Lessons From The Life of Gregor Mendel, The Father of Genetics, About Intellectual Snobbishness
The world we live in today is built on ideas. Isn’t it for this reason, pen becomes mightier than the sword? Be it making fire for the first time or sending Apollo 11 to the moon! Ideas become actions. Thus, without being snobbish about how smart we are, we all have a responsibility to treat ideas with respect, irrespective of the stature of the person bringing it forth or where it was written about and then, point out why those ideas are good or bad for the humanity. Gregor Mendel’s story provides a segue to begin this discussion.
Mendel’s Misfortune
Gregor Mendel is today revered as the “Father of Genetics”. However, it is ironic how he was ignored during his lifetime and how humanity could have almost reinvented his life’s work.
Bronowski vividly narrated Mendel’s story as a lesson for the future if someone reads it with an open mind [1]. Johann Mendel was born into a peasant family in a town now located in Austria. He learnt gardening from his father as a child. After a serious injury, his father sold his farm to pay for Johann’s education until his entry to a university. Johann later entered the priesthood to support his studies at the university and became known as Gregor [2]. A failure at the University and as a…
