Who is known as the father of modern genetics?

Gregor Mendel is known as the father of modern genetics due to his pioneering work with pea plants in the mid-19th century. Through his experiments, he established the foundational principles of heredity, including the concepts of dominant and recessive traits, as well as the segregation and independent assortment of alleles. Mendel's meticulous approach and methodical data analysis laid the groundwork for the field of genetics, making his contributions vital for understanding how traits are inherited from one generation to the next.

His work went largely unrecognized during his lifetime but was rediscovered at the turn of the 20th century, leading to the acknowledgment of his contributions as foundational to the emerging field of genetics. In contrast, the other individuals listed have made significant contributions to biology and related fields, but none laid the groundwork for genetic inheritance in the way Mendel did. Charles Darwin is renowned for his theory of evolution by natural selection, Louis Pasteur is celebrated for his advancements in microbiology and vaccination, and James Watson is known for co-discovering the structure of DNA, but it is Mendel whose research directly established the principles of genetic inheritance that are essential to modern genetics.