Darwin, Mendel & the Story of Inheritance

General Learning Course

Natural selection, Mendel's rules and Photo 51 — how three separate discoveries turned into one theory of life.

Start here — the story

A young man sails around the world and comes home with a theory so dangerous he sits on it for twenty years. A monk counts twenty-eight thousand pea plants and is ignored for thirty-five. A woman photographs something no one has ever seen. None of them ever met. Together they explained life.

The Complete Guide to Darwin, Mendel & the Story of Inheritance — 6 chapters, about 15 minutes. You are not expected to know anything before you start.

What you’ll be able to explain

The assessed treatment is Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Biology Topic 3 (Reproduction and inheritance), which requires genetic diagrams, ratios and specific terminology. This is the story behind it.

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