Contrast the approaches of Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to the study of populations. What were Darwin's main discoveries? What were Mendel's main discoveries? How did the studies of Darwin and Mendel prepare the way for the later studies reviewed in chapter 4?

The elucidation of the mechanisms of biological inheritance and the understanding of how life evolved on Earth, the two important pillars on which a part of current biology supports. The founders of these branches of science, built in very different ways the knowledge they brought to all mankind.

Explanation:

Charles Darwin proposed the theory of biological evolution by natural selection. Define evolution as offspring with modification, the idea that species change over time, give rise to new species and determined a common ancestor. The mechanism he proposed for evolution was natural selection. Since resources are limited in nature, organisms with heritable characteristics that favor survival and sensitive reproduction leave more offspring, which makes the frequency of these characteristics increase over several generations. Natural selection makes populations adapt or become more appropriate to their environment over time. Natural selection depends on the environment and needs inheritable variations.

Meanwhile, Mendel, based on his experiments, formulated three general laws:

-The descendants of the crossing of two pure varieties of the same species are all the same. This first law is called the law of dominant characters.

-The descendants of the crossing of the hybrids with each other of the second generation is divided into four parts, three of them inherit the dominant character and one the recessive. This law is known as the law of segregation

-If the two original varieties differ from each other in two or more characters, each of them is transmitted independently of the others. This law is called independent transmission or the independence of the characters.

Darwin's ideas suggested his experiments with rabbits to Galton, but his inspirational capacity is over. Mendel's experiments, in contrast, traced a more fertile path. He had tested his mathematical laws with the pea. When trying to extend Mendel's ideas to other organisms, the scientists found changes that respond to different patterns, frequencies in the progeny that do not respond to the proportions found by the monk, but that have their own logic. Instead of weakening Mendel's model, the modifications were his strongest support. Mendel had founded a methodology that allowed discovering new methods.