this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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In high school, I went on a field trip to, well, a field, and there was a local wildflower in full bloom. Our teacher told us to go out and collect observations about them. We did that for a bit, then gathered back in to talk about what we found.
One of the more outdoorsy students noted it was unusual that these flowers were, in fact, blooming in October; they normally bloom in summer. That was it! In this valley, they bloom in fall for some reason. Our teacher explained that this is one common way that speciation occurs, because these plants could effectively no longer breed with the rest of the population and would begin to genetically drift away.
Mendel's work played almost no role in the acceptance of the theory of natural selection. While the work was contemporaneous, Mendel did not publish widely and the work was not well known. Darwin's work was defended and beaten into scientific orthodoxy by Thomas Henry Huxley who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog". He would appear at the Royal Society and take on all comers while Darwin mooned around in Kent. Mendel's work was never cited in Darwin's work, and Huxley was also unaware of it. As a matter of fact almost no one knew about it.
Mendel's work was independently discovered at the turn of the 20th century, and Mendel was given scientific priority retrospectively. In science we describe that kind of thing as a "premature discovery". Because something was found, and was true, but had little impact at the time.