When Your Peas Refuse To Follow The Rules

Imagine spending years meticulously breeding pea plants, carefully documenting every cross, only to have recessive genes crash your whole experiment like an unwanted Windows update. Before Mendel figured out dominant and recessive traits, that yellow pea plant must have seemed like nature's middle finger to scientific predictability. It's the 19th century equivalent of running a perfectly controlled experiment and getting results that make absolutely no sense—but instead of blaming your lab equipment, you accidentally discover the fundamental laws of genetics. Some scientists get Nobel Prizes. Mendel got unexpected plant colors and probably a massive headache.