Word: lysenkoism
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Academician Trofim D. Lysenko, ideological shepherd of Soviet geneticists, announced last week in Izvestia that Soviet agrobiologists can turn wheat into rye. All they have to do is plant wheat in places where the climate is tough for it. In a spasm of self-preservation, wrote Lysenko solemnly, the wheat turns into...
...Lysenko attributed the latest success of Soviet genetics to "Stalinist teaching on gradual, concealed, unnoticeable, quantitative changes that result in quick, qualitative, basic changes." He added: "Comrade Stalin is the embodiment of folk wisdom . . . He is the happiness of all the toilers of the world. Glory and long years of life and health to the leader and great teacher of the toilers, the coryphaeus* of science: Comrade Stalin...
...Until I read Lysenko's speech," he says, with a nod to the party, "I had not recognized the idealistic character of Mendel's formulation of his results." Lysenko, he argues, opened Haldane's eyes to a new refinement of the truth: "What is inherited is not a set of characters, but the capacity for reacting to the environment in such a way that, in a particular environment, particular characters are developed." Genes "exhibit a good deal of stability in their reproduction," Haldane writes, but not "complete stability, or evolution would be impossible." Parting company with Lysenko...
Unjustifiable Attacks. Haldane also criticizes the logic of Lysenko's followers: "We do not cease to believe in atoms," he writes, "because they can be split. Nor need we cease to believe in genes because they can be changed...
...others in similar positions have done." But the scientist in Haldane had, at least temporarily, vanquished the straight party-liner, even though his stand might well get him tabbed as a deviationist. "I believe that wholly unjustifiable attacks have been made on my profession [by supporters of Lysenko], and one of the most important lessons which I have learned as a Marxist is the duty of supporting my fellow workers. We are not infallible, but we certainly do not hold many of the opinions . . . attributed...