Mendelian Genetics: Plants Vs. Humans

Mendelian Genetics: Plants vs. Humans

Plants and humans inherit their traits in very much the same way. They both receive genes from their parents, and those inherited genes are responsible for all characteristics. This basic concept of heredity was mostly identified by Gregor Mendel through his studies and experiments with pea plants. Gregor Mendel's experiments consisted of him crossing two true-breeding parents to produce the first filial generation. He then self crossed the first filial generation to produce the second filial generation. He did this a copious amount of times for different characteristics of the pea plant in order to observe different traits. Due to ethical, biological, and quantitative concerns, Mendelian Genetics experiments are much easier to perform on plants than on humans.

It is very easy to see why most people would find an ethical dilemma in performing Mendelian Genetics experiments on human subjects. In Mendel's experiments, he was able to control which plants mated with each other. In humans, however, controlling who people are allowed to mate with is seen as unethical. The choice should be left up to the two people in question. "Human geneticists are not allowed to selectively breed for the traits they wish to study" (Tissot). If human geneticists were allowed to do this, they would have to find participants willing to give up control of who they procreate with, which would be extremely difficult to do. Since Mendel was only dealing with plants, which can't express opinions, objections, or preferences, it is much more complicated to perform these trials on humans than on plants.

Biologically speaking, humans are much more complex than plants when it comes to the reproductive system. In Mendel's experiments he crossed the first filial generation with itself to produce the second filial generation. In plants, this is an easy task to carry out because an individual plant can produce both male and female gametes (Self-fertilization). If this was attempted in humans, it simply would not work. It is physically impossible for a person to reproduce with him or herself because an individual human cannot produce both male and female gametes. They can only produce one or the other depending on the sex of that individual. Humans require a mate of the opposite sex to produce children. Self pollinating a plant is very simple to do, but self fertilization in humans is just not possible.

One of the reasons why Mendel was successful in his experiments was because he worked