Thursday 23 May 2013

Men of Yore: Gregor Mendel

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form.  Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards.  We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity. 

It is also partly intended to show images, be they paintings, statues or photographs of the countenaces of men of yore.  Because, quite frankly, many men wear the countenances of women these days: smiling, smirking, cooing, rolling their eyes, looking smug etc.  It's a sign of the times, and by showing some images of men from the past, I hope to show some modern men why looking surly, frowning and giving hard-ball stares at people is something to do, something to practice.


Gregor Mendel


Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822[1] – January 6, 1884) was a German-speaking Silesian[2][3] scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. The profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century, when the independent rediscovery of these laws initiated the modern science of genetics.
[..]
Gregor Mendel was born into an ethnic German family in Heinzendorf bei Odrau, Austrian Silesia, Austrian Empire (now Hynčice, Czech Republic). He was the son of Anton and Rosine (Schwirtlich) Mendel, and had one older sister (Veronica) and one younger (Theresia). They lived and worked on a farm which had been owned by the Mendel family for at least 130 years.[5] During his childhood, Mendel worked as a gardener, studied beekeeping, and as a young man attended gymnasium in Opava. From 1840 to 1843, he studied practical and theoretical philosophy as well as physics at the University of Olomouc Faculty of Philosophy[.]
[..]
Mendel's work was rejected at first, and was not widely accepted until after he died. During his own lifetime, most biologists held the idea that all characteristics were passed to the next generation through blending inheritance, in which the traits from each parent are averaged together.




The belief of ‘blending inheritance’ of the biologists of Mendels day, seems to be the same belief of the political Left who live today.  They seem to want to androgynise the genders, and mix the races, and mix communism and capitalism all together, etc; in order to get ‘the best of both worlds’.  As Mendel showed, this isn’t possible.



Check out some of the other entries from the 'Men of Yore' series:
James Cook
Stephen the III of Moldavia
George Petrovich (Black George)
Vlad II, Prince of Wallachia
Skanderbeg
King Alfred, the Great
John MacDouall Stuart
Robert Owen
Richard Trevithick
Wyatt Earp
William 'Wild Bill' Cody
Andrew Carnegie
Duke of Viseu (Henry the Navigator)
Meriwether Lewis
Arthur Schopenhauer
Theodore Roosevelt
Rudolph Diesel
John Snow
Ludwig van Beethoven
Henry Ford
George Custer


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2 comments:

  1. Hey, someone I know! Mendel is pretty important in biology..

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  2. Yeah I don't know why the biologists of that day would believe that 'blending' was a good thing. They're just the same as fools from today. In Sweden in the middle-ages the farmers there new about selective breeding: they'd choose the sheep with a particular colour tongue in order to produce a lamb with the best wool. I guess that's what happens when you have 'theory' that isn't based on reality: you end up with an ass-backward worldview.

    Anyhoo..

    Q: What's the difference between Stalin the Lysenkoist and Heidi Klum the Liberal?

    A: Nothing! They both think you can advance the human race by breeding with monkeys!

    ReplyDelete