Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Russian Трофим Денисович Лысенко, Research Trofim Denisovich Lysenko transliteration; * 17 Septemberjul / September 29 1898greg in Karlovka, Russian Empire, .. † November 20, 1976 in Moscow) was a Soviet biologist and agronomist, who Joseph Stalin gained great political influence. His theory of Lysenkoism, be determined by the hereditary traits by environmental conditions was scientifically untenable and contradicted Lysenko times already to the known principles of genetics. Some of his research has been exposed as a fake.
Lysenko's theories were considered and promoted, which led to crop failure and worsening of famine by the Stalinist regime as valid. Moreover, other scientists were Lysenko's influence followed contrarians as dissidents and - even killed - at least in the case of the renowned biologist Nikolai Vavilov.
Biography
Lysenko came from a peasant family. In 1925, he graduated as an agronomist at the Agricultural Institute of the University of Kiev.
In 1929 he went to the All-Union Institute of Genetics and Seed in Odessa, which he headed from 1934 to 1939. From 1940, he headed the Institute of Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. As a loyal party supporter (he was never a member of the CPSU ), he promised to breed high-yielding crop varieties and solve all nutritional problems. In 1936 he was honored by Josef Stalin with the Order of Lenin, he still later received six times. Until the end phase of the Khrushchev era, he had a significant influence in the party and science.
In 1948 he organized the infamous August meeting of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lysenko's conduct speech " On the situation of biology " has been transformed by personal initiative of Stalin in a formal ban against the so-called Mendelian Weismann -Morgan genetics. Thus, the teachings of Gregor Mendel, August Weismann's and Thomas Hunt Morgan and thus modern genetics were discarded on in the Soviet Union. Until the 1960s, was retained neolamarckistischen a position which, in contrast to Darwinism favored inheritance anerworbener properties. This also had intense socio-political influence and catastrophic consequences for agriculture in the Soviet Union and other CMEA countries.
In March 1953, he was criticized by Nikita Khrushchev personally. In mid-April 1956, he was replaced as president of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Research by PP Lobanov, but remained agricultural advisers Khrushchev.
In 1962, his scientific misrepresentations and forgeries as well as its policy of political exclusion scientific critics by prominent scientists, including Yakov Seldowitsch, Vitaly Ginzburg and Pyotr Kapitsa, disclosed. Lysenko was subsequently sacked by Khrushchev.
Lysenko's work
Lysenko was under Joseph Stalin 's leading biologist of the USSR. He represented the successor of Lamarck the view that acquired characteristics were inherited and negated the existence of genes as unsocialist and therefore wrong. The Origin of Species, so would not take place, such as Charles Darwin had found out by mutation and selection, but through inheritance of acquired characteristics. His theories he tested in large-scale agricultural projects. He sowed wheat under unfavorable climatic conditions and found then next year rye plants in the field. In fact, rye plants had seeded from adjacent fields. Contrast Lysenko interpreted such results as evidence for his thesis. With the introduction of artificial vernalization of wheat seed he wanted to prevent the spread after the collectivization of poor harvests in the Ukraine and Russia. The prognostozierten of him yield increases soon proved untenable.
Major theories of Lysenko, presented for example in the keynote address at the session of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the USSR in August 1948 in Moscow, were:
Through good relations with the Soviet secret service NKVD, he was able to make silence critics. Especially after his appointment as President of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences ( AdL ) of the Soviet Union in 1938, he had other biologists, especially geneticists pursue politically and bring in a prison camp. So Lysenko was responsible for the death of the eminent biologist and founder of the Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, in 1943.
Lysenko there to personally provide significant resources through good relations within the party and Stalin understood. On his instruction, considerable areas were planted with wheat, which were not suitable for this climate. The thus caused crop failures aggravated an already poor food security situation of Soviet citizens clearly, there was famine. Likewise, in the People's Republic of China after Mao Zedong for the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese farmers to apply the methods of Lysenko ordered. The agriculture of the GDR was spared except for some lip service in textbooks of a practical implementation of the theories of Lysenko due to the courageous activity Hans Stubbe.
Biological Sciences of the Soviet Union were permanently damaged, so that the term Lysenkoism was henceforth used as a slogan for charlatanism and the subordination of scientific knowledge among the wishes of the policy.
Epigenetics
In their absolute claim Lysenko's theories were wrong, and proved in any way. However, in today's opinion can be certain acquired characteristics depending bequeath after. Comparisons to the article on epigenetics.