Punnett squares and hybrid crosses

How Mendelians learned their trade by the book

Bibliographic Data

ID21877438
AuthorsStaffan Müller-Wille (0000-0003-4929-8373, University of Cambridge, corresponding author), Giuditta Parolini (0000-0003-4440-8043, Technische Universität Berlin)
Year2020
Volume5
Pages149-165
Publication date2020-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBJHS Themes (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2056-354X • E-ISSN: 2058-850X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/bjt.2020.12
OpenAlexW3111212453
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited19

The rapid reception of Gregor Mendel's paper ‘Experiments on plant hybrids’ (1866) in the early decades of the twentieth century remains poorly understood. We will suggest that this reception should not exclusively be investigated as the spread of a theory, but also as the spread of an experimental and computational protocol. Early geneticists used Mendel's paper, as well as reviews of Mendelian experiments in a variety of other publications, to acquire a unique combination of experimental and mathematical skills. We will analyse annotations in copies of Mendel's paper itself, in early editions and translations of this paper, and in early textbooks, such as Reginald Punnett's Mendelism (1905) or Wilhelm Johannsen's Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre (1909). We will examine how readers used copies of such works to reproduce the logic behind Mendelian experiments, either by recalculating results, or by retracing the underlying combinatorial reasoning. We will place particular emphasis on the emergent role of diagrams in teaching and learning the practice of Mendelian genetics

Biology · Mendelian inheritance · Botanical Studies and Applications · Computer Science · Philosophy and History of Science · Plant Reproductive Biology · Artificial Intelligence · Genetics

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