Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

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Repercussions

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From 1934 to 1940, under Lysenko's admonitions and with Stalin's approval, many geneticists were executed (including Isaak Agol, Solomon Levit, Grigorii Levitskii, Georgii Karpechenko and Georgii Nadson) or sent to labor camps. The famous Soviet geneticistNikolai Vavilov was arrested in 1940 and died in prison in 1943.^[9]

Genetics was stigmatized as a 'bourgeois science' or 'fascist science' (because fascists — particularly the Nazis in Germany — embraced genetics and attempted to use it to justify their theories on eugenics and the master race, which culminated in Action T4).

Despite the ban, some Soviet scientists continued to work in genetics, dangerous as it was.^{[citation needed]}

In 1948, genetics was officially declared "a bourgeois pseudoscience";^[10] all geneticists were fired from their jobs (some were also arrested), and all genetic research was discontinued. Nikita Khrushchev, who claimed to be an expert in agricultural science, also valued Lysenko as a great scientist, and the taboo on genetics continued (but all geneticists were released or rehabilitated posthumously). The ban was only waived in the mid-1960s.

Thus, Lysenkoism caused serious, long-term harm to Soviet knowledge of biology. It represented a serious failure of the early Soviet leadership to find real solutions to agricultural problems, throwing their support behind a charlatan at the expense of many human lives.

Almost alone among Western scientists, John Desmond Bernal, Professor of Physics atBirkbeck College, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, made an aggressive public defense of Lysenko and some years later gave an obituary of ‘Stalin as a Scientist.’ However, despite Bernal's endorsement, other members of Britain's scientific community retreated from open support of the Soviet Union, and may have been one of the chief reasons for a retreat from Marxism in that country.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Neo-Lysenkoism

The word 'Neo-Lysenkoism' has occasionally been invoked by biological determinists as a rhetorical term in the debates over race and intelligence and sociobiology to describe scientists minimizing the role of genes in shaping human behavior, such as Leon Kamin,Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould and Barry Mehler.^[11][12] Some also use it in regards to claims of global warming and man-made climate change.^{[citation needed]}

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