How does Mendel's genetics help us understand the origin of some of the biological variation within a species?

Question

In Johann Mendel's laws of inheritance

Answer 1

Mendels work allowed him to recognize that simple mathmatics could be applied to what he observed as he mated plants over a number of generations.  It helped him to identify that specific traits get passed from one generation to the next independant of each other, It also helped him to understand that a trait can be dominant or recessive - and much more.

Answer 2

I don't know; or, I won't take the time to work through it.  But...

I will tell you a story about his experiments that illustrates just how intellectually challenged bible thumpers are…

Mendel’s church superior was order to find out what the monk was up to and to order it stopped if it in anyway impinged church dogma and fantasy.

The “learned“ Bishop found Mendel experimenting with animals and was outraged by his heresy. After all, this was God’s business and therefore heresy for believers.

Mendel was appropriately contrite and vowed to quit such heretical experiments. The Bishop was very pleased when Mendel allowed that he would immediately switch to plants.  The obvious never occurred to the “learned” Bishop since instead of actually learning something that allowed him to reason…he learned all about church dogma. Go back far enough in time, on earth, and plants and animals had a common parent.  Lol

Mendel did exactly that with peas that he would done with animals. Beautiful! Nothing regarding outcome changed in his research and the church, bathed in its ignorance…was happy!

Jim D