Chapter 12 Chapter 12 Lysenkoism

In the history of modern science, no fanatic has achieved so much fame, so much adulation and so much power as Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, the number one authority on Soviet breeding and genetics.The Kremlin not only made his views dogmatic, but also removed his opponents in the Soviet Union from their jobs one by one.Some died in concentration camps, others disappeared.A handful of people are still working, but have moved on to other fields of biology. What is the cause of this folly, this calculated destruction of a science?Although there is no justification for such an approach, it becomes clearer if we look at the ideological aspects involved and some important events that preceded Lysenko's miraculous rise to prominence.

The story begins with Jean Lamarck, an eighteenth-century French scientist.Lamarck is well-deservedly called the "Father of Evolution".Although his work, published half a century before Darwin's, lacked enough facts to convince his colleagues, he had a great idea that plants and animals evolved slowly over long geological epochs.According to Lamarck, the process of evolution is through the inheritance of traits, which are formed by the adaptation of objects to the environment. The classic explanation for this "inheritance of acquired traits" is Lamarck's account of how the giraffe's neck became elongated.Giraffes live in areas where they can only survive by eating leaves, which grow high in the trees.They stretch their necks to reach the leaves.This stretching of the neck, and the desire to do so, is somehow transmitted to the elongated neck of a male giraffe, which should somehow be transmitted to the giraffe's sperm.And that relationship doesn't exist.In fact, many organisms which have undergone great changes are, like fingernails, nothing but dead matter excreted from the body, as is the case with the wings of butterflies.It is by no means conceivable to use such inanimate tissues to influence the genes of such insects.

Many experiments have been done to test Lamarck's theory.The results of all experiments refuted this theory.On the contrary, tens of thousands of experiments reported in various journals and rigorously tested by geneticists all over the world have eliminated many reasonable doubts and proved the correctness of the gene variation theory.Chromosomes that carry genes have been studied extremely intensively.In recent years, electron microscopes have been able to see what might be genes themselves. Despite the rapidly accumulating evidence for natural selection, Lamarck had no shortage of devoted believers.During Darwin's time, British satirist Samuel Butler wrote 6 books to defend Lamarck and attack Darwin fiercely.Later, George Bernard Shaw took Butler's stick again.In France, where Lamarck's ideas have existed longer than in England or Germany, the philosopher Henri Bergson found that Lamarck's theory fit his concept of "creative evolution".Both he and Shaw were "vitalists," arguing that what drives evolution is a creative "life force," manifested in the relentless struggle of living organisms to better themselves.In the United States, a large number of neo-Lamarckists emerged at the beginning of this century, the most prominent of which was the psychologist William McDuck.

All these people are idealists.They objected to Darwin because they felt that, according to his theory, free will and individual effort had no chance of functioning.Natural selection seems to be a blind, aimless struggle in which progress is made almost as an afterthought.Orthodox Christians object to the theory of evolution because, in their view, the theory of evolution is a dull, empty circle, and a waste of energy compared to the story in "Genesis".Likewise, the neo-Lamarckian view of natural selection is a dull, circle-in-the-loop, waste of energy compared with the inheritance of acquired traits.The idea that any small effort made by an animal is passed on to its offspring does have a powerful appeal to people.It holds that each individual can directly participate in the evolutionary process.The harder a rabbit runs, the faster its offspring will run.The more a man uses his brain, the better his children's brains work.

Lamarckism is easily combined with idealism, and believes that all creative activities are a continuous upward struggle to complete God's grand plan.Likewise, it can easily be combined with a political doctrine that emphasizes building an ideal world.Lamarckism had one of its most eloquent apologists in this respect, the Viennese biologist and socialist Paul Camere.His book "Acquired Inheritance" was translated into English in 1924.We can excerpt one of them.It vividly expresses the strong appeal of Lamarckism to the socially conscious man. Camere writes: "If acquired traits were not heritable, as most contemporary naturalists insist, then true biological evolution would be impossible. Men lived in vain and suffered in vain. Whether he What is acquired in the course of life, also dies with him. His children and children's children must start again and again.  … If acquired traits can be inherited by chance, then it becomes clear that we are not without The exceptions are all slaves to the past—slaves who have tried in vain to break free—and will become masters of our future. As time goes on, we will be able to shed some of our own heavy burdens, Climbing up the ladder of higher and higher development. The achievements of education and civilization, health and social activities, not only benefit the individual, because every action, every word, and even every thought will imprint the next generation .”

"Camere was responsible for a series of sensational laboratory experiments that seemed to confirm Lamarck's point of view. With the results of these experiments, he was hired as a professor at Moscow University in 1925. At that time, the Soviet horticulturalist Michurin His Lamarckian views were prevailing. However, soon after Camere took office at Sue, it was discovered that some of his taxidermy were elaborate forgeries. Camere denied all this and blamed the matter on one of his assistants. Who Nor did he believe him. He made a will, bequeathed his valuable library to Moscow University; donated his body to an anatomy school in Vienna, and then killed himself with a revolver. He was the last Lamarckist. He His writings and experiments, at least for a while, enjoyed a reputation of authority.

While Lamarckism was losing prestige around the world, it was gaining momentum in the Soviet Union.There is a Russian film in praise of Camere, in which reactionary bourgeois enemies are blamed for the forgery.Nevertheless, many Russian biologists continued to explore Mendel's theory of genetic variation (so called because the Austrian priest Mendel pioneered it) with great success, and it was not until the late 1930s that Mendelism was labeled "bourgeois" by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Idealism" label.From then on, things took a turn for the worse. Nobel laureate HJ Muller, as a senior geneticist, worked at the Moscow Institute of Genetics for four years (1933-1937).He published two authoritative articles on Lysenkoism in the Saturday Literary Review on December 4 and 11, 1948.The excerpt below vividly describes what happened at that time.

Müller writes: "Around 1933 the geneticists Chetvelikov, Ferry and Efroimsen were exiled to Siberia, and Levitsky was imprisoned in a labor camp in the European Arctic. camp.... In 1936, it was rumored that Agor, a communist geneticist, was accused of "Menshevik idealism" in genetics, and then executed....Famous geneticists, such as Karpitchenko , Korzov, Serebrovsky, and Levitsky, etc., are unknown. What is certain, however, is that from 1936 onwards, geneticists at all levels in the Soviet Union lived in terror. Among those who were not imprisoned, exiled, or executed, most were forced to go to other professions. Those who were left in the laboratory, most of them had to change the direction of their research in order to show that they were trying to prove officially sanctioned anti-science Correct point of view. During the chaotic period near the end of the war some fled to the West. Nevertheless, a few continued to work in order to show that there were still some geneticists working in the USSR. "

Müller comments: "The irony is that the vast majority of the purged geneticists were completely politically loyal and reliable. Many were even ardent defenders of the Soviet system and leadership. Known by personal contact.' In 1936 the Institute of Medicine-Genetics, arguably one of the best institutes in the world, was attacked by Pravda and subsequently closed.The institute's founder, Solomon Leavitt, publicly admitted he had made Mendelian mistakes and then fell silent.Vavilov, Russia's most eminent geneticist, internationally renowned and respected, was dismissed from many positions and accused of being a British spy.He died in a Siberian labor camp in 1942, and biologists abroad did not learn of him until years later.Müller writes: "Thus ends the life of a man who ... has undoubtedly contributed so much to the development of genetics in Soviet agriculture as no one in the world contribution."

Several conferences were held in Russia, presumably to discuss the issues involved in the debate.At these conferences, the leading figure in the defense of Michurin's (Lamarckian) views was Trofim Lysenko.This person was a former farmer and a plant breeder, and he rose through the ranks with the support of the party. The 1948 meeting marked Lysenko's decisive victory.At the meeting in 1948, he made a fiery speech of 12,000 words.Defenders of Mendel's ideas were brutally attacked as reactionary, depraved, kneeling before Western capitalism, and enemies of the Soviet people.At the conclusion of the meeting, Lysenko mentioned in passing that his speech had been approved by the Central Committee of the CPSU.

The approval of Lysenko's speech naturally meant the complete victory of Michurinism, making it the party's line in biology.Henceforth, it was impossible to present evidence against it, or even to secretly sympathize with Mendel's views.The few scientists who had dared to oppose Lysenko's views wrote open letters one by one, making painful self-criticism, praising the wise guidance of the party and promising to correct their own mistakes.Professor Müller writes that the Academy of Sciences, headed by the late Vavilov's brother, "obeyed the order of the party and withdrew Olbeko, the greatest physiologist of the Soviet Union, Shmarhausen, the greatest morphologist of the Soviet Union, and one of the best remaining geneticists, Dubinin, and others. Dubinin's laboratory, famous for its admirable research work, is closed." Lysenko's reputation grew day by day.He replaced his opponent Vavilov in all important positions.He was awarded the Stalin Prize twice, was awarded the Order of Lenin, and became a Hero of the Soviet Union.For a time he served as Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Soviet. Lysenko exhibits almost all the main characteristics of those delusional paranoid people.He is extremely self-interested, whimsical, full of hatred for his opponents, and completely ignorant of the scientific method.Julian Hudley wrote in his excellent 1949 book, The Genesis of East and West: "Lysenko was nothing but an illiterate. I use that word to mean that there was no way to talk to him on a scientific basis." Discussing matters. . . . Sometimes he appears to be ignorant of the relevant scientific facts and principles; sometimes he misunderstands them; sometimes distorts them; Professor Muller believes that "Lysenko's article is pure nonsense on the theoretical line. Obviously, he neither understands what is a controlled experiment, nor does he understand the established principles of genetics taught in elementary courses in genetics. .” Here is a similar view quoted by Hukkenley, another important geneticist, Prof. SC Harlan. "In 1933, . . . I met Lysenko in Odessa, talked to him for several hours, and observed him in practice. It was quite evident that Lysenko was astonishingly ignorant of the fundamentals of plant physiology and genetics. " According to Hercules, Lysenko's views were so vague that they could hardly be called a theory.These views are copied politically from beginning to end.Complete denial of the existence of genes.Mendelians are, of course, "idealists" because they study things that don't exist.Heredity is transmitted by every particle of the body.If a plant is suddenly exposed to a new environmental condition, its genetics are "destroyed" (like a political revolution).This disruption is a bit like electroshock therapy.It gives plants special adaptations to change.The new environment produces desired changes within the plant that are permanently passed on through the generations. Unfortunately, scientists outside the Soviet Union managed to repeat Lysenko's experiments, rarely with the same results.In many cases, Lysenko did not publish enough data so that his experiments could not be evaluated or replicated.Some of his experiments were undoubtedly successful, but all of them can be explained by Mendel's theory.Perhaps Lysenko did not know much about the theory of heredity to realize this.He took few precautions to ensure that the experiments were carried out under controlled conditions.For example, he wants to grow a certain plant under new conditions.However, it does not guarantee whether the variety of this plant is "pure" (that is, to prevent the variety from containing a variety of recessive genes), and new plants will naturally show various differences.Lysenko imagined that these differences were a direct result of the new environment.He picked out individual plants that seemed to have the strongest "adaptability". In fact, he did so naturally, and unconsciously, he was experimenting with Mendel's basic selection process. manifested in. The only way to prevent this Mendelian result is to use pure breeds that are native to France.But getting such a breed requires inbreeding.And that takes a lot of effort.Since Lysenko didn't believe in this process, he naturally didn't want to do such a waste of time.Of course, no other Soviet biologist wanted to perform experiments that might cast doubt on Ercy, who had been declared correct.People remember what happened to Vavilov and other Mendelians. One of the most important aspects of modern genetics is the application of statistical methods to the different types derived from breeding trials.In fact it is indispensable.But Lysenko did not believe in "chance" and therefore opposed the application of statistical methods.Michurin didn't need statistics, he yelled, why would he?The refusal to use this important scientific tool is another reason why it is extremely difficult for geneticists outside Russia to judge whether Lysenko's declared results were correct. Many of the results Lysenko promised were never realized.At one point, Vavilov made the mistake of saying that it would take at least five years to develop an improved variety of wheat.At that time, Lysenko loudly announced that with his method, this kind of wheat could be bred within two years.Vavilov was accused of undermining state building."Needless to say, Lysenko's promises were not kept," Mueller wrote. This naturally raises the question; why did the Soviet Union always ignore all the positive achievements of modern genetics?Why does it fall back on the abandoned Lamarckian view?And Lamarck's views, in Hudson Leigh's words, are "nothing but a remnant of a demagogic magic trick."In Muller's words, it is "like the superstition that believes that the earth is flat." One can only guess why.Mendel was Catholic, and the Nazis falsely used his views to justify the theory that the Aryans were a superior race, but this is probably a minor factor.The more important factor was that Lysenko created a convenient avenue for jettisoning the "foreign" science of the enemies of capitalism and praising purely Russian "science".Another reason may also be that Soviet leaders were skeptical of Mendel's theory because it was too esoteric for them.Perhaps they felt that a simpler theory should be taught to the Soviet peasantry as long as the practical results resulted in increased grain production.It is true that Russian agriculture is quite backward. As long as simple hybridization is carried out, supplemented by preliminary seed selection and improved farming methods, much and rapid progress will be made.As long as Lysenko kept his head down in crossbreeding, he was likely to produce useful varieties.Although his achievements were explained in terms of Michurin's theory, it was Mendel's laws that actually worked. Perhaps the most important of these reasons is ideological.As mentioned earlier, Lamarckism is perfectly suited to the psychology of people building a new society.According to Mendel's theory, evolution is a slow process of accidental and purposeless mutation.The overall result is progress, but in this process the individual does not feel that his own improvements will be directly passed on to the next generation.Lysenkoism offers a more immediately appealing perspective.Humans have become adaptive and can change quickly due to new conditions and individual efforts.Russian children could be taught that the revolution had "destroyed" the genetic makeup of the Soviet people: the new generation raised in the new environment would be a better race.This provides the basis for a new type of racism. Nothing could be more untrue than to accuse Mendelian genetics of being a form of idealism.The theory of variation places the theory of evolution on a solid material basis—genes—and its laws are the result of careful experimental research over the past 50 years.On the contrary, the Soviet view is full of metaphysics.As Professor Müller writes, it "contains an Aristotelian mystical 'Principle of Perfection,' a foresight in the fundamental constitution of living things." One is reminded of Goethe's similar metaphysical point of view.The great German poet spent several months trekking across Sicily in an effort to find a "prototype plant".He believed that all other plants evolved from this "ideal" plant as a result of environmental influences. In fact, the debate about Mendel has nothing to do with religious, philosophical, or political beliefs.The theist can think of evolution as God's way of creating the world, and he can also think of accidental variation as one of the ways to carry out God's evolutionary plan.Regardless of how evolution works, the result is the same.Why can't God use any method He wishes?Accidental variation, upon which circumstances have an influence, may be regarded, like any other, as an instrument of the expression of the divine will, that is, as an expression of the vital force.In the above formulation, substituting "nature" or "dialectical materialism" for God still does not change the argument. In the same way, the feeling for a new society can be combined as successfully with Mendelian ideas as with outdated Lamarckian views, and indeed far more.Müller wrote a book when he was in Moscow called Out of the Night.He pointed out in the book: Once a culture has achieved the same environmental conditions for all its citizens, it is possible to use modern Mendelian methods to rapidly improve the health and knowledge of the public.The Soviets disagreed with the book.Muller, now a professor at Indiana University, is "perhaps the most capable, and certainly the most comprehensive, geneticist the world has ever seen," in the words of Hutchinley.In the eyes of Soviet biologists, he was in the service of imperialist warmongers and one of the most misguided scientists in the world. Of course, the really scary thing about Lysenkoism is that a great culture has subordinated scientific truth to political control.Germany raised the theories of some mad anthropologists to the status of formal national studies, setting a precedent for this policy.These examples are in principle no different from the cases in which Galileo's discoveries were rejected as contrary to the orthodoxy of the state.In fact, every line of mourning in the "confessions" of some Mendelians in the Soviet Union, and Galileo's famous "confessions" from a battered and exhausted man who begged to be saved from death ,same. The rise of Lysenkoism taught the Western world a dramatic example lesson.Fortunately, our own sins in this area have not been particularly grave.To be sure, the Scopes trial in Tennessee was a triumph for George Price's point of view.Admittedly, research is controlled by the demands of various government agencies and large corporations, which alone can fund the enormous laboratories that are required.True, the overzealous zeal of blind-eyed politicians to secure government research programs and to keep certain fundamental aspects of their work "secret" has put our war effort and our basic scientific research at odds. weakened in all respects. But in general, science in America is relatively liberal compared with other countries and times, and while fundamentalists in the "Bible Belt" still read their dry denunciations of Darwin, they find no scientific authority or Prominent people are fundamentalists.Only a few southern states have laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution, and even in these states, colleges and universities have always evaded these laws.Scientists at thousands of universities and research institutes have unrestricted use of their talents in projects of their own choice.It is never possible, even in top-secret war research, to imagine that the President or Congress would make a resolution on a scientific theory and anyone who disagreed with it would be dismissed. We hope that Lysenko's success in Russia will serve as a warning to many generations to come, reminding the world how quickly and easily science can be destroyed if some ignorant political leaders think themselves capable of adjudicating scientific disputes. to destruction. (Additional note) The course of Lysenko's subsequent downfall is roughly as follows: A few months after Stalin's death in 1953, Pravda published Lysenko's "article in praise" of Stalin, which revealed that Stalin had participated in the preparation of Lysenko's famous 1948 speech. In 1954, Khrushchev's speech and subsequent official party newspapers severely condemned Senko, saying that he was a "monopoly of science" and a "conspirator in academia" and suppressed all theories that opposed him, accusing him of He made no real contribution to Soviet agriculture. In order to restore prestige, Lysenko made a last futile effort.He dramatically announced an astonishing new agricultural discovery by Soviet agronomist Terenty Maltsev.It turns out that this "new" discovery is related to two books by Edward Faulkner, The Folly of the Farmers (1943) and The Second Observation (1947), published by the University of Oklahoma Press The point of view is the same.According to Faulkner's very dubious article, the use of disk harrows to loosen the soil instead of plowing the soil with ordinary plows would result in a substantial increase in grain production.Lysenko's announcement didn't have much effect.In 1956, he resigned as president of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Shortly before he resigned.The Academy of Agricultural Sciences ordered the publication of the works of Lysenko's old rival Vavilov (Vavilov died in exile in Siberia after Lysenko replaced him as the head of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences).While this heralded a return to Mendelism, it was unlikely to say so at the time.So far, all criticisms of Lysenko's views, although exactly the same as those in the West, say that he "distorts" Michurinism!Abraham Blumberg predicted in an article on the downfall of Lysenko published in the weekly "New Leader" on August 9, 1954; "If Mendelian genetics can be what it is, it will be Secretly, without publicity, through the back door of restoring Michurinism to what it was.” At the moment, after all, there is a fresh breeze blowing in Soviet biology.But whether this wind will become stronger or weaker in the future, people are still reluctant to express their opinions hastily.