pioneer of genetics
mendel died long before anything was known about DNA and the chemical basis of heredity (pp.36-37) however his idea of paired factor or elements was confirmed by scientists in the 20th century and mendel is now thought of as the founder of genetics mender's paired elements are now know as alleles an allele is one of two or more forms of the same gene most cells have two sets of chromosome (p.36) - one from each parent - and allele for a particular gene are carry in identical positions or loci on matching chromosome