Gregor Mendel's discoveries are very important. Mendel's experiments showed the harmful effects of in-breeding, and allow people to understand how one person in a family can look different then all of the rest of the family members. His discoveries also explained why some plants have variation, for example, why some peas may be wrinkled and others round. Round peas are a dominant trait and wrinkled peas are a recessive trait. Also, Mendel's experiments changed everything people knew about heredity. Before Mendel, everyone believed in the theory of "blending heredity" but Mendel's experiments proved this to be untrue.