Genetics in fiction Genetics in fiction Aspects of genetics including mutation, hybridisation, cloning, genetic engineering, and eugenics have appeared in fiction since the 19th century. Genetics is a young science, having started in 1900 with the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's study on the inheritance of traits in pea plants. During the 20th century it developed to create new sciences and technologies including molecular biology, DNA sequencing, cloning, and genetic engineering. The ethical implications were brought into focus with the eugenics movement. Since then, many science fiction novels and films have used aspects of genetics as plot devices, often taking one of two routes:
Gregor Mendel next thirty-five years. His paper was criticized at the time, but is now considered a seminal work. Notably, Charles Darwin was not aware of Mendel's paper, and it is envisaged that if he had been aware of it, genetics as we know it now might have taken hold much earlier. Mendel's scientific biography thus provides an example of the failure of obscure, highly original, innovators to receive the attention they deserve. Mendel began his studies on heredity using mice. He was at St. Thomas's Abbey but his bishop did not like one of his friars studying animal sex, so Mendel