Mendel took the first steps toward the foundation of modern genetics by demonstrating, at least if one reads between the lines, that he understood the difference between a plant’s appearance and its underlying makeup. He did not have the vocabulary to explain it; that would not come along until nearly fifty years later, when scientists understood more about the cell, the nucleus, and the gene. But he was nonetheless revealing the distinction between what we now call phenotype and genotype. To Mendel, it was the logical extension of the law of dominance. Because dominating traits are able to
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