He was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity , and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel , after their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns . He was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity and biological inheritance , and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns .