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The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)
- christkv 5y agoReminds me of Lysenkoism where one mans delusions of science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism set back the discourse as it was enforced as state policy.
- freemint 5y agoCybernetics was also deemed a bourgeoisie science for a while. This changed later.
- baybal2 5y ago[dead]
- inglor_cz 5y agoI wonder where we are now. Long shadows of Hitler and eugenics do certainly have a chilling effect on research of intelligence etc. This article published last year in the New Yorker goes into details. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressives-be-convinced-that-genetics-matters https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressiv... I get the political unease that surrounds such topics, but with things like CRISPR making gene editing possible, we could improve inborn traits in living humans one day - provided that we actually know what we are doing.
- woodruffw 5y agoGene therapy and eugenics are different things. CRISPR falls under the former.
- inglor_cz 5y agoThey overlap, though. Or, more precisely, gene therapy can be used as a means to achieve certain eugenic ends. If, in 2030 or 2050, it will be possible to use CRISPR or another newer technology to edit out detrimental alleles out of someone's DNA safely, the end effect on the genetic pool of humanity is going to be very similar to the one that eugenicists tried to achieve via more primitive means.
- mannykannot 5y agoIf all that eugenics was or is concerned with was the removal of some harmful alleles by consensual methods, and it was not a pile of often racist bullshit falsely claiming to be based on what is actually solid science, it would not have a bad name.
- inglor_cz 5y agoThere is a lot of stuff in between. For example, Down syndrome can be practically eradicated by selectively aborting aneuploid embryos. Of course, the embryo cannot consent, and while the parents can, institutional pressures can be put on them to make them change their mind. Countries like Iceland and Denmark abort almost all Down syndrome embryos. This article in The Atlantic does not seem to be completely OK with that, and The Atlantic is pretty representative for East Coast liberal viewpoints. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-last-children-of-down-syndrome/616928/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-las...
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago> institutional pressures can be put on them to make them change their mind. Which is a weird and arbitrary location to draw the line considering how those institutions tend to lean on other issues, or even the same issue in a slightly different context.
- inglor_cz 5y agoI wasn't trying to draw any line anywhere. It is notoriously hard to draw any lines when it comes to disabilities.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tenpies 5y ago> Long shadows of Hitler and eugenics do certainly have a chilling effect on research of intelligence etc. Speaking solely about eugenics: it wasn't Hitler, eugenics were largely considered progressive at the time and the Right Thing To Do. Most of the Nordic countries today that Western countries admire have eugenics programs to some degree or another, they just don't use the word eugenics. You could argue that the US for example has one of the most "successful" eugenics programs in the world - just look up the demographics of the abortions funded by tax-payer money. You could also argue that many of the global NGOs that are popular among Western leaders today have a strong eugenics focus, but again, nobody uses that word. It's much easier to suggest that a population shouldn't reproduce by calling it feminism, empowerment, or simply making child-raising a luxury good.
- homonculus1 5y agoHere's a fun game: search "Margaret Sanger quotes" and then count how many blue-pills you need to dose yourself to remain ideologically comfortable.
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoHe was vindicated by modern science. His "delusions" were that epigenetics exist and are heritable. (His opponents took a polar, more hardline stance that only genetic information is relevant for phenotype expression.) See more here: https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=heritable%20epigenetics https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=heritable%20epigene...
- thriftwy 5y agoIf only he did not resort to using political means instead of science to push his views, he could have been considered a visionary (like Vernadsky or Oparin). Instead, he's just a criminal and a fraud.
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoYes, it was a story of political conflict, not a story about science.
- simonh 5y ago>He was vindicated by modern science. He denied that genetic heritability existed and that all characteristics were propagated epigenetically. That's hardly been vindicated. In practice his theories and practical policies were utterly disastrous. It is true that since then we have found some mechanisms by which some traits can propagate epigenetically, but characterising that as vindicating Lysenkoism is absurd.
- thesz 5y agoI believe he denied existence of genes, not heretability of traits.
- mannykannot 5y agoHis theories were mostly pseudoscientific nonsense - but that alone is not particularly harmful. What was evil about him is that he literally destroyed other people’s lives, his most prominent victim being Vavilov.
- gttalbot 5y agoPaywalled
- gardin1 5y agodoi + scihub: https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.2307/2500602 https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.2307/2500602
- forgotmypw17 5y agois there a way to read this article on an iphone? sorry for my device with very limited abilities, i didn't choose it for myself. the original article has some kind of banner over the content, and this link only shows the cover page for me.
- subroutine 5y agohttps://moscow.sci-hub.se/2912/e557ad01807ac82351e1cec98b2b9cbb/mccutcheon1991.pdf?download=true https://moscow.sci-hub.se/2912/e557ad01807ac82351e1cec98b2b9...
- throwaway-m3232 5y ago
- peace4all 5y agoNote that in the USSR, political questions and false accusations were often used to torpedo career competitors or to have vengeance at those who were more successful. Almost nobody in this story or in other cases were political dissidents. They didn't go out to protest or speak up on the political freedoms or other matters.
- hushpuppy 5y agoGlad we live in a era were accusations and rumors are not used as political weapons against individuals.
- ch4s3 5y agoI don’t recall anyone being sent to work camps for criticizing government policy in the US recently.
- d0mine 5y agoMcCarthyism? (it is not 30s like in the article but it is 40s-50s)
- moron4hire 5y agoWeird definition of "recently".
- mdp2021 5y ago"Recently" ends upon uprootal.
- pc86 5y ago70-80 years is not any reasonable definition of "recently," particularly when discussing politics.
- moron4hire 5y ago
- duxup 5y agoThe loss of humanity in Russia and Eastern Europe surrounding (not just during) WWII is astounding. If you weren’t persecuted by your own country you might be by an invading nation… and then again by a second invasion… It seems like if you were at all prominent or notably educated someone would be suspicious of you. And if you weren’t you still had a risk of random events.
- bluejekyll 5y agoSomething interesting is that historically this area seems to have been under significant conflict in various times in history. For example, The massive movements of the Goths across northern Europe due to the Huns movement into Eastern Europe in the late 300's. This came towards the end of the Western Roman Empire, with some blaming these massive population movements (100's of thousands of Goths) into the grain producing regions of Rome in Spain and Northern Africa. That eroded the tax base and grain production for Rome.
- sebastianconcpt 5y agoPurging people that is found inconvenient is perfectly normal for the morals of the soviet mindset. They only need it to do it hush hush to protect party's image and propaganda narratives.
- matrix12 5y agoThey went by космономер.
- itsyaboi 5y agoWho did?
- 6502nerdface 5y agoHe/she means the Soviet astronomers called themselves cosmonomers. Like astronauts and cosmonauts, har har.
- itsyaboi 5y agoI don't think that's an actual word. Perhaps a mistranslation? https://yandex.ru/search/?text=%22%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80%22 https://yandex.ru/search/?text=%22%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BC%D...
- MisterTea 5y ago> He/she Use "they" when you do not know the subjects gender/sex/whatever. Much cleaner to look at and read.
- 6502nerdface 5y agoI considered "they" but worried that it could be parsed as coreferential with matrix12's "they," so I used he/she which, because it is singular, refers unambiguously to the previous speaker, matrix12 himself/herself.
- motohagiography 5y agoWhat is it about astronomers and blind spots for heresy risk. Is there a tradition starting with Archimedes through Copernicus and Galileo where they are just disagreeable? Reading about the soviet purges, it's almost as if they had a simple idea that implied a few consequent beliefs that allowed parties to signal alignment to each other, and then encouraged coordinated aggression against anyone not sufficiently on side. It rewarded a certain kind of opportunist who wanted to use it to push out competition, and the logic was given there was no such thing as truth or meaning, does it matter whether you are doing valuable work if the credit and proceeds go to someone not aligned to the revolution? Just call them enemies and take their stuff, or be an enemy and have your stuff taken. Convince some people they're in a zero sum game with no higher consequences and they'll do the rest themselves. By most accounts, it sounded like just cultural banditry with a zombie virus ideology and the populace were too meek to do much about it. Surprised we don't learn more about it in the west just to innoculate people against poor thinking, as it seems like something so obvious and dumb, yet something that could also happen anywhere. Maybe astronomers seeing the vastness of creation and the universe just wouldn't believe other people could be that stupid and evil until it was too late.
- homonculus1 5y agoIt's happening in the West right now!
- motohagiography 5y agoYikes. Surely you cannot say that resisting and reconciling our shared history of colonialism is related to the obscure eurasian politics of over 100 years ago unless you harbored some pre-existing hatred and paranoia about losing privileges or were even radicalized by extremists. No reason to drill down on it and we can let it slide here, but out of curiosity, where did you say you worked again? Found the astronomer.
- VictorPath 5y agoThis reminds me of the purge of professors who did not support World War I in the US, as well as the US purge of scientists who did not support the Korean War 15 years after this.
- nonrandomstring 5y agoAnti-intellectualism seems an almost inevitable destination for authoritarian regimes. In a thread yesterday [1] the subject of Mao's purges and the Khmer Rouge came up. Why kill all the engineers, doctors and lawyers? Because people who build and maintain civilisation can build alternative ones. They are a threat to that kind of power. Heed this warning, all of you comfortable building systems of control and surveillance while thinking that you are "on the inside" and will be treated well because you are "needed". Once the "new order" has it's cybernetic governance machine, who do you think will be the first to get a visit? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31042304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31042304
- TMWNN 5y ago>Once the "new order" has it's cybernetic governance machine, who do you think will be the first to get a visit? In the Kornbluth novel Not This August (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_This_August https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_This_August>), the first thing the Soviets and Chinese do after conquering the United States is shoot the fifth columnists who had aided them by sabotaging the American war effort.