Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

Lysenkoism
about evolution. When Darwin’s book came out in 1859 (see
origin of species [book]), Lyell did not at first accept evolution.
Lyell’s uniformitarianism required an endless cycle of
geological formation and erosion, but also of the recurrence
of species. Lyell’s view of life was cyclical, whereas Darwin’s
was linear. By the time Lyell’s The Geological Evidence of the
Antiquity of Man appeared in 1863, however, he had begun
to agree with Darwin, because of continuing discoveries of
very old stone tools and human skeletal fragments. In this
and many other ways, Lyell, though having virtually built a
discipline of science with his own hands, kept his mind open
to the new insights of younger scientists. Lyell died February
22, 1875.
Further Reading
Gould, Stephen Jay. “In the midst of life …” Chap. 12 in The Panda’s
Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History. New York: Norton,
1980.
Lysenkoism Lysenkoism is the doctrine of agriculturalist
Trofim Lysenko, who dominated Soviet biological science
during the Stalinist era. The early years of the Soviet state
were plagued with social upheaval and, in the early 1920s,
poor harvests. Wheat was usually planted in the autumn,
when it produced leaves; after overwintering, the wheat
plants would reproduce in the spring for an early summer
harvest. The Russian winters frequently killed the overwintering
wheat. Lysenko, a plant breeder in Azerbaijan, demonstrated
that if the wheat seeds were stratified (kept in cool
moist conditions for a few weeks), they could be sown in
the spring and would reproduce in time for an autumn harvest.
Stratification is now known among plant physiologists
as one of the standard ways of influencing the germination
and developmental characteristics of seeds. If Lysenko had
stopped here, he might today be revered as the man who
helped to save Soviet agriculture, but he went further. He
claimed that this stratification process actually changed the
seeds in a way that could be inherited. Stratify the first generation,
he said, and all the subsequent generations would have
the new, convenient trait. His genetic theory was essentially
the same as that of French biologist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
(see Lamarckism), which had been discredited years earlier
by most scientists.
What happened next is an illustration of a government
imposing its philosophy on science and on its technological
application. Lysenko’s Lamarckism happened to resonate
well with Soviet philosophy, which claimed that individuals
and whole societies could be changed if forced to change,
and the change would be permanent. If humans, why not all
species? Moreover, Lysenko adopted just part of the Mendelian
view (see Mendelian genetics) as European and
American scientists understood it at that time: that heritable
changes could occur by big, sudden leaps (mutations).
This also pleased the Soviet authorities, still proud of their
Bolshevik Revolution that appeared to them to have, in the
single year of 1917, propelled Russia from the Middle Ages
into the modern world. Lysenko’s doctrine was proclaimed
to be truth; evidence to the contrary was suppressed, and
experimental results were forced to fit into a Lysenkoist
interpretation.
The principal Russian scientist to disagree with Lysenko
was geneticist Nikolai Vavilov. (Due to secrecy imposed by
Soviet authorities, scientists outside Russia knew scarcely
anything about what was happening there.) Vavilov had done
extensive research regarding genetic variation in crop species
(local varieties and wild relatives) and provided great insights
into the processes of domestication that had produced these
crops. The thing that emerged most clearly from his research
was that in order to breed crops, and in order to save them
from disease, it is necessary to save the genes. The researcher
must travel extensively, gather seeds or other plant reproductive
parts (such as potato tubers), and keep them alive. One
cannot just grab some seeds, like Lysenko, and force them to
change into what one needs them to be. Vavilov spent time in
prison for his beliefs. He died during the Nazi siege of Leningrad
(now once again St. Petersburg). Some of his fellow
geneticists starved within reach of bags of potatoes, which
they were saving for the future of agriculture. Vavilov was
one of the small number of scientific martyrs.
Lysenko’s claims proved utterly disastrous for Soviet
agriculture. In the winter of 1928–1929, several million
acres of wheat, that had been prepared and planted by the
Lysenko method, died, contributing to widespread famine. As
he became older, Lysenko made even more absurd claims. He
claimed to have created a hornbeam tree that bore hazelnuts;
to have developed a wheat plant that bore rye; and to have
seen cuckoos hatching from warbler eggs.
After Stalin’s death in 1952, Soviet leadership had to
rethink many things about domestic and external policy.
While they never openly repented for their Lysenkoist errors,
the Soviet political and intellectual leadership moved away
from Lysenkoism and adopted the same kind of genetics that
was proving successful in the West—particularly with the
breakthrough the next year by Watson and Crick in demonstrating
the structure, and genetic efficacy, of DNA (see DNA
[raw material of evolution]). Lysenkoism was just the
most recent major example of many cases (see Spencer, Herbert)
in which Lamarckism was embraced because it seemed
fair—if one works hard, one ought to be able to change—
unlike the New Synthesis of Darwinism, in which natural
selection could act only upon the genetic variability that had
been provided by chance.
Further Reading
Gould, Stephen Jay. “A Hearing for Vavilov.” Chap. 10 in Hen’s
Teeth and Horse’s Toes. New York: Norton, 1983.