A hundred years ago the study of life was often pursued, and also presented to the public, in a highly unified way. Darwin, as everyone knows, in addressing the world at large began his story with the history of pigeons and ended it with the breeding of primroses, having made excursions on the way into the origins of coral reefs and of the races of Man.

How lavish nature has adorn’d the year
How the pale primrose and blue violet spring,
And birds essay their throats disus’d to sing.

In 1900, [Hugo] de Vries studied mutations. He found a patch of evening primrose of different types, and he studied how they inherited their characteristics. And he worked out the laws of genetics. Two other guys worked out the laws of genetics at the same time, a guy called Charles Carrinse, who was a German (de Vries was a Dutchman) and Eric Von Chennark, who was an Austrian. All three worked out the laws of genetics in 1900. All three looked through the literature, having done so just to see what had been done before. All three discovered that in 1867 Gregor Mendel had worked out the laws of genetics and people hadn’t paid any attention then. All three reported their findings as confirmation of what Mendel had found. Not one of the three attempted to say that it was original with him, once he discovered Mendel. And that’s the sort of thing you just don’t find outside of science.