Yeah, regardless of you're view of it's overall justifiably, many good people were marginalized (or worse) throughout the purges.
A particularly egregious example is the imprisonment of Soviet biologists and agricultural scientists who disagreed with Trofim Lysenko's literal pseudoscience, and the marginalization of genetics in favor of it in Soviet Academia.
genomics & neuroscience & these sorts of highly specialized scientific fields have come a long way since that time. Mendelian genetics was never a 100% materially based field and needed the discovery of DNA and chromosomes in order to confirm and vindicate it.
If we were to be fair here, I think even more recent developments in epigenetics reveal that Lysenko on certain thematic points was totally correct in assuming environmental & random non-hierarchical impacts on trait heritability etc. Lysenko's scientific notions were politically influenced, but we can't forget how the progressive era and race science & "eugenics" was a political nightmare supposedly built on this rational Western "science".
DNA wasn't discovered & recognized until the mid-1950s. Lysenko existed in a highly politicized world, and we can see that notions like ethnogenesis & haplogroups & neuropsychology & imaging and other sorts of "measurable" hard scientific attempts get into unfortunate territory when applied to human beings
Egalitarianism rejects survival of the fittest. From a basic sociological & humanistic perspective I hope we can see where Lysenko was coming from, but when dealing with pea plants I suppose it's not as difficult.
Good, and very informative, comment. I suppose I'll evolve my position to be that I don't so much have a problem with the promotion of Lysenko as I do the suppression of various Soviet Scientists who publically disagreed with his theories.
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Yeah, regardless of you're view of it's overall justifiably, many good people were marginalized (or worse) throughout the purges.
A particularly egregious example is the imprisonment of Soviet biologists and agricultural scientists who disagreed with Trofim Lysenko's literal pseudoscience, and the marginalization of genetics in favor of it in Soviet Academia.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/science/essays/sheehan.htm
Also the empowerment of Beria was, uh, not great.
genomics & neuroscience & these sorts of highly specialized scientific fields have come a long way since that time. Mendelian genetics was never a 100% materially based field and needed the discovery of DNA and chromosomes in order to confirm and vindicate it.
If we were to be fair here, I think even more recent developments in epigenetics reveal that Lysenko on certain thematic points was totally correct in assuming environmental & random non-hierarchical impacts on trait heritability etc. Lysenko's scientific notions were politically influenced, but we can't forget how the progressive era and race science & "eugenics" was a political nightmare supposedly built on this rational Western "science".
DNA wasn't discovered & recognized until the mid-1950s. Lysenko existed in a highly politicized world, and we can see that notions like ethnogenesis & haplogroups & neuropsychology & imaging and other sorts of "measurable" hard scientific attempts get into unfortunate territory when applied to human beings
Egalitarianism rejects survival of the fittest. From a basic sociological & humanistic perspective I hope we can see where Lysenko was coming from, but when dealing with pea plants I suppose it's not as difficult.
https://www.amazon.com/Lysenkos-Ghost-Epigenetics-Loren-Graham/dp/0674089057
Good, and very informative, comment. I suppose I'll evolve my position to be that I don't so much have a problem with the promotion of Lysenko as I do the suppression of various Soviet Scientists who publically disagreed with his theories.
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