8 ms·

The Botanist Who Defied Stalin

145 points by dnetesn 6y ago

activatedgeek 6y ago
Vavilov was such an extraordinary individual. While he was imprisoned in 1940 for defying Stalin-era leader Trofim Lysenko for his Mendelian beliefs, his collaborators protected the then largest seed bank in the world during the Siege of Lenningrad [1] by Nazi Germany. Most of those "protectors" died, and Vavilov died of starvation in prison - the same thing he was so obsessed of solving for everyone. "Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End" [2] is the canonical read on this topic! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad [2]: https://www.librarything.com/work/7565437 https://www.librarything.com/work/7565437
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Starvation was a Big Deal(TM) in pre-ww2 Russia. Many of the best and brightest were drawn toward working on agricultural problems in their niche. Mikhail Kalashnikov got interested in mechanics and engineering because he wanted to help design better farm equipment and improve yields.
  - gullywhumper 6y ago
    For those that might not recognize the name, Mikhail Kalashnikov developed the AK-47 - the assault rifle.
    - baud147258 6y ago
      he was successful, but his invention ended reaping a very different type of harvest
      - kikokikokiko 6y ago
        Guns don't kill people, it's the bullets that do it.
        devtul 6y ago
        It's a team effort
        denkmoon 6y ago
        One could argue the bullet is an unwilling participant. The firing pin is the real perp.
        avmich 6y ago
        Gun is a tool with practically only one use, so I don't think "guns don't kill people" is actually accurate.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Starvation is always a big deal under Communism.
    - Conlectus 6y ago
      Commenting in no way on any such effects, droughts and famines have been a fairly regular feature of Russian history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_and_famines_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_and_famines_in_Russia...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - nickik 6y ago
        The comment was kind of unnecessary and not complete right but please don't excuse the Soviet government complicity in the massive famines between the revolution and WW2. The waste majority of famines in pre-Communist Russia were limited in scope in one region before transport was available. Even the most extreme famine in modern Russian history killed a few 100k of people. Under the Soviet government many millions died and often in years where there was not actually shortfall in the harvest, but that the government continued to export food during the mass starvation of its citizens. And lets not ignore what is basically genocide when the Soviet government forced nomads to farm and basically killed large parts of the population.
      - qwytw 6y ago
        While Russian agricultural productivity lagged significantly behind western countries, government policies (both soviet and imperial) were arguably the most significant cause of all peace time famines in the Russian Empire/USSR that occurred since the mid/late 19th century. Before 1913 main reason behind regional famines in Russia (excluding war time) was poor infrastructure and no efficient mechanism for redistributing grain (and the imperial government's unwillingness to establish one). Russian net exports of grain remained positive during the 1891–92, 1901 & 1906 famines. This (at least according to the death count) only got worse after the revolution. Agricultural production levels in 1930's weren't that much higher than they were in 1913 (grain production was much higher in all years besides 1936, however livestock production remained mostly at similar levels or even fell). However again, even taking into account the poor productivity exacerbated by the poor harvests the Soviet Union remained a next exporter of grain in all years between 1930 and 1933 (in 1932 and 1933 around 50% of all exports were from Ukrainian ports). During the same period at least 2 million people (up to 10 million according to higher estimates) died as a results of the famine. Considering this I don't really see how could anyone seriously blame the weather...
- fuf_998 6y ago
  He was. Only he was imprisoned for political reasons of being anti-bolshevik, you can even read this in the quote from his sentence in this cold-warish piece of writing in OP. This is biggest scientific myth i know - that soviets/marxism/etc deny science, because they prosecuted Vavilov for it. Like genetics back then was as it is now (search eugenics), and scientific debate about nature vs nurture was settled, and Lysenko was just some boy and didn't get applause in NYC conference on agrobiology. But I'm glad at least in research frontiers people do revisit Lysenko legacy nowadays, in the the light of epigenetic research. For common people it's just another neccesary illusion.
  - enkid 6y ago
    Sorry, the Soviet Union explicitly advocated for science based on ideology instead of the other way around under Stalin. Wikipedia has numerous examples of this [0]. And no, one person getting applause at one conference in the US does not make a scientific hypothesis valid. Your also either fundamentally misunderstanding what the current research on epigenetics says or what Lysenko was advocating. Lysenko claimed to do things well beyond anything current studies of epigenetics would allow, and the SU went all in on these claims to disastrous effects. (Because they preferred Lamarckism instead of Darwinism for purely ideological reasons.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Sov...
    - fuf_998 6y ago
      Thanks for your comment, i'm working on heterochromatin formation rn as a phd (not claiming full understanding of full epigenetic field ofc, but have some conceptual touch). >Lysenko claimed to do things well beyond anything current studies of epigenetics would allow You are right, but this is not true for all of his work; look at his earlier works on seed vernalization by heat treatment - he experimentally did what is mechanisticaly described now [0]. Isn't it funny - instead of tweaking crazy plant genome with complicated patented GM tech with minimal improvement as a result, you can dip your seeds in warm water and change the phenotype competely. Worth revisiting? Btw, both your and my comments fairly can go to Vavilov too and his less-known sides of research. But for myth sustaining purposes - Lysenko is totally bad, Vavilov is totally good, thus communism (or whatever "bad" label is tranding rn in capitalism criticism) is anti-science. >they preferred Lamarckism instead of Darwinism for purely ideological reasons I've tried here to add this scientific debate dimension to this preference, which is omitted. Both theories were in their nappies back then, and one (Lamarckism) was more appealing bcs of its alignment with ideology, right. It does not mean that genetics were evidently true back then and SU denied it for ideology' sake - this is how is read in the OP writing. [0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ppl.13163 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ppl.13163
theguppydream 6y ago
I enjoyed 99% Invisible's podcast on the seed vault, which I had no idea about prior to listening https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-vault/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-vault/
- aeturnum 6y ago
  I came here to share the Anthroposcene Reviewed episode on it (2nd half - starts around 12:30 in) https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/episodes/anthropocene-reviewed-tetris-and-seed-potatoes-leningrad https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/e...
  - anitil 6y ago
    Oh what a fantastic podcast. I think my favorites were 'Googling Stangers' and 'The Lascaux Paintings'
arximboldi 6y ago
There is a very good episode about him in the last Cosmos season.
fnord77 6y ago
https://www.damninteresting.com/a-blight-on-soviet-science/ https://www.damninteresting.com/a-blight-on-soviet-science/
- dang 6y ago
  Discussed a few weeks ago: A Blight on Soviet Science - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26513415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26513415 - March 2021 (40 comments)
- yarg 6y ago
  Thanks for that; I ended up at "genetic crossover" which explained to me a thing I'd never wrapped my head around before.
blackoil 6y ago
I see, sacrifice by common men/women, without any special training, against certain death for a non personal cause is one of the unifying positive trait of humanity across time/space.
- mudita 6y ago
  Like suicide bombers?
  - sorokod 6y ago
    You could argue that the average suicide bomber expects a personal reward in the afterlife.
    - karpierz 6y ago
      You could also argue that altruism isn't real, and doing altruistic acts is rewarding for the individual, but that seems a little reductionist.
      - sorokod 6y ago
        I could, but altruism is too fantastic to bother.
- 2rsf 6y ago
  the "non personal cause" could be tricky though, I see that for example with religious people doing things for non personal causes- they are actually gaining from it but not money or fame, could be "points" in the afterlife or happiness
redis_mlc 6y ago
FYI: If you shake your head at Lysenko in the article, note that similar things are happening today with Marxists and critical race theory and science/math in the US.
repeek 6y ago
A song by The Decemberists, "When the War Came"[1], covers this topic. One of my favorites! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJHOiQ2uniU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJHOiQ2uniU
- gxqoz 6y ago
  Huh. I've listened to this song many times without really internalizing the lyrics.
swebs 6y ago
This is how we got the term Lysenkoism, which is >any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
interestica 6y ago
The French short documentary 'Le savant, l'imposteur et Staline' is available free to Canadians: https://ici.tou.tv/le-savant-l-imposteur-et-staline-comment-nourrir-le-peuple/S01E01 https://ici.tou.tv/le-savant-l-imposteur-et-staline-comment-... (FR captions only) Well made with lots of appropriate imagery. And an english version is available to rent/buy: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/scientist/392774148 https://vimeo.com/ondemand/scientist/392774148
TotallyOkNGood 6y ago
It's unfortunate that this was the fate of some important science in the USSR. The story of Vygotsky is similar. His psychological/pedagogical is still pretty influential to this day but he was largely rejected in part because his work challenged the legacy of Pavlov. Shame that this was the state that was supposed to be rigorously scientific.
- B1FF_PSUVM 6y ago
  The problem is that it was an article of marxist faith that "class origin" was a guarantee of correctness - the proletariat was supposed to automatically lead the way to the future. Communist parties all over the world were keen on demonstrating that their central committees had a "proletarian majority", with a sprinkling of helpful intellectuals, which might include the secretary general ...
- fuf_998 6y ago
  Don't you see any room for a scientific development whatsoever? Or every dogma or fork from a current dogma is accepted normally immediately as it emerges? No, rather let's look into political perspective on this, because we are talking about SU after all.
lionhearted 6y ago
Oh man, I'm happy to see this here — I've been slowly working my way through various science and engineering done in the Soviet Union since there was some incredible work done that's very poorly known in the West. Vavilov is definitely a first-class scientist who seemed to have an incredible personality. In some alternative better timeline, Vavilov would probably be as well-known and had inspired as many people as, say, Feynman. Alas. Anyway, while we're on the topic of Soviet scientists, the whole silver fox domestication research program is infinitely fascinating — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox Highly highly recommended. Edit: Soviet pharmacology also very interesting — and even more surprising it hasn't been studied and imported since, like, humans are humans and it works. Probably an unfortunate secondary effect of how trials/licensing/patenting work. Not a bad starting point: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-descended-upon-psychopharmacology/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-de...
lr1970 6y ago
Nikolai Vavilov's younger brother Sergei [0] was a famous physicist who together with Pavel Cherenkov discovered Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation [1]. By the time Nobel committee awared Cherenkov the Nobel price Sergei Vavilov already died (of natural causes). Got me thinking about genetic predisposition to science among Vavilov brothers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Ivanovich_Vavilov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Ivanovich_Vavilov [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
sorokod 6y ago
"and of “twenty-one employees of noblesse origin, eight from the priesthood, twelve honorary citizens [code for tsarists], and ten from the merchant class.” For those not familiar with this part of Russian history, the relevant concept here is "class enemy" - an individual who is an enemy of the people by virtue of being of certain social class.
- B1FF_PSUVM 6y ago
  > relevant concept here is "class enemy" In our enlightened times, this has been replaced with other categories which make automatic allies - "if you're X, you must do Y." (But still a "traitor" if you disobey the diktat.)
- hpcjoe 6y ago
  The echos that we see today of similar class warfare, of similar narratives supplanting real science, and replacing it with activism ... This is the direction we are heading toward. As the joke goes, history doesn't repeat itself. It does rhyme however. You can see echos of Lysenkoism where a narrative pushed hard by activists, that has numerous problems from a scientific point of view, is rammed down peoples throats. When people can be "deplatformed" or "canceled" for having the temerity to express different opinions than the narrative allows for ... that is, in many ways, modern day Lysenkoism. It took Russia many decades to recover from this. As it will us, if we allow this to continue.
  - mszcz 6y ago
    So in Russia you can express different views? There's freedom after freedom of speech there now?
    - hpcjoe 6y ago
      Apologies if I wasn't clear. Russian genetics took decades to recover.
      - mszcz 6y ago
cardanome 6y ago
Vavilov was prosecuted for political reasons not for his stance on genetics per se. Also painting Lysenko as a pseudoscientific snake oil seller is a bit reductionist. He did have some high level ideas that have been proven right by modern science in the field of epigenetics. He just greatly overestimated the importance of environment factors and his idea did not prove practical for large scale farming. He did so at a time when genetics was still far away from the agriculture revolution of modern day and did not yet offer much in terms of practical solutions. Did ideological reasons and certain structural deficiencies exist that explain the popularity of Lysenkoism? Sure. Though these problems exist in capitalist countries as well. Especially the social sciences are riddled with it. By the way, when someone tried to put a pseudo-Marxist spin on linguistics, claiming that all languages would have a common origin, it was Stalin himself who put a stop to it, arguing for more a honest and open debate. > It is generally recognized that no science can develop and flourish without a battle of opinions, without freedom of criticism. [1] [1] J.V. Stalin https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950/jun/20.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950...
- worik 6y ago
  And before we condem Lysenko too thoroghly we should look at ourselves. In my country whole regions, once food baskets, are in danger of being retired because of the "...the agriculture revolution of modern day..." Build-ups of toxic chemicals in the soil from synthetic fertilisers are building up to levels where milk from cows grazed on the grass is not fit for human consumption Lysenko was a unfortunate fool, a man of his time. But we are not much better for all our "science". Yes he got genetics wrong, but the "green revolution" that ignored soil structure and microbial life has gotten things just as wrong
- int_19h 6y ago
  Lysenko and his followers presented intentionally rigged evidence to support their theories. If that's not pseudoscience, what is? As far as Marr and his "Japhetic theory" of linguistics - sure, Stalin took him down... 15 years after Marr died. And until then, it was the officially blessed interpretation, and criticizing it could get one accused of "bourgeois nationalism" quite easily.
jarenmf 6y ago
A great video about the The Vavilov-Lysenko Contention https://youtu.be/eDteTc9aEKQ https://youtu.be/eDteTc9aEKQ
ehw3 6y ago
By an odd coincidence I was just today looking around to see if I could find any data or graphs or anything from Lysenko's original work. I didn't turn up anything. Does anyone have any suggestions? I hadn't thought about Vavilov and all that in years. It happens that my grandmother worked for him briefly in the early 30s. She and her husband decided communism was a good idea and shipped out to Russia from their home (in Philadelphia) and within a year or so concluded that communism was insane. There was (I was told) a certain amount of touch-and-go securing a boat ride for the two of them back to somewhere in Scandinavia and thence back to the US. They both remained staunch anti-communists for the rest of their lives. Not a lot of point telling all that, I guess, but it is interesting to think that I grew up in a household where Lysenko and the ills he caused were a commonplace. Funny to see it on Hacker News.
tshanmu 6y ago
This deserves to be made into movies surely...

145 points by dnetesn 6y ago

Vavilov was such an extraordinary individual. While he was imprisoned in 1940 for defying Stalin-era leader Trofim Lysenko for his Mendelian beliefs, his collaborators protected the then largest seed bank in the world during the Siege of Lenningrad [1] by Nazi Germany. Most of those "protectors" died, and Vavilov died of starvation in prison - the same thing he was so obsessed of solving for everyone. "Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End" [2] is the canonical read on this topic! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad [2]: https://www.librarything.com/work/7565437 https://www.librarything.com/work/7565437

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Starvation was a Big Deal(TM) in pre-ww2 Russia. Many of the best and brightest were drawn toward working on agricultural problems in their niche. Mikhail Kalashnikov got interested in mechanics and engineering because he wanted to help design better farm equipment and improve yields.
- gullywhumper 6y ago
  For those that might not recognize the name, Mikhail Kalashnikov developed the AK-47 - the assault rifle.
  - baud147258 6y ago
    he was successful, but his invention ended reaping a very different type of harvest
    - kikokikokiko 6y ago
      Guns don't kill people, it's the bullets that do it.
      - devtul 6y ago
        It's a team effort
      - denkmoon 6y ago
        One could argue the bullet is an unwilling participant. The firing pin is the real perp.
        avmich 6y ago
        Gun is a tool with practically only one use, so I don't think "guns don't kill people" is actually accurate.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Starvation is always a big deal under Communism.
  - Conlectus 6y ago
    Commenting in no way on any such effects, droughts and famines have been a fairly regular feature of Russian history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_and_famines_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_and_famines_in_Russia...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - nickik 6y ago
      The comment was kind of unnecessary and not complete right but please don't excuse the Soviet government complicity in the massive famines between the revolution and WW2. The waste majority of famines in pre-Communist Russia were limited in scope in one region before transport was available. Even the most extreme famine in modern Russian history killed a few 100k of people. Under the Soviet government many millions died and often in years where there was not actually shortfall in the harvest, but that the government continued to export food during the mass starvation of its citizens. And lets not ignore what is basically genocide when the Soviet government forced nomads to farm and basically killed large parts of the population.
    - qwytw 6y ago
      While Russian agricultural productivity lagged significantly behind western countries, government policies (both soviet and imperial) were arguably the most significant cause of all peace time famines in the Russian Empire/USSR that occurred since the mid/late 19th century. Before 1913 main reason behind regional famines in Russia (excluding war time) was poor infrastructure and no efficient mechanism for redistributing grain (and the imperial government's unwillingness to establish one). Russian net exports of grain remained positive during the 1891–92, 1901 & 1906 famines. This (at least according to the death count) only got worse after the revolution. Agricultural production levels in 1930's weren't that much higher than they were in 1913 (grain production was much higher in all years besides 1936, however livestock production remained mostly at similar levels or even fell). However again, even taking into account the poor productivity exacerbated by the poor harvests the Soviet Union remained a next exporter of grain in all years between 1930 and 1933 (in 1932 and 1933 around 50% of all exports were from Ukrainian ports). During the same period at least 2 million people (up to 10 million according to higher estimates) died as a results of the famine. Considering this I don't really see how could anyone seriously blame the weather...
fuf_998 6y ago
He was. Only he was imprisoned for political reasons of being anti-bolshevik, you can even read this in the quote from his sentence in this cold-warish piece of writing in OP. This is biggest scientific myth i know - that soviets/marxism/etc deny science, because they prosecuted Vavilov for it. Like genetics back then was as it is now (search eugenics), and scientific debate about nature vs nurture was settled, and Lysenko was just some boy and didn't get applause in NYC conference on agrobiology. But I'm glad at least in research frontiers people do revisit Lysenko legacy nowadays, in the the light of epigenetic research. For common people it's just another neccesary illusion.
- enkid 6y ago
  Sorry, the Soviet Union explicitly advocated for science based on ideology instead of the other way around under Stalin. Wikipedia has numerous examples of this [0]. And no, one person getting applause at one conference in the US does not make a scientific hypothesis valid. Your also either fundamentally misunderstanding what the current research on epigenetics says or what Lysenko was advocating. Lysenko claimed to do things well beyond anything current studies of epigenetics would allow, and the SU went all in on these claims to disastrous effects. (Because they preferred Lamarckism instead of Darwinism for purely ideological reasons.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Sov...
  - fuf_998 6y ago
    Thanks for your comment, i'm working on heterochromatin formation rn as a phd (not claiming full understanding of full epigenetic field ofc, but have some conceptual touch). >Lysenko claimed to do things well beyond anything current studies of epigenetics would allow You are right, but this is not true for all of his work; look at his earlier works on seed vernalization by heat treatment - he experimentally did what is mechanisticaly described now [0]. Isn't it funny - instead of tweaking crazy plant genome with complicated patented GM tech with minimal improvement as a result, you can dip your seeds in warm water and change the phenotype competely. Worth revisiting? Btw, both your and my comments fairly can go to Vavilov too and his less-known sides of research. But for myth sustaining purposes - Lysenko is totally bad, Vavilov is totally good, thus communism (or whatever "bad" label is tranding rn in capitalism criticism) is anti-science. >they preferred Lamarckism instead of Darwinism for purely ideological reasons I've tried here to add this scientific debate dimension to this preference, which is omitted. Both theories were in their nappies back then, and one (Lamarckism) was more appealing bcs of its alignment with ideology, right. It does not mean that genetics were evidently true back then and SU denied it for ideology' sake - this is how is read in the OP writing. [0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ppl.13163 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ppl.13163

theguppydream 6y ago

I enjoyed 99% Invisible's podcast on the seed vault, which I had no idea about prior to listening https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-vault/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-vault/

aeturnum 6y ago
I came here to share the Anthroposcene Reviewed episode on it (2nd half - starts around 12:30 in) https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/episodes/anthropocene-reviewed-tetris-and-seed-potatoes-leningrad https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/e...
- anitil 6y ago
  Oh what a fantastic podcast. I think my favorites were 'Googling Stangers' and 'The Lascaux Paintings'

arximboldi 6y ago

There is a very good episode about him in the last Cosmos season.

fnord77 6y ago

https://www.damninteresting.com/a-blight-on-soviet-science/ https://www.damninteresting.com/a-blight-on-soviet-science/

dang 6y ago
Discussed a few weeks ago: A Blight on Soviet Science - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26513415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26513415 - March 2021 (40 comments)
yarg 6y ago
Thanks for that; I ended up at "genetic crossover" which explained to me a thing I'd never wrapped my head around before.

blackoil 6y ago

I see, sacrifice by common men/women, without any special training, against certain death for a non personal cause is one of the unifying positive trait of humanity across time/space.

mudita 6y ago
Like suicide bombers?
- sorokod 6y ago
  You could argue that the average suicide bomber expects a personal reward in the afterlife.
  - karpierz 6y ago
    You could also argue that altruism isn't real, and doing altruistic acts is rewarding for the individual, but that seems a little reductionist.
    - sorokod 6y ago
      I could, but altruism is too fantastic to bother.
2rsf 6y ago
the "non personal cause" could be tricky though, I see that for example with religious people doing things for non personal causes- they are actually gaining from it but not money or fame, could be "points" in the afterlife or happiness

redis_mlc 6y ago

FYI: If you shake your head at Lysenko in the article, note that similar things are happening today with Marxists and critical race theory and science/math in the US.

repeek 6y ago

A song by The Decemberists, "When the War Came"[1], covers this topic. One of my favorites! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJHOiQ2uniU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJHOiQ2uniU

gxqoz 6y ago
Huh. I've listened to this song many times without really internalizing the lyrics.

swebs 6y ago

This is how we got the term Lysenkoism, which is >any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

interestica 6y ago

The French short documentary 'Le savant, l'imposteur et Staline' is available free to Canadians: https://ici.tou.tv/le-savant-l-imposteur-et-staline-comment-nourrir-le-peuple/S01E01 https://ici.tou.tv/le-savant-l-imposteur-et-staline-comment-... (FR captions only) Well made with lots of appropriate imagery. And an english version is available to rent/buy: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/scientist/392774148 https://vimeo.com/ondemand/scientist/392774148

TotallyOkNGood 6y ago

It's unfortunate that this was the fate of some important science in the USSR. The story of Vygotsky is similar. His psychological/pedagogical is still pretty influential to this day but he was largely rejected in part because his work challenged the legacy of Pavlov. Shame that this was the state that was supposed to be rigorously scientific.

B1FF_PSUVM 6y ago
The problem is that it was an article of marxist faith that "class origin" was a guarantee of correctness - the proletariat was supposed to automatically lead the way to the future. Communist parties all over the world were keen on demonstrating that their central committees had a "proletarian majority", with a sprinkling of helpful intellectuals, which might include the secretary general ...
fuf_998 6y ago
Don't you see any room for a scientific development whatsoever? Or every dogma or fork from a current dogma is accepted normally immediately as it emerges? No, rather let's look into political perspective on this, because we are talking about SU after all.

lionhearted 6y ago

Oh man, I'm happy to see this here — I've been slowly working my way through various science and engineering done in the Soviet Union since there was some incredible work done that's very poorly known in the West. Vavilov is definitely a first-class scientist who seemed to have an incredible personality. In some alternative better timeline, Vavilov would probably be as well-known and had inspired as many people as, say, Feynman. Alas. Anyway, while we're on the topic of Soviet scientists, the whole silver fox domestication research program is infinitely fascinating — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox Highly highly recommended. Edit: Soviet pharmacology also very interesting — and even more surprising it hasn't been studied and imported since, like, humans are humans and it works. Probably an unfortunate secondary effect of how trials/licensing/patenting work. Not a bad starting point: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-descended-upon-psychopharmacology/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-de...

lr1970 6y ago

Nikolai Vavilov's younger brother Sergei [0] was a famous physicist who together with Pavel Cherenkov discovered Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation [1]. By the time Nobel committee awared Cherenkov the Nobel price Sergei Vavilov already died (of natural causes). Got me thinking about genetic predisposition to science among Vavilov brothers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Ivanovich_Vavilov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Ivanovich_Vavilov [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

sorokod 6y ago

"and of “twenty-one employees of noblesse origin, eight from the priesthood, twelve honorary citizens [code for tsarists], and ten from the merchant class.” For those not familiar with this part of Russian history, the relevant concept here is "class enemy" - an individual who is an enemy of the people by virtue of being of certain social class.

B1FF_PSUVM 6y ago
> relevant concept here is "class enemy" In our enlightened times, this has been replaced with other categories which make automatic allies - "if you're X, you must do Y." (But still a "traitor" if you disobey the diktat.)
hpcjoe 6y ago
The echos that we see today of similar class warfare, of similar narratives supplanting real science, and replacing it with activism ... This is the direction we are heading toward. As the joke goes, history doesn't repeat itself. It does rhyme however. You can see echos of Lysenkoism where a narrative pushed hard by activists, that has numerous problems from a scientific point of view, is rammed down peoples throats. When people can be "deplatformed" or "canceled" for having the temerity to express different opinions than the narrative allows for ... that is, in many ways, modern day Lysenkoism. It took Russia many decades to recover from this. As it will us, if we allow this to continue.
- mszcz 6y ago
  So in Russia you can express different views? There's freedom after freedom of speech there now?
  - hpcjoe 6y ago
    Apologies if I wasn't clear. Russian genetics took decades to recover.
    - mszcz 6y ago

cardanome 6y ago

Vavilov was prosecuted for political reasons not for his stance on genetics per se. Also painting Lysenko as a pseudoscientific snake oil seller is a bit reductionist. He did have some high level ideas that have been proven right by modern science in the field of epigenetics. He just greatly overestimated the importance of environment factors and his idea did not prove practical for large scale farming. He did so at a time when genetics was still far away from the agriculture revolution of modern day and did not yet offer much in terms of practical solutions. Did ideological reasons and certain structural deficiencies exist that explain the popularity of Lysenkoism? Sure. Though these problems exist in capitalist countries as well. Especially the social sciences are riddled with it. By the way, when someone tried to put a pseudo-Marxist spin on linguistics, claiming that all languages would have a common origin, it was Stalin himself who put a stop to it, arguing for more a honest and open debate. > It is generally recognized that no science can develop and flourish without a battle of opinions, without freedom of criticism. [1] [1] J.V. Stalin https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950/jun/20.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950...

worik 6y ago
And before we condem Lysenko too thoroghly we should look at ourselves. In my country whole regions, once food baskets, are in danger of being retired because of the "...the agriculture revolution of modern day..." Build-ups of toxic chemicals in the soil from synthetic fertilisers are building up to levels where milk from cows grazed on the grass is not fit for human consumption Lysenko was a unfortunate fool, a man of his time. But we are not much better for all our "science". Yes he got genetics wrong, but the "green revolution" that ignored soil structure and microbial life has gotten things just as wrong
int_19h 6y ago
Lysenko and his followers presented intentionally rigged evidence to support their theories. If that's not pseudoscience, what is? As far as Marr and his "Japhetic theory" of linguistics - sure, Stalin took him down... 15 years after Marr died. And until then, it was the officially blessed interpretation, and criticizing it could get one accused of "bourgeois nationalism" quite easily.

jarenmf 6y ago

A great video about the The Vavilov-Lysenko Contention https://youtu.be/eDteTc9aEKQ https://youtu.be/eDteTc9aEKQ

ehw3 6y ago

By an odd coincidence I was just today looking around to see if I could find any data or graphs or anything from Lysenko's original work. I didn't turn up anything. Does anyone have any suggestions? I hadn't thought about Vavilov and all that in years. It happens that my grandmother worked for him briefly in the early 30s. She and her husband decided communism was a good idea and shipped out to Russia from their home (in Philadelphia) and within a year or so concluded that communism was insane. There was (I was told) a certain amount of touch-and-go securing a boat ride for the two of them back to somewhere in Scandinavia and thence back to the US. They both remained staunch anti-communists for the rest of their lives. Not a lot of point telling all that, I guess, but it is interesting to think that I grew up in a household where Lysenko and the ills he caused were a commonplace. Funny to see it on Hacker News.

tshanmu 6y ago

This deserves to be made into movies surely...