Mendel, as we shall see, was an instinctual gardener—a breeder of plants, a counter of seeds, an isolator of traits; Darwin was a garden digger—a classifier of plants, an organizer of specimens, a taxonomist. Mendel’s gift was experimentation—the manipulation of organisms, cross-fertilization of carefully selected sub-breeds, the testing of hypotheses. Darwin’s gift was natural history—the reconstruction of history by observing nature. Mendel, the monk, was an isolator; Darwin, the parson, a synthesizer.
