor Mendel

Citation Needed for Fischer's statement about Mendel's confirmation bias
this is a paper analyzing Fisher's Paper in regard to his criticism of Mendel and the Method used.

It's my first time here and I guess I'm not doing this right.. Sorry for that

Sekroy (Sekroy) 23:17, 27 July 2019 (MESZ)

Nationality
There is an mistake in the article. Mendel was not Austrian, he was Moravian. More precisely, a German-speaking Moravian, at least that's what he himself claimed to be, a "German-speaking Moravian." So please correct it and instead of "Austrian" write his true nationality as "Moravian." Thank you Ondřej Mazáč (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

That's absolutely true. Me too, I don't understand it at all. His nationality can be only Moravian or Czech (with German ancestors), I don't understand at all why for example František Palacký born in the next village at the same time is Czech on the Wiki and some people are Austrian, and the argument is that Czech Republic didn't exist at times. For example Marie Curie isn't considered Russian scientist, because Varšava was Russian when she was born. Annikahegarova (talk) 10:26, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Bohemian kingdom still exist at that time and he was citizen of Bohemian kingdom. He claim himself to be Moravian, so he can be Moravian, German-moravian, German-czech, Czech, Bohemian or Silesian (German-silesian). I don't understand the system, how you decide one's nationnlity, but he is definitely not Austrian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JanaKometaDušková (talk • contribs) 15:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

In any case, why is the page currently saying German-Czech? While he might himself would have called himself German back in the time, the current meaning of the word is certainly different to how it was used back then. Should it not say Austrian-Czech? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A04:EE41:4:B23B:AC0E:4C:F14C:5FD8 (talk) 22:40, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

There is no moravian ethnicity. He was german, just as most Austrians of that time were ethnically, since German speaking, German. There was no Czech at that time and many german speaking germans/Austrians (lets keep it as a synonym in this case) were living in present day Czech. We all know why this changed several decades later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.117.204.214 (talk) 21:31, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Misleading representation of cited source
"One attempted explanation invokes confirmation bias. Fisher accused Mendel's experiments as 'biased strongly in the direction of agreement with expectation [...] to give the theory the benefit of doubt'. In his 2004 article, J.W. Porteous concluded that Mendel's observations were indeed implausible. However, reproduction of the experiments has demonstrated that there is no real bias towards Mendel's data."

The paper cited at the end of this paragraph determines that the tetrad-pollen model is insufficient to explain the bias Fisher observed in Mendel's data. The final two sentences when taken together, though, seem to indicate that it came to the opposite conclusion due to a "however" followed by ambiguous language in the second sentence, "real bias towards Mendel's data". Is it saying that Mendel's data was gathered in an unbiased manner (what I consider the more natural reading)? Or that real-world conditions did not present a 'biased'-situation under which Mendel's data could be accurate (which is what the paper says)? I think it could be cleaner.

I instead propose the following: "In his 2004 article, J.W. Porteous concluded that Mendel's observations were indeed implausible. The most popular theory of natural conditions which could account for the observed statistical irregularities of Mendel's data was tested in 2007, but did not produce evidence explaining the bias of Mendel's data."

Additionally, it might be worth talking about how Daniel Fairbanks contributed to both that paper, and the papers/books about how "they concluded that there were no reasons to assert Mendel fabricated his results, nor that Fisher deliberately tried to diminish Mendel's legacy". I feel like I'd need to read that book in order to figure out how all of these positions and ideas connect. Fiveeyesonetoe (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

mrbust is on top
. 108.31.27.235 (talk) 22:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Another source of information.
In their July 18, 2022 issue, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), published a 'Special Feature' called "Gregor Johann Mendel and Modern Evolutionary Biology" in honor of the 200th anniversary of his birth. The issue is freely available at. It contains a lot of information on his life, his work, and interactions with other scientists at the time, as well as the rediscovery of his work and the development of genetics.

+ The article titled "Gregor Johann Mendel: From peasant to priest, pedagogue, and prelate" by Daniel L. Hartl, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, gives his birth information as:

"Mendel was born on 20 July (or possibly 22 July) in 1822 and christened Johann. His parents were Anton Mendel and his wife Rosine (née Schwirtlich). Young Johann was the sixth generation of Mendels to be born in Heinzendorf bei Odrau (Hynčice), which was and remains a small village near the Moravian–Silesian border that at the time had a population of about 500."

It goes on to give details about his siblings, educational struggles, and career in the Church.

+ The article "Gregor Johann Mendel and the development of modern evolutionary biology" by Nils Chr. Stenseth (Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo), et al, contains a chronology of Mendel's life with THIS birth information : Also see an image of a manuscript page from "Mendel's 1866 article entitled “Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden” (“Experiments on plant hybridization”) published in the Proceedings of the Natural History Society in Brno.", a painted portrait; and a photo of some of his peas.There's a list of the three Mendelian Genetic Laws. A combination timeline / family tree shows how Fisher et al tied together Darwin and Mendel, calling their work "The New Synthesis".

+ The article "Mendel and Darwin" by Andrew Berry and Janet Browne (both also of Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University) discusses the following :

Mendel-Darwin interaction: Mendel read a German translation of the On the Origin of Species in 1863, Second Edition. The authors go on to tell how Darwin had glancing exposure to Mendel, but did not actually read his publication. They felt that since Darwin wouldn't study German, had a distaste for mathematics, and probably would not understand the sentinel importance of Mendel's work beyond mere garden hybridization, he would have found the book boring and inconsequential.

The authors also address the anecdote that Darwin owned an offprint copy of Mendel's “Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden” (“Experiments on plant hybridization”), but never cut the pages open to read.

"Some historians have suggested that Mendel sent Darwin a copy in the mail [of his work, originally published in 1866 in the "Proceedings of the Natural History Society in Brno"]. These claims are impossible to substantiate, although we know that Mendel did distribute 40 copies to European colleagues at his own expense. There is no copy of the offprint in the existing Darwin archive."

[ ... ]

"What is easier to substantiate is that in 1881, Darwin did have access to a comprehensive published account [by Wilhelm Olbers Focke] of research into hybridity in which Mendel’s work was mentioned. [...] Focke remains in Darwin’s library. [...] Tellingly, this too has never been read because the pages retain the original uncut edges. Mendel’s work was literally a closed book to Darwin."

There are more articles in this special issue, but luckily for you, I have not yet read them. ^_^ Thank you for your time, Wordreader (talk) 07:32, 26 June 2024 (UTC)