Genetics
Field · 1866 onward; a named field after 1900 · Biology, stage 2: Map the fields
Genetics studies how traits are transmitted and what carries them. Mendel established the pattern in pea plants in the 1860s, but the result sat unread until three botanists reached it independently around 1900. Thomas Hunt Morgan then tied the abstract units to physical chromosomes by breeding fruit flies, and the field spent the following decades mapping which unit sits where.
What it claims
- Traits are carried by discrete units that do not blend and can reappear unchanged after a generation.
- Those units sit at fixed positions on chromosomes, and units on the same chromosome tend to be inherited together.
- Which trait shows up depends on the combination of alleles present, not on a single copy alone.
Key ideas
People
Sources
- Genetics Wikipedia
- Mendelian inheritance Wikipedia
- Gregor Mendel and Single-Gene Disorders Nature Education Scitable
