Gregor Mendel , his experiments and their statistical evaluation

KALINA J. 2014: Gregor Mendel, his experiments and their statistical evaluation. Acta Musei Moraviae, Scientiae biologicae (Brno) 99(1): 87–99. – Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) is now generally acknowledged as the founder of modern genetics. He was among the first to make systematic use of mathematical methods in biology, employing just the simpler rules of probability theory to work out some of the underlying laws of heredity. However, it is less well known that an element of controversy began to attach to his experimental results in the 1930’s, largely as a result of the work of the eminent British statistician and biologist R.A. Fisher, who felt that Mendel’s results were too close to expected values. New explanations have therefore been sought to avert suspicion that the figures may have been in some way idealised. The work in hand seeks to contribute to resolving the Mendel-Fisher controversy. An alternative statistical model for the design of Mendel’s experiments is suggested, which appears to correspond to Mendel’s results. At the same time, the proposed model allows a very simple interpretation.