Many of you are aware that the science used in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is controlled by the government and is often biased against resource development and agriculture. There was also biased science in the former Soviet Union. The Soviet government’s ideology and bureaucracy controlled and distorted agricultural science to fit a communist agenda during the infamous period often called “Lysenkoism.”
Trofim Lysenko—who gave Lysenkoism its name—was a Russian peasant who had Stalin’s support and became director of the Institute of Genetics in the USSR Academy of Sciences. He had great influence on Soviet agriculture from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Lysenko’s scientific ideas included inheritance of acquired characteristics, a concept called Lamarckism after the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck of the 1700-1800s. Lamarck contributed good work to biology at a time when genetics and heredity were not understood. He held the belief, common in his day, that a trait acquired during an organism’s lifetime could be inherited by its decedents. Lamarck and his ideas predated both Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel, whose research-based findings replaced Lamarck’s ideas and set the groundwork for modern understanding of genetics.
Lamarckism was consistent with communist doctrine that heredity and genetics has a limited role in determining human characteristics. Rather, the communists thought that people could be changed under socialism/communism and these changes would be inherited in subsequent generations resulting in new selfless socialist men. It’s like if you lifted weights and got very muscular, your children will inherit a muscular physique. This was not good science.
Lysenko rejected natural selection and classic Mendelian genetics which are the basis of modern plant and animal breeding. Lysenko’s rejection of legitimate science resulted in large failures of Soviet agriculture and famines that killed millions of people. Other countries tried Lysenkoism, including Communist China which had famines in the late 1950s when millions of people died.
Dissent from Lysenko’s theories was outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1948. Many Soviet scientists who would not accept Lysenko’s perspectives were fired from their jobs, put in prison, and some were sentenced to death as enemies of the state. This included an accomplished botanist, Nikolai Vavilov, who died in prison. Following Stalin’s death and the rejection of Lysenko’s ideas in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, Vavilov’s reputation was restored as a national hero.
Modern science in the U.S. is not descending into Lysenkoism. Modern science is very rigorous. However, science can be distorted by political agendas. Other authors have warned about the threat of Lysenkoism reemerging today, particularly for environmental issues and global warming (Andrews 2006, Crichton 2004, Ferrara 2013). These authors warn about the dangers of using science to advance political agendas, and similarities of today’s political climate and Lysenkoism. I think this is seen in some ESA cases, where biased science is used to get ESA listings of wildlife.
Lysenkoism was made possible by a totalitarian socialist/communist government. Even though the Cold War is over and the communist Soviet Union dissolved, some Americans are now calling for socialism/communism (see Kesler 2018). I suppose each generation has a component attracted to socialism/communism with its promise of full equality, without recognizing its inevitable descent into government control, banning of free speech and dissent, and loss of life and liberty.
It’s a real shame that some Americans are now supporting socialism/communism, considering the sacrifices made by our troops fighting socialism/communism in Korea, Viet Nam, and the Cold War.
What you can do? Tell your congressional representatives, governor, state legislators, local officials, and government agencies to:
• Support the president’s vow that America will never be a socialist country.
• Educate them about Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, which led to unmitigated disaster for agriculture and the Soviet people.
• Tell them that the government control of science in some ESA cases is similar to Lysenkoism.
• Encourage dissent and debate on science; don’t prohibit it.
• Insist on the use of honest science in making policy and acknowledge of the misuse of science in history under socialism/communism. — Dr. Matthew Cronin
(Matthew Cronin was a research professor at the University of Alaska and is now at Northwest Biology Company LLC and an affiliate professor at Montana State University. He can be reached at croninm@aol.com. Check WLJ.net for a list of references and citations of this column.)
References:
Andrews, J. 2006. Lessons from Lysenko. Phytopathology News. 40 (6):66, June 2006.
Crichton, M. 2004. State of Fear, Appendix I. Harper Collins, New York.
Ferrarra, P. 2013. The Disgraceful Episode Of Lysenkoism Brings Us Global Warming Theory. Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/04/28/the-disgraceful-episode-of-lysenkoism-brings-us-global-warming-theory/2/.
Kesler, C.R. 2018. America’s cold civil war. Imprimis 47(10):1-5, October 2018.
For more reading on Lysenko in the Soviet Union:
Birstein, V.J. 2001. The Perversion of Knowledge, The True Story of Soviet Science. Westview Press, a Member of the Perseus Books Group, Boulder, Colorado.
Joravsky, D. 1970. The Lysenko Affair. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lewontin, R. and R. Levins. 1974. The Problem of Lysenkoism. Pages 32-64 In H. Rose and S. Rose editors, The Radicalisation of Science. The MacMillan Press LTD. London.
Roll-Hansen, N. 2005. The Lysenko Effect, The Politics of Science. Humanity Books, an imprint of Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York.
Soyfer, V.N. 1994. Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick New Jersey.
