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Trofim Lysenko

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Trofim Lysenko
Lysenko in 1938
Born
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko

29 September 1898 (1898-09-29)
Karlivka, Poltava Governorate,
Russian Empire
Died20 November 1976(1976-11-20) (aged 78)
Moscow, Soviet Union
NationalityUkrainian
CitizenshipUSSR
Alma materKiev Agricultural Institute
Known forLysenkoism
Rejecting Mendelian inheritance
Scientific career
FieldsBiology
Agronomy
InstitutionsRussian Academy of Sciences

Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Template:Lang-ru, Template:Lang-uk; 29 September [O.S. 17 September] 1898 – 20 November 1976) was a Soviet biologist and agronomist. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of pseudoscientific[1][2][3] ideas termed Lysenkoism.

His experimental research in improved crop yields earned the support of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, especially following the famine and loss of productivity resulting from resistance to forced collectivization in several regions of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. In 1940, he became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences, and Lysenko's anti-Mendelian doctrines were further secured in Soviet science and education by the exercise of political influence and power. Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in 1948.

Though Lysenko remained at his post in the Institute of Genetics until 1965,[4] his influence on Soviet agricultural practice had declined by the 1950s.

Early rise

Trofim Lysenko, the son of Denis and Oksana Lysenko, was born to a peasant family in Karlivka, Poltava Governorate (in present-day Poltava Oblast, Ukraine) and attended the Kiev Agricultural Institute (now the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine). In 1927, at 29 years of age, working at an agricultural experiment station in Azerbaijan, he embarked on the research that would lead to his 1928 paper on vernalization, which drew wide attention because of its potential practical implications for Soviet agriculture. Severe cold and lack of winter snow had destroyed many early winter-wheat seedlings. By treating wheat seeds with moisture as well as cold, Lysenko induced them to bear a crop when planted in spring.[5] Lysenko coined the term "Jarovization" to describe this chilling process, which he used to make the seeds of winter cereals behave like spring cereals ("Jarovoe"). However, this method had already been known by farmers since the 1800s, and had recently been discussed in detail by Gustav Gassner as "vernalization" (from the Latin "vernus", of the Spring).[6]

Lysenko's exaggerated claims for massively increased yields were based on plantings over a few hectares, and he further incorrectly claimed that the vernalized transformation could be inherited – i.e., that the offspring of a vernalized plant would themselves go on to flower more quickly, with the vernalization treatment.[7]

The conversion of winter wheat into spring wheat by Lysenko was not a new discovery. However, this work has been initially supported by Nikolai Vavilov,[8] who subsequently became one of Lysenko's critics [9] and a victim of political repressions against geneticists instigated by Lysenko.

Lysenko speaking at the Kremlin in 1935. At the back (left to right) are Stanislav Kosior, Anastas Mikoyan, Andrei Andreyev and the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin

Lysenko was praised in the Soviet newspaper Pravda for his claims to have discovered a method to fertilize fields without using fertilizers or minerals, and to have shown that a winter crop of peas could be grown in Azerbaijan, "turning the barren fields of the Transcaucasus green in winter, so that cattle will not perish from poor feeding, and the peasant Turk will live through the winter without trembling for tomorrow."[10]

Lysenko argued that there is not only competition, but also mutual assistance among individuals within a species, and that mutual assistance also exists between different species.

According to Lysenko,

The organism and the conditions required for its life are an inseparable unity. Different living bodies require different environmental conditions for their development. By studying these requirements we come to know the qualitative features of the nature of organisms, the qualitative features of heredity. Heredity is the property of a living body to require definite conditions for its life and development and to respond in a definite way to various conditions.[11]

By the late 1920s, the Soviet political leaders had given their support to Lysenko. This support was a consequence, in part, of policies put in place by the Communist Party to rapidly promote members of the proletariat into leadership positions in agriculture, science and industry. Party officials were looking for promising candidates with backgrounds similar to Lysenko's: born of a peasant family, without formal academic training or affiliations to the academic community.[12]

Lysenko in particular impressed political officials with his success in motivating peasants to return to farming.[13] The Soviet's Collectivist reforms forced the confiscation of agricultural landholdings from peasant farmers and heavily damaged the country's overall food production, and the dispossessed peasant farmers posed new problems for the regime. Many had abandoned the farms altogether; many more waged resistance to collectivization by poor work quality and pilfering. The dislocated and disenchanted peasant farmers were a major political concern to the Soviet leadership.[14] Lysenko emerged during this period by advocating radical but unproven agricultural methods, and also promising that the new methods provided wider opportunities for year-round work in agriculture. Lysenko proved himself very useful to the Soviet leadership by reengaging peasants to return to work, helping to secure from them a personal stake in the overall success of the Soviet revolutionary experiment.[13]

Lysenko's Genetic Theory

Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetic inheritance theory in favor of his own logic. He believed Mendel's theory to be too reactionary or idealist. Lysenko considered himself more of a Lamarckist; the idea that all the changes occur in the lifetime of an organism can then become inheritable. This idea disregarded Darwin's concept of natural selection. He refused to believe that genes or DNA existed, and only spoke about them to say they did not exist. This threw biologists for a turn, because it went against all the knowledge they were gaining during this time. It also went against all Mendelian principles that most biologists/geneticists had been using to build their ideas on. [15]

After Stalin

Following Stalin's death in 1953, Lysenko retained his position, with the support of the new leader Nikita Khrushchev. However, mainstream scientists re-emerged, and found new willingness within Soviet government leadership to tolerate criticism of Lysenko, the first opportunity since the late 1920s. In 1962 three of the most prominent Soviet physicists, Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Pyotr Kapitsa, presented a case against Lysenko, proclaiming his work as false science. They also denounced Lysenko's application of political power to silence opposition and eliminate his opponents within the scientific community. These denunciations occurred during a period of structural upheaval in Soviet government, during which the major institutions were purged of the strictly ideological and political machinations which had controlled the work of the Soviet Union's scientific community for several decades under Stalin.

In 1964, physicist Andrei Sakharov spoke out against Lysenko in the General Assembly of the Academy of Sciences:

He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists.[16]

The Soviet press was soon filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles and appeals for the restoration of scientific methods to all fields of biology and agricultural science. In 1965[17][18] Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills (the Institute itself was soon dissolved). After Khrushchev's dismissal in 1964, the president of the Academy of Sciences declared that Lysenko's immunity to criticism had officially ended. An expert commission was sent to investigate records kept at Lysenko's experimental farm. His secretive methods and ideas were revealed. A few months later, a devastating critique of Lysenko was made public.[19] As a result, Lysenko was immediately disgraced in the Soviet Union.[20]

Lysenko died in Moscow in 1976, and was interred in the Kuntsevo Cemetery.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ Sterling, Bruce (June 2004). "Suicide by pseudoscience". Wired. No. 12.06.
  2. ^ Gordin, Michael D. (2012). "How Lysenkoism became pseudoscience: Dobzhansky to Velikovsky". Journal of the History of Biology. 45 (3): 443–68. doi:10.1007/s10739-011-9287-3. PMID 21698424.
  3. ^ Enstrom, James E. (2007). "Defending legitimate epidemiologic research: Combating Lysenko pseudoscience". Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations. 4 (11). doi:10.1186/1742-5573-4-11. PMC 2164936. PMID 17927827.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  4. ^ Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich. 16 August 2013. Retrieved 26 January 2014. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Roll-Hansen, Nils (1985). "A new perspective on Lysenko?" (PDF). Annals of Science. 42 (3): 261–78. doi:10.1080/00033798500200201. PMID 11620694. Retrieved 25 January 2011. REMOVE QUOTE.
  6. ^ Chouard, P. (1960). "Vernalization and its relations to dormancy". Annual Review of Plant Physiology. 11. Annual Reviews: 191–238. doi:10.1146/annurev.pp.11.060160.001203. Retrieved 25 January 2011. In temperate countries, the seed of winter cereals must be planted before the end of winter in order to fruit within 12 months of sowing.
  7. ^ Richard Amasino (October 2004). "Vernalization, Competence, and the Epigenetic Memory of Winter". Plant Cell. 16 (10). American Society of Plant Biologists: 2553–2559. doi:10.1105/tpc.104.161070. PMC 520954. PMID 15466409. Vernalization is the process by which prolonged exposure to cold temperatures promotes flowering.
  8. ^ Li, X.; Liu, Y. (2010). "The conversion of spring wheat into winter wheat and vice versa: False claim or Lamarckian inheritance?". Journal of Biosciences. 35 (2): 321–5. doi:10.1007/s12038-010-0035-1.
  9. ^ Pringle, Peter (2008). The Murder of Vavailov \publisher= Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-6498-3.
  10. ^ Joravsky, David (1986). The Lysenko Affair. University Of Chicago Press.
  11. ^ "Soviet Biology". marxists.org.
  12. ^ Krementsov, Nikolai (1997). Stalinist Science. Princeton University Press.
  13. ^ a b Graham, Loren R. (1972). Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union. Knopf. p. 208.
  14. ^ Fitzpatrick, Sheila (1994). Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization. Oxford University Press. pp. 4–5.
  15. ^ *Graham, Loren, What Have We Learned About Science and Technology from the Russian Experience?, (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1998).
  16. ^ Norman L., Qing Ni Li, Yuan Jian Li (2003) Biography of Andrei Sakharov, dissent period. The Seevak Website Competition
  17. ^ Cohen, B.M. (1965). "The descent of lysenko". The Journal of Heredity. 56 (5): 229–233.
  18. ^ Cohen, B.M. (1977). "The demise of Lysenko". The Journal of Heredity. 68 (1): 57.
  19. ^ Joravsky, David (1986). The Lysenko Affair. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 184. ISBN 0-226-41032-3.
  20. ^ "Trofim Denisovich Lysenko Facts". yourdictionary.com. LoveToKnow, Corp. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  21. ^ "Trofim Denisovich Lysenko". Find A Grave. Retrieved 20 April 2014.

Further reading

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