Lysenko: Cautionary Soviet-Era Tale Of How Tragically Politics Can Pervert Science | CommonHealth"On April 22, masses of American researchers are planning to leave the lab and take to the streets in a "March For Science," warning of a looming political threat to science.
...Boston also happens to be home to a leading historian on perhaps the ultimate cautionary tale of
politics perverting science. ...It's the sinister story of Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet-era "scientist" known for his cockamamie, anti-Darwin theories about agriculture and his penchant for denouncing colleagues who were doing actual solid work and dared to disagree with him, leading to their arrests and executions.
Our conversation, lightly edited:
Graham: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was an agronomist, a rather poorly educated one, who in the late 1920s and the early 1930s began attracting a lot of attention in the Soviet Union because he maintained that he could increase crop yields dramatically.
...Lysenko's message was extremely welcome — so welcome that he attracted a lot of attention.
And Lysenko, even though he was poorly educated as a biologist, had a very acute political sense.
So he knew how to present himself in such a way that the authorities would support him.
He was clever.
He was never a member of the Communist Party.
...And he turned to the government and said, "I would like to help you do what you want to do with my new methods."
Well, they loved that, you know.
And the crisis was so great that no one said, "Well, let's just verify some of his claims.
Does he use control groups?
Does he use statistics?
Are these verifiable claims?"
The answer to all those questions was no.
Nonetheless, because of the politics of the time, they supported him and fed his ambitions...Read all!
