I legitimately do not understand why people believe he was wrong. Look at Jewish people and how specialized into getting better at academia or India with how certain groups become natural fishermen. Lysenkoism feels like it's striking a cord between Stirnerite individualism and collectivism and it legitimately sounds cooler than Darwin's lame "one will breed more than the other and the species will survive". Darwin's system doesn't explain suicide for example.
>>2753058It's common sense
>>2753053your entire question is malformed, loaded, rooted in misunderstandings both of """"Darwinism""""" and """""Lysenkoism""""" since contemporary evolutionary biology is neither of those things but incorporates aspects of both.
Epigenetics shows lysenko was perhaps not as wrong as previously thought
>>2753063You haven't explained what you meant.
>>2753065both inherited traits and acquired traits have strong evidence, and the "Darwinism vs. Lysenkoism" debate is a false dichotomy that presupposes it is only one or the other.
>>2753066But that means both are wrong. Lysenko wasn't wrong about species not existing, for example, try explaining the difference between a human and a neanderthal? Meanwhile other animals have more wide differences while humans and apes have it a lot more specialized.
>>2753084Why did that creature go extinct?
>>2753084yeah but thats why suicide is uncommon
suicidal people can't reproduce to get better at suicide
>>2753257If they can’t constantly chew on something they’ll die just like beavers
>>2753053he wasnt, lysenko is closer to darwin than his opposition
>>2753070>Lysenko wasn't wrong about species not existingmore of an issue with typology generally. its a kind of static positivism that excludes dialectics. binomial nomenclature and taxonomy is just especially egregious and essentially just a fancy refiguring of the christian great chain of being. phylogenetics is currently pretty much overturning it but for the moment it still clings to relevance though sheer magnitude
>>2753450a fish cannot procreate with a man, therefore they are different species, or kinds. no nonsense involved.
>>2753463but fish can procreate with fish, and different species of fish can interbreed, and in some places different genus of fish can, and even with different chromosome sets, and in plants even completely different families can cross with entirely different chromosomes and sometime widely different anatomy. and then cultivars and varieties vs species. it is entirely arbitrary and nonsensical and coming from hard science like chemistry makes biology look like a fucking childrens game a or a joke.
>>2753477>its arbitraryno it isnt
a man cannot procreate with a fish
that is a hard line to distinguish natural types
>>2753480>a man cannot procreate with a fishbut thats not the definition of a species, thats a broad example that is arbitrary and not a hard line at all
phylogentically people can reproduce with fish because people are fish
>>2753070species is a theoretical framework that is useful for explaining some things, but is not universally useful. obviously evolution is real, and obviously speciation occurs when two related species can no longer interbreed…. except for the numerous exceptions where they can.
>>2753279a good post that isn't bait. let's ignore it!
I am once again reminding you that Lysenkoism is literally magical thinking, literally idealism. In order for an organism to acquire a new trait suited to new conditions, the mechanism of mutation would need to have foreknowledge of what kind of biological change would produce what functions, and which functions would be suited to the environment. It's even more built on magical thinking than creationism, which only requires divine intervention at the beginning of life, not all the time forever.
Magic thread
>>2753559>people are fishTRUKE
Shut up about science, science is why everything sucks, nothing evolved, nothing ever happened, and if it did, it’s not your business, stop poking around with the “nature of reality” and whatnot, you can’t know it and every time you try you make life worse.
this thread reminds me that there are genuine stupid people on this board
>>2753811if you're only just now realizing this I've got some bad new
you're one of them >>2753824>now<remindsanon i said it reminds me. IT REMINDS Me, aka i KNEW ALREADY
>>2753824>>2753827IN OTHER WORDS, U SIR CANT READ. AND THEREFORE YOU ARE STTTTUUUPPPPIIIIDDD
>>2753909Most people who defend Lysenko don't actually care about the science. They just want to defend the soviet union against any accusations of wrong doing and end up digging their heels in on the dumbest issues.
>>2754259Which sucks, because there's genuinely interesting and relevant science in Lysenko, but most people here are just racists with a fetish for Soviet aesthetics.
Not going to defend Lysenko but the entire "species" typology thing is bullshit
Neanderthals and humans could have children
But other species are differentiated based on reproduction
It's so fucking dumb
>>2754531>Which sucks, because there's genuinely interesting and relevant science in Lysenkowell both genetics and epigenetics exist and modern evolutionary biology is a synthesis of Darwinian and Lamarckian ideas.
>>2754535read Khun's
Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Pretty short work. Can be finished in 5 or 6 hours. Basically his idea is that science as an enterprise is remarkably conservative in the sense of preserving existing frameworks. Even when there are anomalies or edge cases which frameworks fail to describe, the existing framework or theory continues to be used until so many anomalies emerge that the framework's cons outweigh its pros, and a scientific revolution occurs. Instead of approaching an absolute truth teleologically, science continues to develop evolving frameworks which arbitrarily delineate some hypothetical discrete entities and processes at the expense of other ones. We swap our frameworks based on what we are presently focused on and what we are trying to explain or develop, rather than some kind of philosophical quest for absolute truth or absolute knowledge.
From this standpoint, the framework of "species" is useful for what it can explain, rather than what it can't. If you wish to overthrow the notion of the species, you have to publish enough research regarding anomalies the "species" framework fails to explain, that it is no longer considered useful by the wider scientific community. Science isn't just about falsifiability, it is a socially constructed process with stakeholders, evolving areas of focus, and investors. The phlogiston was abandoned not when oxygen was first synthesized, but when many different researchers revealed in parallel that phlogiston theory could not explain oxygen's behavior.
>>2754581Thank you for this reply anon, this is very helpful. Have a good time :D
>>2754581>science as an enterprise is remarkably conservative>arbitrarily delineate some hypothetical discrete entitiesi wonder if that is more useful for the commodification of objects under capitalism? which framework creates reproducible "identicle" "products" for sale?
rly makes u think
>>2754574someone please explain epigenetics for me
>>2755279The basics of it is that the environment and situations encountered over the course of an organism's life can alter its gene expression (either how a gene is expressed or what gene is expressed) and in many cases these changes are heritable. In many ways this is a vindication of some (not all) of Lysenko's conclusions, but this is vehemently denied by bourgeois academia. Epigenetics fundamentally challenges the dominant genetic determinist view of biology and heritable traits. It shows that our genes aren't a static code from birth to death. Not only that, but non-genetic factors aren't simply trivial or incidental, but are critical mechanisms in the development and lives of all eukaryotic organisms.
>>2755602>this is vehemently denied by bourgeois academiais it though? it's not 1950 anymore. most of the research into epigenetics is being performed by "bourgeois academia" in bourgeois countries with experiments funded by bourgeois investors. The insights into epigenetics seem to be useful to the bourgeoisie for life extension and the engineering of crops and livestock with new heritable traits, so they no longer outright deny these semi-"lysenkoist" conclusions, but have simply taken credit for them. They continue to slander Lysneko of course, but this is not the only area of science where the bourgeoisie use soviet contributions without giving credit. The soviet scientist Genrich Altshuller created TRIZ, a scientific method of innovation and invention, which now gets used by capitalist corporations all over the world like Samsung.
>>2755612>is it though?Yes. Though bourgeois academia has found itself in a position where it objectively agrees with Lysenko's conclusions, they continue to vehemently deny that Lysenko was ever correct. You yourself essentially answer your own question here:
>The insights into epigenetics seem to be useful to the bourgeoisie for life extension and the engineering of crops and livestock with new heritable traits, so they no longer outright deny these semi-"lysenkoist" conclusions, but have simply taken credit for them. They continue to slander Lysneko of course…So yeah, regardless of the economic utility of epigenetics, bourgeois academia and economics is still beholden to bourgeois
politics, and so the slander must continue.
>this is not the only area of science where the bourgeoisie use soviet contributions without giving credit. The soviet scientist Genrich Altshuller created TRIZ, a scientific method of innovation and invention, which now gets used by capitalist corporations all over the world like Samsung.True, but this is getting a bit into a different process of post-Soviet primitive accumulation wherein its institutions were wringed out for any ideas and property of value by a collaboration of Western capital and former Party leadership. Hence how the US has the "Atlas V" rocket attributed to US ingenuity and claiming lineage with Cold War era launch vehicles while it's built around Soviet engines.
>>2755279>>2755602Modern biology is a synthesis of Darwinian and Lamarckian ideas, but is not in and of itself "Lysenkoist" or even "Semi-Lysenkoist." We now know genes are not always perfectly discrete (alternative splicing, overlapping genes, regulatory elements), but the core idea that heredity is carried by stable DNA sequences that segregate according to well known rules is one of the most empirically validated facts in biology.
Chromosome theory was confirmed by cytogenetics, molecular biology, and genomics. Chromosomes are the physical carriers of genes; their behavior explains inheritance.
The genotype/phenotype distinction is still essential. The genome encodes heritable information; phenotype arises from its interaction with environment. Epigenetics adds complexity but does not erase this distinction.
Lysenko proposed Lamarckian inheritance, the idea that environmental conditions directly alter heredity in a directed, rapid, and permanent way, and that Mendelian genetics was a bourgeois fiction. His key claims included the claim that treating seeds could permanently alter their heritable traits, that heredity was a property of the whole organism, not discrete particles, and that evolution is always (rather than merely sometimes) direct environmental adaptation without random mutation.
This isn't epigenetics. The mechanisms and scientific foundations are fundamentally different. Epigenetics is a rigorous field built on molecular biology, genetics, and experimental reproducibility.
Lysenko was not right about epigenetics. While he rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of Lamarckian inheritance (the inheritance of acquired traits), modern epigenetics does not validate his claims. Lysenkoism denied the role of genes and Mendelian inheritance entirely, insisting that environmental changes could produce wholesale, permanent, and rapid heritable transformations across species. Epigenetics involves molecular modifications (for example DNA methylation) that influence gene expression within the framework of standard genetics. These changes are typically reversible, rarely persist beyond a few generations, and do not overturn the central tenets of Darwinian or Mendelian science. Lysenko’s work was fraudulent, ideologically driven, and resulted in the destruction of Soviet biology. Epigenetics is a legitimate field that operates under the principles Lysenko rejected.
Unfortunately for some of our comrades, Lysenkoism was never just a scientific debate. It was a political litmus test. The USSR under Stalin (
whose legacy I mostly uphold, but not entirely, much like the CPC) elevated Lysenko’s rejection of Mendelian genetics as the official “proletarian” science, while classical genetics was condemned as “bourgeois,” “fascist,” and “reactionary.” To question Lysenko was to question the party line.
Thus, when you reject Lysenkoism some of our comrades hear you siding with “bourgeois science” against the “immortal proletarian science of Marxism-Leninism.” They interpret it as accepting a Western, anti-dialectical-materialist view of biology. They see it as undermining the legacy of the USSR and Stalin, which they defend unconditionally.
In their ideological framework, scientific truth is subordinate to political fidelity. So any rejection of Lysenkoism becomes, in their eyes, an anti-communist act not because of the biology, but because of what Lysenko symbolized.
>>2755753>but is not in and of itself "Lysenkoist" or even "Semi-Lysenkoist.it is, you just have a narrow view of lysenko that excludes him being correct
>We now know genes are not always perfectly discretenever discrete. a fundamentally mistaken metaphysical categorization of a non-physical phenomena.
>His key claims included the claim that treating seeds could permanently alter their heritable traitsthis is true
>modern epigenetics does not validate his claims.it does. you are moving the goal posts. epigenetics is inheritance of acquired traits
>Lysenko’s work was fraudulent, ideologically driven, and resulted in the destruction of Soviet biologyfalse
>principles Lysenko rejected.false
>It was a political litmus test.this is true, but also a correct approach. science is not apolitical
>classical genetics was condemned as “bourgeois,” “fascist,” and “reactionary.”because it is
>They interpret it as accepting a Western, anti-dialectical-materialist view of biology. because it is
>They see it as undermining the legacy of the USSR and Stalinbecause it does
>which they defend unconditionally.not true, when they are wrong they are wrong. they just were not wrong about this
>scientific truth is subordinate to political fidelityagain, not true.
>an anti-communist act not because of the biologyits both
>because of what Lysenko symbolizedtrue, but because Lysenko was correct
the same thing is true in physics re quantum as it is in genetics. they are both false ideologically motivated reasoning based in anti-communism that ignore science. its actually these fields where scientific truth is most acutely subordinated to political fidelity.
>>2755762Well they messed it up since they had to beg the burgers for wheat a few years later to avoid starvation
>>2753279Epigenetics has shown that there is a lot of overlap between acquired and inherited traits. In layman's terms, Acquired traits can be passed on if gametes are affected by that trait.
>>2755988>are you saying molecular DNA doesn't existdoes the post im replying to say "molecular DNA"? what about the section of the post quoted directly before your quote?
Why I'm skeptical of pro-Lysenkoism is I never see it outside of this place. Even other "tankie" spaces online that are right about everything don't mention Lysenko. Even TheFinnishBolshevik never did a video defending Lysenko as far as I'm aware. People who write about the cold war and how reactionary and imperialist America was while the USSR was defending the global south, they don't mention Lysenko. Why is there so much silence in "tankie" spaces about Lysenko? Leftypol seems to be the exception.
>>2755994molecular DNA contains genes tho. A gene is a specific segment of that DNA that contains instructions for making something functional. These can be very abstractly coded too. High level homoebox genes delegate instructions to lower level genes. Kind of like object oriented programming. If you take the homeobox genes that codes for growing a spider's leg, and you put it on a fruit fly, the fruit fly will grow an extra leg, but it won't be a spider leg, it will be a fruit fly leg. So these gene sequences are sometimes cross-species and can code for polymorphic structures like "leg" in the abstract vs. leg in the concrete.
i have to go so ill answer now. genes dont exist as discrete entities. "sequences" contradicts how genes were initially presented in lysenkos time, making the concept of a gene *at least* as wrong as lysenko supposedly is if you apply the same standard(as a physical entity where 1phenotype=1genotype and immutable germ lines with an uncrossable wiesmann barrier) and in reality significantly more wrong than what lysenko proposed.
>>2756002yes but thats not the claim of genetics defenders, who often dont even understand what they are defending and are decades out of date with the field
that is to say genetics has been so watered down by confrontations with reality that its indistinguishable from lysenkoism but keeps its old language in a new context as a cope
why do you allow the status quo so much lenience and charitability when its mostly wrong and are so hostile to a competing theory? one is defended for getting one thing half right despite mostly incorrect and the other is rejected for getting one thing half wrong while mostly correct
>>2756007i'm just responding to the claim that genes don't exist. genes do exist. they're segments of DNA that code for something functional. that's what a gene is. i don't understand how you can say genes don't exist, then i explain what a gene is, and you say "yeah but i'm talking about genetics defenders". modern molecular biology contains genetics. do you or do you not agree that segments of DNA exist that encode for specific structures and functions in the organism? those are genes.
>>2756023im saying the definition changed to fit the new data when it got proved wrong
it would be more correct if you included the environment in the definition of a gene
but that completely undermines the idea they are discrete physical entities
>>2756009>that is to say genetics has been so watered down by confrontations with reality that its indistinguishable from lysenkoism. except modern molecular biology and genetics is not "lysenkoism" it's a synthesis of Darwinian and Lamarckists ideas. nobody in modern molecular biology claims what Lysenko claimed. He claimed he could transform one species, durum spring wheat, into common autumn wheat, through 2 to 4 years of autumn planting. This species transition he claimed to occur without an intermediate form. Despite the vast difference in the number of chromosomes between the two species (28 vs 42). If modern biology were really "indistinguishable from Lysenkoism" they would make these same disproven claims. Lysenkoists think every revelation of epigenetics is indistinguishable from the disproven hogwash Lysenko was claiming. Not even the CPC defends Lysenko anymore.
>>2756024>genes don't exist<yes they do, here they are, they're segments of DNA>ok those exist and those are genes but that's not the defintion of gene i'm mad at, i'm mad at the old wrong definition nobody uses anymoreok? science moved on. why not start the conversation this way instead of starting with "genes don't exist" and needing to get interrogated on what you mean by that?
>>2756038>it's a synthesis of Darwinian and Lamarckists ideas.Darwin was a Lamarckist
>>2756039><yes they do, here they are, they're segments of DNAyou are being really wishy washy and moving the goalposts. "segments of DNA" is not what was proposed by the concept of genes and multiple people here have admitted that what they essentially think is a gene is a collection of multiple seemingly random different segments that mean nothing alone until they interact with their environment as well as eachother under specific condditions, which is a completely separate thing from a discrete physical entity called a gene that determines phenotype. the entire thing has been debunked and what people actually conceive of as genes, eg punnet squares where one segment of dna on a chromosome = one phenotypic trait are such an exception to the rule that they arent even worth mentioning. but thats all you bio 101 retards even know
>i'm mad at the old wrong definition nobody uses anymoreno its still the current definition, and its wrong. science hasn't caught up with itself. i just really think you are having trouble with it because you have no idea what you are talking about.
>>2756464trans lysenkoist ama
more importantly you didnt address this at all
>>2756017. really makes it seem like
>>2755753 is projection, that you reject lysenko not because of science, but because of ideological opposition to the ussr. you want stalin to be bad so you go looking for reasons and slurp up anti communism to justify it when you handwave massive mistakes of bourgeois science as just growing pains when they are proven to be ideologically motivated but when the soviets do actual science its some kind of nefarious plot
>>2756009so was genetics originally right?
You need to be uniquely retarded to believe epigenetics proves Lysenko right. As if a change in gene expression could turn wheat into rye. It is incomprehensible to me how incurios you must be to spout such nonsense. Sad.
>>2755997I think it's a niche russian schizo thing, and we have our fair share of those guys here for some reason, probably there is something to find on obscure corners of the russian internet
Lysenko increased grain output in the USSR by 20-40% every year he was in power. People laser focus on the one time he was sort of wrong and ignore literally every over achievement he did.
Science is wrong sometimes, who knew.
>>2756787Why haven't other people tried to replicate this by themselves? What was the one instance where he was wrong?
>>2753463>a fish cannot procreate with a manuygha never experienced a fishlight before.
>>2756770>russian schizonta but yeah i noticed this too. Ive seen them even deny the moonlanding lol
>>2756796His work was pretty crucial in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Longping this guys science which lead to China figuring out how to stop global famines.
He was wrong when it came to the totality of environment in genetic factors with crops - he completely disregarded DNA because the USSR got into a moral panic against Social Darwinism due to the Nazis tryna genocide them.
We understand that its both DNA and environment now, he was just part of the natural dialectic that got resolved in large part because of his work.
He also worked out how to grow sub-artic lemons.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures/People who think hes a pseud havent done an honest assessment of his lifetime work.
>>2756811Last point but there is a big reason why famines stopped being a thing after the 1940s, guys like this worked it out.
Famines used to happen every couple of decades - one bad harvest, and then another by your neigbhour and 80% of you are starving to death. The west slanders Lysenko because the USSR made mistakes while under immense pressure from a genocidal force and while recovering from the scars of feudal serfdom, but he prevented so many deaths. Hes a folk hero and still celebrated as such by people who haven't had the wool pulled over.
>>2756811Yuan longping rejected lysenko. Yuan talked about how he did multiple grafting experiments to test lysenkos theories. It didnt produce a second or third generation that inherited acquired traits.
He then concluded that soviet theories were problematic so he went and studied mendel and morgans genetic theories.
Why did you use a person who rejected lysenko and accepted west genetic theories?
>>2756828You fail to understand that in order to reject him, he has to have done science in the first place. He proved what didnt work in practice and detailed how it didnt work, this is the ladder of science.
Also aside from this he did exponentially increase the soviets grain production, that alone is a feat worth praising. The issues that arose from Lysenko wasnt his science - finding whats wrong is as important as finding what is right, its more sociological in that he wasn't given an environment to fail in that didn't lead to mass causalities due to the Nazis invading them and creating economic insecurity and internal paranoia.
>>2756828Also, if he was a pseud he'd have literally nothing to show for himself, but thats not the case. He has several theories that are still held up today. (Vernalization, phasic development of plants)
>>2756828>Yuan longping rejected lysenkoAnd? Great man theory idol worship.
>>2756830>he has to have done science in the first place. He proved what didnt work in practice and detailed how it didnt work, this is the ladder of science.so he did science which shows that lysenko beliefs were false and flawed. Therefore providing legitimacy to a large part of why people criticize lysenko
Eh…..
>Also aside from this he did exponentially increase the soviets grain production, that alone is a feat worth praisingHow much of this increase was due to lysenkos theories. And how much of it was due to industrializing and mechanization of argiculture?
Also didnt countries that rejected or never embraced lysenkos beliefs also xpirence rapid growth of argiculture. And also stopped having famines too during or after their industrialization?
>>2756837>He has several theories that are still held up today. (Vernalization, phasic development of plants)These theories already existed before lysenko. Or at least had proto versions of it. Lysenko for example, did not invent vernalization
>>2756842The famines of the 1930s and 1946, from what i've read are due to manpower shortages, not genetics anyway. People like to slander Lysenko because the slander distracts from the fact y'know, the Nazi's where currently invading them, promising to genocide them and scortch earthing as they went. The soviets had to literally dedicate every prole to resisting this, it lead to farm shortages and understandably, famines and poor decisions.
I guarantee if the nazis never became a force in Germany shit would have played out differently.
>>2756846>These theories already existed before lysenko. Or at least had proto versions of it. Lysenko for example, did not invent vernalizationHe didnt invent it no, but he did provide new knowledge on it when it came to treating seeds with cold, he came to some wrong conclusions after that but still provided new and correct observations. This is common with science, we figure out a little bit but might get something wrong and other people reiterate on it.
>so he did science which shows that lysenko beliefs were false and flawed. Therefore providing legitimacy to a large part of why people criticize lysenkoEh…..
There are real criticisms of him id accept honestly, mostly around the careerism that he engaged in and backstabbing of other academics. Its good to wash away the bullshit liberals throw on him though like blaming him for millions of deaths - that was obviously the nazis.
>>2753053Because looksmaxxing doesnt make one right
>>2756846>also xpirence rapid growth of argiculture.*experience
>>2756846>How much of this increase was due to lysenkos theories. And how much of it was due to industrializing and mechanization of argiculture?Good question. Important to note it wasn't answered by the replies.
>>2756904I dont have a definitive answer to it, its worth investigating as a variable.
>>2756899Is mewing Lysenkoism?
>>2756494>you want stalin to be badmade shit up award
>>2756846>How much of this increase was due to lysenkos theories. And how much of it was due to industrializing and mechanization of argiculture?For one Lysenkoist policy drove the creation of a lot of new varieties. It also directly resulted in the discovery of Kok-Saghyz cluster planting, which made the plant a viable source of natural rubber from 1931 to 1950, and the "tops" method for potatos, that made cultivation possible in previously intenably cold latitudes. None of these could be replicated just by throwing fertilizer, irrigation or machinery at the problem.
>Also didnt countries that rejected or never embraced lysenkos beliefs also xpirence rapid growth of argiculture. And also stopped having famines too during or after their industrialization?Few industrialized countries of the time faced agricultural conditions as severe as those in many parts of the Soviet Union, which is why US factory farming could always rely on monocultures artificial fertilizers, outside of crises like the dust bowl. The large-scale cultivation of corn famously established by Khruschev had disastrous long-term consequences, precisely because it ignored the kind of environmental factors that were central to Lysenko's Michurinism.
>>2756990why attribute such a thing due to the development of productive forces (base) when I could attribute it to the lone heroics of one scientist?
>>2756913How likely is it that great man theory trumps the development of productive forces when it comes to the question of grain production in the country with the largest land area on Earth?
>>2756981>For one Lysenkoist policy drove the creation of a lot of new varieties. It also directly resulted in the discovery of Kok-Saghyz cluster planting, which made the plant a viable source of natural rubber from 1931 to 1950, and the "tops" method for potatos, that made cultivation possible in previously intenably cold latitudes. None of these could be replicated just by throwing fertilizer, irrigation or machinery at the problem.books on this subject?
>>2757045>>2757029>The ideas that Lysenko expounded on November 5, 1945, in his lecture at the improvement courses for state plant breedingstation workers, that he expounded later in his articles in Sotsialisticheskoye Zemledelye,. and in a number of other articles and books, must, undoubtedly, have arisen in his mind much earlier. Already in 1943, the cluster sowing of kok-saghyz that he had recommended, and which he regarded as being inseverably connected with his new conception of the very ABC of Darwinism, was being widely practised; and earlier still, in 1940, his lecture on “Engels and Certain Problems of Darwinism” that he delivered at the Academy of Sciences gave all grounds for anticipating his subsequent ruthless criticism of “intraspecific competition.”>Yes, the controversy raged around the question of intraspecific competition, of the mutual struggle between individuals in the same species, which authors of textbooks on Darwinism were inclined to proclaim as one of the three pillars that supported the theoretical edifice erected by the “hermit of Down.”>Lysenko was simply of the opinion that - there was no such thing as intraspecific competition.>But when we were at school, did we not, together with theorems in Euclid, study calculations which showed that one pair of elephants could fill the world with elephants in the course of seven hundred and something years, and that one dandelion plant could fill the world with dandelions in less than ten years, if all the young elephants survived and all the winged dandelion seeds sprouted? There appeared to be nothing to argue about. “Struggle for existence,” was the conclusion drawn in the textbooks. Only a tiny fraction of the newborn creatures survive. The rest are destroyed in the ruthless battle of life. And the textbooks capped this with the observation: “This battle is exceptionally fierce, of course, among the individuals of the same species, for they all demand the same thing from external environment. Hence, they, first of all, come into conflict with each other.”>[..]>The tacit assumption of overpopulation, of congestion (which they did not always take the trouble to find and point to in nature, but in the most cases accepted on faith, on the basis of mathematical calculations)— was not this the first weak link in the “chain”?>Lysenko enquired ironically: So, actually, the poor rabbits suffer more from each other than they do from wolves and foxes?>And how,he enquired further, does this intraspecific struggle harmonize with the theory of natural selection, with Darwin's theory itself? Does not natural selection result in the species acquiring and accumulating useful characters? In what way is the direct or indirect mutual extermination of the individuals useful for the species? Perhaps suicide is the best method of sustaining life and health?>In opposition to the arguments and observation of those who recognize the existence of an intraspecific struggle, Lysenko adduced his own arguments and facts; and they were extremely characteristic. Knowing Lysenko, one could have foreseen what they would be. They were the arguments of agrobiology, and the facts were taken from the practice of the agriculturist.>[…]>What is a crop, what is a good crop? After all, it is the achievement of living harmony in the fields within the particular variety of plant that is being cultivated and its harmony with the other varieties, its field neighbours, with its predecessors, and with the plants that will be planted after it. The science of crop raising is precisely the science of this living harmony.>“One can believe,” says Lysenko, “that weeds, which are varieties other than wheat, for example, hinder the latter, suffocate it. But nobody will believe that sparsely-sown, and therefore weed-mixed, wheat is better off in the field than densely-sown pure wheat. . . .”Flood detected; Post discarded. >>2756848none of this has any bearing on the validity of Lysenko's hypotheses
>>2757056>Lysenko took his stand on the experience of seed growers, of the kolkhoz fields, of the work of millions of human hands and, with his characteristic ardour, he fiercely attacked those who challenged his claims on alleged “academic" grounds that were inimical to the interests of the people.>But what about the dandelion, that classical example of propagation in geometric progression? Very well, let us take the dandelion, but a variety that is very useful to man — kok-saghyz.>As long as kok-saghyz was sown in lines, so that the growing plants should not crowd each other, it grew badly, barely sprouted, and only a few, fluffy seeds appeared on each plant. The amount of seed collected was scarcely equal to the amount planted.>In 1943, Lysenko proposed a radical change in the method of cultivating kok-saghyz. It must be sown in clusters., he said, 100 to 200 seeds in each cluster (even 200 to 300 if the supply is plentiful).>Two hundred seeds to the cluster—what congestion there must be there! But this did not daunt Lysenko. He argued as follows.>Kok-saghyz is an inhabitant of the thicket, it is a “cellar dweller.” To plant it alone in the sun and wind, carefully to smooth its leaves and walk on tiptoe around it to break up the soil and not allow even a blade of grass to remain near it, would be a disservice to it.>When planted in clusters, however, a bunch of buds willspring up, a cap of kok-saghyz leaves clinging closely to each other, rather long, and smoother-edged than our ordinary dandelion. The small thicket will rise out of the cluster, and its mortal enemy, the weeds, will be unable to get at it. The soil underneath is more moist, and the dew remains in its depths until midday—it has its own microclimate. . . .>The cluster sowing of kok-saghyz has been practised for a number-of years already, and Lysenko considers that he has a right to draw the conclusion: “in this case, the question of intraspecific competition does not exist for agricultural practice.">The cluster-sowing method rapidly spread throughout the country and, as the textbooks on plant breeding say, has become the chief method of growing kok-saghyz.>The cluster-sowing method has resulted in an increase in yield (taking the returns of the plantations on which this method is employed on a large scale) not of “so much per cent,” but of several hundred per cent.>Formerly, the average yield of kok-saghyz root (for the sake of the milky sap of which this plant is cultivated) did not exceed 4-5 centners per hectare. Before the war, the kolkhozniks in the Sumy Region harvested an average of 13.9 centners per hectare, and in one district in the Kiev Region 16.5 centners. This was regarded as a record, and bigger yields were obtained only in very small plots.>But today, in the postwar period, the kolkhozes that have adopted the cluster-sowing method are harvesting 20 and 30 centners of roots per hectare. Crops of 40-50 centners per hectare are not rare, and scores of kolkhozes have achieved the record of 100 centners and over. >>2757075>We had almost grown accustomed to very frequent complaints about the poor germination of seed in the northern and eastern regions. There were cases when in sowings of spring wheat, barley and oats, barely one grain in three sprout¬ ed. And this was not due to the spoiling of the grain by bad storage.>And so, in one visible phenomenon—the fact that the seed did not sprout—Lysenko began to- discern two very different, diametrically opposite phenomena. Seed may not sprout because it had lost its power of germination; and also because it had not yet acquired it.>[…]>There is nothing mysterious in this. It is simply that the nutritive substances in them are not yet in a soluble, assimilable state. Their thick, compact husks prevent the entry of air, sometimes of air and moisture. If at least a tiny part of the husk is removed, then, in warmth and moisture, the germ’s food inside will be "properly cooked.”>But since there are two kinds of absence of germination, how important it is quickly to distinguish one from the other! What we have just said above enables this to be done. Take a hundred or so of the grains of the given consignment, steep them in water to make them swell, remove a fragment of the husk from the germ with a needle—if the seed is alive it will sprout at once. . . .>[…]>And so, in the first grim years of the war, under the direction of Academician T. D. Lysenko, the revival of the seemingly dead seeds was begun on a mass scale. The barns were cleared out. The seeds were spread out in thin layers on the open ground and the spring breezes swept over them.>The warmth roused them from their slumber. And when planted, the germinating ability of the seeds rose from thirty to ninety, and in many cases to a hundred per cent. This is what happened in the kolkhozes and sovkhozes in the Chelyabinsk Region, in Kazakhstan, and in Siberia.>And Lysenko, who had here entered a new sphere which nobody had explored in any detail—the biology of the seed, the life of the seed—was already musing: "Agricultural science must devise a method of compelling the seeds of weeds to sprout quickly under field conditions, after which it will be possible to destroy them easily by one or other method of soil cultivation.” The biological clue to this is a deep study of the seed's rest period. “This is greatly needed for practical purposes. . …">It was greatly needed also because the revival of seed was not only a problem for the North. It was also a problem for the South, where summer planting had vanquished senility in potatoes. There, the problem was called: the planting of freshly-harvested tubers. But freshly-harvested tubers refuse to sprout in the same year. They have their own cycle of rest and development that had been worked out by the entire history of the plant’s life. They "sleep” until the next year, when a new potato generation will grow from them. Methods of rousing the dormant tubers had already been devised before the war. In 1941, experimental plots planted with freshly-harvested tubers occupied a total area of five thousand hectares (in Transcaucasia and Central Asia).>The task now was to employ these methods on a much more extensive scale.>[…]>Before the potatoes were peeled and put into the pot, the "tops”—small parts with an "eye," were cut off; and these “tops” proved to be excellent seed. There is 'Scarcely anybody in our country now who is not familiar with the "tops” method of planting potatoes and has not employed it; and it can be said without exaggeration that this method provided food for millions of people during the grim years of the war.>[…]>Everybody could plant “tops." But Lysenko saw in this method not only “almost unlimited possibilities of increasing supplies of potato seed,” but also confirmation of his own conception of the life of plants.>Nobody, as a rule, plants large-size potatoes for seed. It seems a waste to do so; and besides, what a tremendous weight of potatoes per hectare would have to be used. Even average-size potatoes are rarely used for this purpose. As everybody knows, seed potatoes are small. It makes no difference, the variety, the "gene" is the same in small and in large potatoes—so the Morganists taught.>But Lysenko did not agree with this; this business of “balancing the gene account" may apply to office bookkeeping", but not to life, he argued. Large-size potatoes are etter for planting; they possess stronger reproduction power than small ones.>With the "tops” method it is possible to use this stronger "reproduction power” of large-size potatoes for seed without depriving the housewife of any of her food stocks. The "top” of a 15o-gram potato "will, as a rule, produce a larger yield than a whole potato weighing 40-50 grams. . . .” >>2756998>>2756990Id agree the assigning great man theory is silly here, most of what im saying is meant to counter the slander against him with the blood libel and also to address that he was a completely pseudoscientist, he did do some things that advanced our knowledge of science.
Also that we should acknowledge the historical context for all of the stuff happening to the USSR in 1940-1946, it would have put insane pressures on everyone and I think its why things happened the way they did.
>>2757178>also to address that he was a completely pseudoscientist, he did do some things that advanced our knowledge of science.this is fair. kinda how newton advanced physics but was also a schizo who believed in alchemy and numerology, porky who traded stocks, and an aristocrat who executed poor people.
retards dont know lysenko was more of a rival of luther burbank than of gregor mendel
>>2756964guess that makes two then huh?
>>2757301yeah i don't get the random hate for mendel. it's like yeah, he was using punnet squares before DNA was discovered. who cares.
>>2756981(reposting this with the corrections and without the seperate comments. Seeing them seperate and the og comment still having errors was making me unhappy. Sorry if the reposting annoys people, I should check more before i repost lol)
>Few industrialized countries of the time faced agricultural conditions as severe as those in many parts of the Soviet Union, which is why US factory farming could always rely on monocultures artificial fertilizers, outside of crises like the dust bowlBut few still did. The canadian praries (canada), negev desert (israel), scandinivia + iceland, and mexico alongside other places had areas which had brutal agricultural conditions. The canadian praries for example was very comparable to the soviet unions agricultural and climate conditions.
A scientist by the name of dr charles used mendelian genetics to create marquis wheat. It turned canada including the canadian praries into a bread basket. In other words a place (canada) which rejected lysenko expirenced similar agricultural growth that the soviet union did
You can hear similar stories of OTHER scientists using mendelian genetics to develop very good crops. Scientists from the other countries than canada who made crops for their respective countries. Crops that could survive their respective countries difficult and bad agricultural areas.
>For one Lysenkoist policy drove the creation of a lot of new varieties. How much of this is exclusive to lysenko and how much of this is just the natural scientific discoveries that happens in industrial societies. Other industrial societies which rejected lysenko and used mendelian genetics ended up also creating a lot of new crop varieties. For example, the green revolution was associated with lots of new varieties of crops. Thousands of new crop varieties were made
>directly resulted in the discovery of Kok-Saghyz cluster planting, which made the plant a viable source of natural rubber from 1931 to 1950, and the "tops" method for potatosI need some recent sources on this regarding its succes. From what I recall, the top method for potatos, the cluster planting, and the natural rubber extraction had dissapointing results. Either they produced very low yields (top methods for potatos), killed each other (trees in cluster planting), or had exaggerated results and were eventually replaced with synthetic rubber or south east asian natural rubber. (rubber)
Can you present me a recent source that wasnt from 1951?
>>2757888>How much of this is exclusive to lysenko and how much of this is just the natural scientific discoveries that happens in industrial societies.Why do you implicitly accept the anti-communist propaganda that the soviet union was a unilateral one man dictatorship?
>A scientist by the name of dr charles used mendelian genetics oh yeah? How much of this is exclusive to dr charles and mendelian genetics and how much of this is just the natural scientific discoveries that happens in industrial societies?
>>2757994>Why do you implicitly accept the anti-communist propaganda that the soviet union was a unilateral one man dictatorship?the premise of the other guys comment was about lysenko policy. So I referred to lysenko>>2756990
>How much of this is exclusive to dr charles and mendelian genetics and how much of this is just the natural scientific discoveries that happens in industrial societies?except it happened over and over again. Charles is not the only example of mendelian genetics working. Theres a pattern of succesful mendel crops.
And thats besides the point. The point being that if lysenkoist policy was truly right, then the mendelian examples should not have occured. A big part of why lysenko was called pseudo is because he rejected mendel genetics.
The fact mendel works shows lysenko policy was flawed.
Now im willing to admit perhaps lysenko had figured out some correct stuff. After all mendel could be right about stuff and lysenko could be right about some others
but as i said here:
<I need some recent sources on this regarding its succes. From what I recall, the top method for potatos, the cluster planting, and the natural rubber extraction had dissapointing results. Either they produced very low yields (top methods for potatos), killed each other (trees in cluster planting), or had exaggerated results and were eventually replaced with synthetic rubber or south east asian natural rubber. (rubber)Can you present me a recent source that wasnt from 1951?
can you present me a recent source which shows it was succesful. Im willing to read it
>>2758053>could be right about stuff and lysenko could be right about some otherscould be right about A LOT OF stuff and lysenko could be right about some others
>>2758053again its very strange to me that you maintain this position when the main tenets of mendels theory have been proven outright incorrect and his main contributions are an exception to what is now the rule.
you just implicitly accept that "genetics" as a field has a throughline with minor imperfections and course corrections to arrive at the current model, when in reality its essentially been essentially completely overturned and whats left is deeply intertwined with proposals that are closer to what lysenko thought.
and youre using "mendelian" as shorthand for something it doesnt represent and didnt claim, giving him credit for something he had nothing to do with and made no contribution to. while also using "lysenko policy" or "lysenkoism" as a distinct school of thought, when that is anti-communist propaganda. "lysenkoism" is an scare word against totally normal soviet biology and not the policy of of an individual person.
>>2758098> "lysenkoism" is an scare word ok so we should just have soviet biology threads instead of "let's debate lysenkoism" threads
>>2758098>and youre using "mendelian" as shorthand for something it doesnt represent and didnt claim, giving him credit for something he had nothing to do with and made no contribution to.what? lets look at the charles example
"Mendel's investigations were well known to me before the year 1903 and all my work since then has been conducted in the light of his valued conclusions"
-charles
In the dr charles example he straight out admits that he used mendal's investigations and conclusions. His wheat expirements was also created shortly after he went to International Conference on Plant Breeding and Hybridization, where he learned mendels ideas and works.
"The remarkable work of Mendel has thrown a new light on the whole subject of plant breeding… we are now able to conduct our experiments with a degree of precision and a certainty of results that were previously impossible."
summary of the 1902 international conference proceedings (newman an argonimist who worked with charles)
Mendal ideas and works contributed heavily to dr charles wheat crop. Which later turned canada into a breadbasket.
>again its very strange to me that you maintain this position when the main tenets of mendels theory have been proven outright incorrect and his main contributions are an exception to what is now the rule.
>you just implicitly accept that "genetics" as a field has a throughline with minor imperfections and course corrections to arrive at the current model, when in reality its essentially been essentially completely overturned and whats left is deeply intertwined with proposals that are closer to what lysenko thought.this is an extreme take but Im going to do some further research on this first before replying
>>2758099He personally named himself a Michurinist after the famous Russian biologist he drew many of his ideas from.
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