The value and utility of any experiment are determined by the fitness of the material to the purpose for which it is used, and thus in the case before us it cannot be immaterial what plants are subjected to experiment and in what manner such experiment is conducted.

It is sometimes suggested that he may have censored his results and that his seven traits each occur on a separate chromosome pair an extremely unlikely occurrence if they were chosen at random. (Notably Charles Darwin was unaware of Mendel's paper according to Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. From 1840 to 1843 he studied practical and theoretical philosophy as well as physics at the University of Olomouc Faculty of Philosophy taking a year off because of illness.

Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. The profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century when the independent rediscovery of these laws initiated the modern science of genetics.