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Summary Remarks

It is clear to me that, given the care of the selection of the subject of his research, and the careful statistical protocols he used for guidance, Mendel qualifies to be wrested away from the biologists, or botanists, or naturalists, and respected as a model physicist. He was applying a tool, probability theory, brand new to physics, and he chose a medium, peas, about which he had deep practical knowledge. The successes in physics are described in those terms. The experiments carried out working with the wrong medium, we promptly forget. The ones that have chosen the proper medium, we hail as intuitively self evident, and honor with prizes. The novelty of probability theory is evident from the concerns that Naegele has with Mendel's results. If the expectation is a 3 to 1 ratio, why does Mendel not find 3.00, but 3.?? or 2.?? in his experiments, he asks. Let's give Mendel the credit he deserves, not the carping about possible flaws -- all ground breaking experiments have them!