1866 · Gregor Mendel
Experiments on Plant Hybridization
What this work is
Mendel's 1866 report on crossing pea plants. Over several years he crossed lines that bred true for traits such as seed shape and color, then counted the offspring in each generation. He found fixed ratios like 3 to 1 and explained them with paired units that separate into the pollen and egg cells.
Then and now
Mendel counted visible traits in crossed pea plants. Genetics and Mendelian randomization now carry his name as the founding proof of genes and DNA variants. His counts showed ratios of seeds, not genes, and nobody has seen a gene.
Verdict
SCIENTIFIC
The work follows the scientific method and does not operate inside a theoretical framework. The verdict is scientific.
1·This work · no theoretical framework
SCIENTIFIC
Follows the scientific method. No theoretical framework attached.
2·Paradigm · Basic Epidemiological Comparison
NOT APPLICABLE
No theoretical framework. The study verdict decides.
How the verdict is decided
This work does not operate inside a theoretical framework. Using hospital records, billing codes, or diagnostic names as labels on visible events is not the same as depending on that framework. The verdict is the work methodology score alone.
1·This work
Did this work test its claim with methods that are independent, falsifiable, and non-circular?
SCIENTIFIC
This study claims that pea hybrids pass on their traits in fixed numerical ratios, because paired characters separate into pollen and egg cells and recombine by chance, giving offspring proportions like 3 to 1. All three tests pass.
Independently Verifiable
Pass
Every variable is a seed you can hold or a stem you can measure with a ruler: round or wrinkled, yellow or green, six feet or one foot, and no machine had to interpret anything first.
Falsifiable
Pass
If his thousands of counted seeds had kept coming out at 2 to 1 or in a continuous smear of forms, the ratio law would have been falsified, and his raw counts of 5,474 round against 1,850 wrinkled sit in the paper for anyone to recount.
Non-Circular
Pass
The trait pairs were picked because they stayed constant in the parent lines before any crossing, and plants that looked identical were told apart by what their offspring actually did, not by the ratio being tested.
Why
Every variable is a seed you can hold or a stem you can measure. Other ratios, or a smear of in-between forms, would have broken his law, and his raw counts are printed for anyone to recount. The traits were chosen because they bred true before any cross, not because of the ratio being tested.
2·Paradigm · Basic Epidemiological Comparison
The three tests do not apply. There is no theoretical framework.
NOT APPLICABLE
Why
The method is hand pollination and counting visible plant parts in defined groups. The groups are pure-bred lines established by watching what the plants actually produced, not by any test built from a theory of inheritance. Nothing in the procedure requires a prior framework to run. Mendel's own explanation of paired invisible units in the cells is interpretation added after the counts, and the counts do not need it. Since the method depends on no theoretical claim, there is no framework at Layer 2 to test, and the study verdict stands on its own.
From the work
The risk of false impregnation by foreign pollen is, however, a very slight one with Pisum, and is quite incapable of disturbing the general result. Among more than 10,000 plants which were carefully examined there were only a very few cases where an indubitable false impregnation had occurred.
In all, 556 seeds were yielded by 15 plants, and of these there were: 315 round and yellow, 101 wrinkled and yellow, 108 round and green, 32 wrinkled and green.
The numbers 33, 65, 138 present very fair approximations to the ratio numbers of 33, 66, 132.