Johann Gregor Mendel: the victory of statistics over human imagination

Abstract

In 2022, we celebrated 200 years since the birth of Johann Gregor Mendel. Although his contributions to science went unrecognized during his lifetime, Mendel not only described the principles of monogenic inheritance but also pioneered the modern way of doing science based on precise experimental data acquisition and evaluation. Novel statistical and algorithmic approaches are now at the center of scientific work, showing that work that is considered marginal in one era can become a mainstream research approach in the next era. The onset of data-driven science caused a shift from hypothesis-testing to hypothesis-generating approaches in science. Mendel is remembered here as a promoter of this approach, and the benefits of big data and statistical approaches are discussed.