Who is known as the Father of Genetics?

The title of "Father of Genetics" is most appropriately attributed to Gregor Mendel due to his pioneering experiments and foundational work in the field of inheritance. In the mid-19th century, Mendel conducted systematic breeding experiments with pea plants, meticulously observing the patterns of trait inheritance across generations. Through these experiments, he uncovered the principles of segregation and independent assortment, which laid the groundwork for the modern understanding of genetic inheritance.

His work established that traits are inherited according to specific ratios and can be predicted, leading to the formulation of the laws of inheritance. Although Mendel's contributions were not fully recognized during his lifetime, they became the cornerstone of genetics after being rediscovered at the turn of the 20th century, fundamentally shaping the field.

While Charles Darwin is known for his theory of evolution by natural selection, and James Watson and Francis Crick are celebrated for their discovery of the DNA double helix structure, neither contributed to the foundational understanding of heredity in the same way Mendel did. Thus, Gregor Mendel's contributions directly correlate to the basic principles of genetics, establishing his esteemed position in the discipline.