In Mendel’s experiments, purple flowers are dominant over white flowers. 3. Heredity is the science of genetics. 4. In Mendel’s initial experiments, white flowers disappeared after the first parental crosses. 5. It was his knowledge of genes that allowed Mendel to interpret his data correctly. 6. Having naturally light or dark skin is part of your phenotype. 7. Different alleles account for much of the variation in the characteristics of organisms. 8. Mendel showed that factors controlling different characteristics are inherited independently. 9. Mendel came up with the idea that two factors control a characteristic, such as pod color.