Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy

In 1865, Gregor Mendel presented Experiments in Plant-Hybridization, the results of his eight-year study of the principles of inheritance through experimentation with pea plants. Overlooked in its day, Mendels work would later become the foundation of modern genetics. Did his pioneering research follow the rigors of real scientific inquiry, or was Mendels data too good to be truethe product of doctored statistics? In <i>Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy, </i>leading experts present their conclusions on the legendary controversy surrounding the challenge to Mendels findings by British statistician and biologist R. A. Fisher. In his 1936 paper Has Mendels Work Been Rediscovered? Fisher suggested that Mendels data could have been falsified in order to support his expectations. Fisher attributed the falsification to an unknown assistant of Mendels. At the time, Fishers criticism did not receive wide attention. Yet beginning in 1964, about the time of the centenary of Mendels paper, scholars began to publicly discuss whether Fisher had successfully proven that Mendels data was falsified. Since that time, numerous articles, letters, and comments have been published on the controversy.This self-contained volume includes everything the reader will need to know about the subject: an overview of the controversy; the original papers of Mendel and Fisher; four of the most important papers on the debate; and new updates, by the authors, of the latter four papers. Taken together, the authors contend, these voices argue for an end to the controversy-making this book the definitive last word on the subject.