first posted 981221
minor clerical change y10418

T. D. Lysenko -- Persecutor or Victim? (4/4)

INCRIMINATING CIRCUMSTANTIAL "EVIDENCE" CITED BY CRITICS THAT USE THIS TO DISCREDIT THE SCIENTIST LYSENKO'S SCIENTIFIC WORK. AN ANALYSIS BY: JAMTSAMG

Copyright © 1998 by TL
Posted by permission of TL

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Additional reading material on these issues:

Conway  Zirkle  is actually the first one with a book in English,
but  his  book  is  so  poor  and so filled with errors that it's
not  even  worth  mentioning  as  being against Lysenko.  He even
went  so  far  as  to  deliberately  change a technical botanical
fact,  the  color  of a plant, in Lysenko's text in order to make
it  come  out  nonsense.   His  book  is  so filled with paranoid
fantasies  about  who  is or is not a Marxist that it's not worth
reading, even if you want "dirt" against Lysenko.

The   Rise   and   Fall   of   T.D.   Lysenko:   Zhores  Medvedev
(Anti-Lysenko)

The Lysenko Affair:  David Joravsky   (Anti-Lysenko)

The Vavilov Affair:  Mark Popovsky  (Anti-Lysenko)

Lysenko  and  the  Tragedy  of  Soviet  Science:   Valery  Soyfer
(Anti-Lysenko)

Lysenko  Is  Right:   James  Fyfe,  1950.    Full details written
by a botanist who had accurate facts.  Excellent.

Stalinist  Science:   Nikolai  Krementsov,  1997, with much newly
released  archival  material.   Oddly,  this  book  doesn't  even
mention  NKVD  Major  Stepan Shundenko and the rest of the people
directly  involved  with  him.   Odd  since  NKVD Major Shundenko
was  put  in  charge  of an investigation of Vavilov and ended up
working  directly  under Vavilov in the same building as Lysenko!
Nor  does  this book mention the Shlykov letter to the NKVD which
Soyfer  reproduces  in  his  book!   He does mention that Vavilov
was  writing  letters  and  giving  information  to  the  British
geneticists,  including  Darlington (Darlington had the view that
human  races  are  separate  species)  and  that Vavilov did this
right  in  the  middle  of the war when Britain was the enemy and
Germany  was  a  temporary  ally  of the USSR.  Archival material
he  presents  also  clearly  shows  that  it  was  not Lysenko or
Lysenkoites  who  tried  to  involve the top party bosses: it was
the   geneticists!    The   geneticists   demanded   governmental
intervention!   Well?   They  got  it!   Also is shown that while
the   geneticists  did  laboratory  work  with  "useless  things"
(fruitflies,  butterflies)  the  Lysenko group did practical work
with  things  like tomatoes, beets and wheat:  things people ate.
While  the  geneticists  worked  in laboratories, the Lysenkoites
worked  on  the  actual  collective  farms with real food-stuffs.
The   same   Shlykov,   after   WWII,  sent  a  foreign  American
agricultural  expert  a  couple  of years old research samples of
alfalfa.   Shlykov  wrote  a  letter to the American promising to
send  more  researched seeds of great value in the USSR.  At this
time,  Shlykov  was  the  Director  of the All Union Institute of
plant-growing  research.   He  was  caught  before  he could send
what  he  promised  and  sentenced  to  a term in a labor camp in
Khazakhstan,  charged  with  subversion and counter-revolutionary
activity.   No  one  was  immune from breaking the law:  the NKVD
was  GOOD  AT  CATCHING  people!  It didn't matter if Shlykov was
once  a  friend  or  still a friend of NKVD Major Shundenko; none
of that mattered.

The  Radicalisation  of Science, Edited by H.  Rose and S.  Rose:
Chapter  Two:   "The  Problem  of Lysenkoism" by Richard Lewontin
and  Richard Levins:  for the real statistics and the real growth
in  agriculture  with  Lysenko  at  the  helm  with the situation
regarding   planting  and  Soviet  environment  fully  explained.
Not pro or con, just an objective expose in short.

Race,  Intelligence,  and  Bias in Academe:  Roger Pearson.  (The
genetic  view  in  simple  terms and views against Lysenkoites in
the USA.)

Political  Economy  in  Science:   by  S. and H. Rose, Chapter 7,
"Scientific  Racism  and  Ideology:   The  IQ  Racket from Galton
to  Jenson."   Contrast  the   above  Pearson rubbish to this one
chapter.   Guess what they call the Roses who present the missing
facts  left  out  by  the  liars with their racist agendas?  They
call them Lysenko-ites!  Nothing has changed.

The  Nazi  Primer:   Official  Handbook  for Schooling the Hitler
Youth;  N.Y.,  Harper and Brothers, 1938.   If not able to obtain
the  first then:  Education in the Third Reich:  Race and History
in Nazi Textbooks, Albany: State University of N.Y. Press, 1985.

Hitler's  Willing Executioners:  D. J. Goldhagen, for an in-depth
view  of  what  the  "genetic  theory  outlook"  can produce in a
society  where  people become like madmen and the NORM is to have
an  hallucinatory  world  view.   The  extreme genetic view is to
completely   dismiss  culture  as  irrelevant  to  the  "type  of
character" various humans have.  This view even excludes prenatal
care  or  nutrition,  something  fundamental to the still-growing
brain  of  a  child  after  he/she  is born. (It is odd that such
people  never  get  statistics  on the numbers of Down's Syndrome
people  born  and  check  to  see  which population group has the
most  of  them!)   Reading  this  book and fully understanding it
is  a  MUST  if  anyone  wishes  to  grasp why so many others are
against  the  "genetic  theory  of  heredity."   This  theory has
nothing  to  do  with  DNA,  strictly speaking.  It is the theory
that  "all  you  are"  is  solely  genetic, your likes, dislikes,
your behavior, your temperament - ALL YOU ARE.  It utterly denies
the  effects  of  environmental  factors  which includes cultural
factors.   The  book  is  not about Hitler or about Nazis.  It is
about   ordinary  German,  Christian  people  with  this  genetic
world-view.

Lysenko,   Views   of  Nature  and  Society:   Haresh  Kirpalani,
unpublished  manuscript.   Anti-Lysenko  in  the  political sense
but  pro-Stalin  and  anti-Khrushchev, but this lacks much of the
information  needed  to form a clearer picture, i.e. that Lysenko
was  not  anti-Stalin  at  all  and that Stalin did, indeed, back
him  for  obvious  practical  reasons.   This  manuscript clearly
shows  that  this issue of "bourgeois versus proletarian science"
or  environment  versus  genetics,  or nurture versus nature, was
not  an  issue  of  Western  versus Soviet science by showing the
Western  people's  scientific work which is at odds with the hard
genetic  line.   In this sense, the Kirpalani book is pro-Lysenko
and shows where Lysenko's scientific views were correct.

Race  and  Human  Evolution:  Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari,
1997.     Mentions    the   "Lysenkist"   view   as   being   the
environmentalist view.  This book shows the same argument carried
over  into  the  field of paleoanthropology, with the geneticists
as  the  adversaries,  the  subject  being  human evolution!  The
book  also  shows  where  geneticists  make  false claims against
Wolpoff's  multiregional  view  of evolution by trying to slander
it  as  "polygenetic,"  which  oddly used to be the genetic view!


The  Mismeasure  of  Man;  Expanded, Revised Edition:  Stephen J.
Gould.   The  same  argument  with  Gould  going  up  against the
geneticists and their racist arguments!

It  is  clear  to all who have studied this subject in its widest
forms  that  the  genetics group has a definite political agenda.
First  it  was  used  to support colonization of non-whites; next
it  was  used  to prove white superiority and carried to extremes
by  Nazis  and  RESPECTABLE professors in USA UNIVERSITIES.  Now,
these  same  geneticists  would  back  track, call their own past
views  the  "crackpot  views  of  cranks"  and  try  to  adopt  a
politically  correct  line:   but  it  is  still clear that it is
THEY  who  have  used  politics  in their science - NOT THE OTHER
SIDE!  THEY who demanded Stalin and the Polit Bureau get involved
regarding Lysenko, and it backfired!

The  way  the geneticists make it sound, it comes out vice versa.
It  is  always  the  other  side that looks at data and lets data
tell  them  about  life.  Geneticists come up with theories, they
make  declarations  and then always have to revise what they say,
even  going  so  far  as  to take credit for ancient practices by
explaining  them  in  a  "genetic manner."  And true to form, the
most  extreme  of the genetics fans would call someone like Gould
a Lysenkoite!


Read further remarks of TL defending Lysenko's motives and achievements.

Go to TL's chronology of Lysenko's career.

Return to main Lysenko page.

link to other articles by TL, and her "Red Comrades" web site

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