JF:>>The problem was that Lysenko with the baking of the Soviet regime continued to hang on to neo-Lamarckiansm, and more importantly was able to coerce other Soviet scientists into hanging on to it, long after it had been discredited in the West. That caused immeasurable harm to Soviet biology, especially when that led to scientists like Vavilov being imprisoned for being Mendelians.<<
That is an assertion of all the harm done, but no actual support, even in reasoning, is offered here. It could be the reaction--the backlash-- was as much an issue in holding back science as anything Lysenko said or did. The Mendelians didn't really pioneer the 'green revolution'--the techniques turned on horticultural techniques of crossing strains based on their adaptation to certain environments, looking for hybrids that expressed the desired traits and passed them on. Much of what held back the Mendelians turned on a simplistic idea of the relationship between chromosomes and other units of genetic inheritance and expressed traits. That was Lysenko's points about statistics--the patterns were there, but they weren't yielding the information required to come up with new strains required to improve agriculture. CJ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
