Mendel’s paper ‘Versuche u¨ ber Pflanzen-Hybriden’ [1] is
the best known in a series of studies published in the late
18th and 19th centuries [2–4] that built our understanding
of the mechanism of inheritance [5]. The title of Mendel’s
paper is usually mistranslated in English as ‘Experiments
in Plant Hybridisation’ rather than ‘Experiments on Plant
Hybrids’, reflecting the impact of his work on the science of
genetics rather than Mendel’s own concern with the nature
of hybrids and their implications for the ‘Umwandlung
einer Art in eine andere’ - transformation of one species
into another. There is also a misconception, as a result of
R.A. Fisher’s attack on Mendelism [6], that Mendel’s
results and experimentation were in some way suspect.
These defamatory criticisms include imputations on the
scope of his experimental work, his understanding of what
he wrote and statistical interpretations of his results;
although they have been roundly debunked [7,8], they
remain embedded in common opinion.