The Behavior of the Hawkweeds Summary

Antonia's husband, Richard, had passed out copies of Gregor Mendel's "famous paper on the hybridization of edible peas" to his sophomore genetics class for the past thirty years. He would tell them that the paper was a model of clarity, representing all that science should be. He'd pace in front of them, speaking easily. He is sensitive about his left hand for he had been born hexadactylic and had the extra finger removed in a childhood operation.

After he had passed out the paper, Richard would tell the students the conventional narrative of Mendel's life. Mendel grew up in a small village in northwest Moravia, which was then part of the Hapsburg Empire and later part of Czechoslovakia. He studied science and taught at a high school. In 1856, he began his experiments on the hybridization...