The Genes Make it Complcated

What about my genes?

They're a bit tight; and I don't like the faded bits!

Oh, hysterically funny! Genes,NOT Jeans! They say it's all in the genes! Did Darwin know about Genes?

Good question; and no, he didn't. The science of genetics had not been invented. yet.

In a way this part of the story began...

... with peas and this man:-

Gregor Johann Mendel from Silesia [Austrian Empire]
Born July 20 1822 : Died January 6 1884

Mendel was boss of this Abbey at Brno in Czecoslovakia ...

... where he experimented with peas, sweet peas, grown for their flowers, not as a vegetable. He was trying to find out why the flowers were sometimes pinky-purple and sometimes white.

Or why you have got your mum's green eyes; but you haven't got your dad's big nose!

No need to get personal!

Mendel devised a set of rules which began to explain how peas get some bits from their "mother" pea and other bits from their "father" pea.

Time to go for a 'P', then, ha ha!

But nobody took much notice of Mendel at the time. After all he was only experimenting with peas; not very important. Certainly, Darwin knew nothing of Mendel's work.

Then this man re-discovered Mendel's work and, virtually, invented the science of genetics.

William Bateson from Robin Hoods Bay, North Yorkshire
Born August 8 1861 : Died February 8 1926

And this started an whole new punch-up!

So Darwin got it all wrong, then? It's not about animals growing differently because of where they lived and what they ate. It's all in the genes.

I wish it were that simple, but it isn't. Until  Tuesday , think about this bit of the Bible [Psalm 139].

You created every part of me;
you put me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because you are to be feared;
all you do is strange and wonderful.
I know it with all my heart.

When my bones were being formed,
carefully put together in my mother's womb,
when I was growing there in secret,
you knew that I was there;

you saw me before I was born.

 Next Bible Blog : Tuesday 16th October