Papers on the Soviet genetics controversy.

Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Papers on the Soviet genetics controversy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mitting to a rigid system of central control. Needless to say, this meant that scientific research would eventually be directed by politicians through their favourites among the scientists. This is exactly what happened, and events have hit genetics harder than any other science. Partly by reintroducing some old agricultural practices as though they were his own marvellous discoveries and partly by being careful to talk the language cf dialectical material ism, one Lysenko has so imposed upon the Soviet authorities that finally they have handed over the control of a large section of biological research to him. And Lysenko happens to be ignorant of the science of genetics. If for a particular reason some one wishes to defend the publications of an ignorant and foolish scientist, he will nearly always find it possible to do so. Carefully guarding himself against future trouble by an inconspicuous sentence or two (' I disagree with X. on many points ’, etc.), the defender can explain that neither he nor the opponents of X. have read the whole of X.’s writings ; till that has been done (he may argue) no useful opinion can be formed. Then again, plants and animals are very diverse ; X. may indeed be wrong about the particular organisms he has studied, but there are others (bacteria, etc.) to which his ideas apply ; perhaps one day we shall find that these ideas have wider application. Through careful argument along these lines, expressed with every appearance of sweet reasonableness, people who are ignorant of the matter may be persuaded that this is a case in which the wise man or woman withholds judgment : the pros and cons are nicely balanced and we must leave the decision to the future. This is the technique that was adopted by Prof. J. B. S. Haldane in his recent broadcast on Lysenko. In science it is repeatedly necessary to form an assessment of the reliability of the work of another scientist, though it scarcely ever happens that we have read the whole of his writings. Even a little that is obviously untrue, illogical or confused will rightly prevent us from accepting his conclusions. It is, therefore, desir able to correct the misleading impression given by Prof. Haldane by quoting a few actual statements of Lysenko :— (1) ‘ When he grasps Bolshevism, the reader will not be able to give his sympathy to metaphysics, and Mendelism definitely is pure, undisguised metaphysics.’