Lysenkoism

The Lysenkoism was founded by the Russian agronomist Trofim Denisovich Lysenko pseudo-scientific theory, which was based inter alia, on the even then outdated notions of Lamarckism. The central postulate of Lysenkoism was that the characteristics of crop plants and other organisms were not determined by genes, but only by environmental conditions. That was then agreed with the state of the science in any way.

However Lysenko won in the Stalinist Soviet Union, particularly 1940-1964, a trend-setting position, as he managed to win the dictator Stalin as a promoter. The ensuing severe crop losses were attributed to alleged saboteurs. This was associated with a campaign against the so-called " fascist " and " bourgeois " genetics as well as against those biologists who were concerned with this discipline.

Lysenko's rise

In 1931, the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution requiring all grown in the USSR cereals should be improved in many ways and at the same time adapted to all growing areas within a few years. This plan was scientifically absurd and even in a much longer period of time can not be met. However, at the conference of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1936 joined the agronomist Trofim Denisovich Lysenko on, who previously worked on Allunionsinstitut of Genetics and breeding methods in Odessa, and announced that we can achieve the budgeted targets through unconventional methods in a very short time. Lysenko rejected the prevailing theory in genetics and alleged that there are no genes and one can convert various cereals by appropriate culture conditions with each other. He enjoyed the personal support of the dictator Josef Stalin, who praised him publicly and proteges.

As early as 1938 Lysenko was appointed president of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and his theses soon gained general validity in the Soviet Union, while critical voices - were heavily suppressed and hardly came to bear - as generally in that phase of Stalinism. One of the central themes of Lysenkoism was in addition to the change of grains by special culture conditions, the " transformation of species " in which should also clearly by certain culture conditions, approximately from wheat grains rye plants. Also important is the technology, in particular tree seedlings was closely replant in " nests " so that in the course of "self- thinning " only the best survived and the other is " sacrificed ". In addition, Lysenko promoted special fertilizer mixtures such as the combination of superphosphate and lime, which is ineffective because these two substances combine to form insoluble calcium phosphate.

The Soviet mass media presented Lysenko is as a genius who revolutionized farming. The propaganda loved stories from simple peasants tall bring out that solved practical problems by their skill and experience. Lysenko was enjoying the attention of the media and used it to blacken geneticists and to spread his own ideas. Where he could not prevail in the specialized science, helped him propaganda: Lysenko's achievements have been exaggerated and the failures hushed. He performed rarely controlled experiments, mainly because he relied on questionnaires from farmers, with whom he "proved " for example, that the propagated by him vernalization would increase wheat yields by 15%.

Lysenko's political success depended greatly on his background as a peasant child. Most biologists came from the middle class, and that was ideologically suspect since the October Revolution. Workers and peasants should now ask the ruling class. On top of that Lysenko was an enthusiastic supporter of Stalin and his system.

Lysenko had quickly ready "solutions" to current problems. Whenever the Communist Party had just decided to use a new type of grain or to open up new agricultural land - Lysenko emerged with practical advice on. He developed his ideas - the vernalization, the leaves cut in cotton plants, the groups planting trees to strange fertilizer mixtures - in such a high pace that the academic scientists had little time to investigate these partially useless and often dangerous teachings and, where appropriate, to refute.

Consequences for the Soviet Union and the Science

The State Press applauded Lysenko's " practical steps " and pulled the motives of his critics in doubt. Finally, he was appointed by Stalin to his personal agricultural advisers - a position that Lysenko used this to denounce biologists as " fly - lovers and people haters ". He also continued incitement against " saboteurs " continued who intended ostensibly to ruin the economy of the USSR. Sabotage was a criminal offense in the Soviet Union. Lysenko denied - as well as the party - any distinction between theoretical and practical biology.

The crop failure of Soviet agriculture in the 1930s were based in large part to the fact that many farmers opposed the collectivization policy. Lysenko's methods provided a way to allow the farmers to participate in the harvest success and the " agricultural revolution " active. For the party functionaries was a farmer who - for whatever purpose - ansäte cereals, useful, in contrast to the previously common practice to destroy grain so as not to leave it to the State.

The academic scientists, however, could not propose a simple and actionable innovations, and so the charlatanism of Lysenko came with the Communist Party in good standing. This reputation also spread beyond the borders of the Soviet Union in other communist parties where Lysenko's theories were temporarily established tenet.

A separate science Lysenko never existed. He copied the ideas of Ivan fellow urine and turned to a kind of Lamarckism. The plants, so Lysenko, their shape changed by hybridization, grafting and other non-genetic techniques. Many researchers assume that Lysenko's success in the Soviet Union was based on that by Marxist conception hereditary influences on human development are minimal. Others emphasize that he never applied his models to the human biology, but it was limited strictly to plants. Notions such as heredity or eugenics Lysenko rejected from a bourgeois influence on the science, which had to be fought in the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Lysenkoism was - as the Japhetitentheorie Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr in linguistics - an outgrowth of the fact that a pseudo-scientific approach for ideological reasons was conveyed in a totalitarian dictatorship by any means.

Persecution of scientists and subsequent development

The first outstanding disputes between the geneticists and the followers of Lysenko were decided as lost geneticists by the " Great Terror " in 1937 all advocates in the policy. Subsequently, many scientists (including Solomon Levit, Grigory Levitsky, Isaak Agol, Georgi Nadson ) were arrested and killed under the pretext to cooperate with " enemies of the people ". Other geneticists have been displaced by damage to reputation of their places. Among the few research centers of the geneticists who could hold a little longer, were among the Koltzov by Nikolai, who was poisoned in 1940, and the Institute of Nikolai Vavilov. Vavilov was arrested in 1940 and died three years later in prison.

Genetics was called a " fascist and bourgeois science." We are seeing a parallel to the under the Nazis from "Jewish " pursued the theory of relativity, which should be replaced by a " German physics ". 1948, genetics was officially declared a "bourgeois pseudo-science " - then all remaining geneticists were fired or imprisoned. Even evolutionary biologists like Ivan Schmalhausen were removed from their posts.

Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, Lysenko was critical of, but supported him on. In 1962, his scientific misinterpretation and falsification criticized by prominent scientists, so that he was deposed in 1962 as president of the Lenin Agricultural Academy. But only after Khrushchev's fall in October 1964 could Lysenko heresies referred to as such and will be rejected. 1965/66 the biology classes in the Soviet Union was exposed to develop new curricula and to retrain teachers.

Today, designated by the term " Lysenkoism " the political support pseudo- or unscientific theses and the obstruction of the free development of science by politics. In this sense, the American physicist Carl Sagan compared the efforts of evangelical circles in the USA to introduce creationism into the school curricula, with a precursor of Lysenkoism, as creationist oriented politicians want to determine what is to count as a science.