Mendel studied inheritance of seven pairs of traits in Pea which can have 21 possible combinations. If you are told that in one of these combinations, independent assortment is not observed in later studies, your reaction will be:

Explanation

The correct answer is that Mendel might not have studied all the combinations. Mendel's law of independent assortment is valid only for genes located on different chromosomes or sufficiently far apart on the same chromosome. If independent assortment is not observed, it could indicate genetic linkage, where two genes are located close together on the same chromosome and tend to be inherited together. Independent assortment applies when genes are unlinked, which Mendel could not detect due to the limitations of his experiments and the technology at the time. The other options are not correct because the principle remains valid under its specified conditions, and the failure to observe it does not imply that later studies are necessarily wrong or that the principle itself is incorrect.