The Google Doodle For July 20, 2011 is A mosaic of pea plants. It is a tribute to Gregor Mendal, a Moravian monk who was born 189 years ago. He is considered the father of modern genetics because of his ground breaking experiment with peas that helped validate Charles Darwin's theory by disproving the conventional wisdom of the day that peculiar traits are diluted through successive generations instead of spreading when handed down. Gregor Mendal's experiment with pea's demonstrated how peculiar traits can and do spread leading to genetically distinct varieties in future generations.
The Christian Science Monitor does a fine job of elucidating why, as they put it,
you should care about Gregor Mendal. I find this caring tipping of the hat by a Christian news establishment to a man who according to the Christian Science monitor, "was working on a solution" while "Darwin struggled to reconcile his observations" contradictory to the Evangelical view that modern science is a cultish religion of which Christianity does not participate.
Especially when the reader considers that Charles Darwin was a disheartened Christian who was studying to become a minister before taking his fateful trip to the Galapagos Islands and Gregor Mendal was a devoted Catholic Friar monk who seemed committed to backing up with proof the work that Mr. Darwin was struggling with. I'm no genius but obviously these pioneers did not see the divisions that current Evangelicals see between science and religion. Science to them helped make clear the mysteries of God. They were not afraid to let their experiments and observations dictate to them the meaning of their discoveries.
If Christians were to follow in the foot steps of their fathers I think they might come to the inevitable conclusion that their predecessor came to. Their religion was pocked with holes that had long since been filled with fairytales and that the truth is far from the fabrication which they follow.