Stalinist Genetics

Author : Dmitri Stanchevici
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2017-03-02
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781351864459

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Stalinist Genetics by Dmitri Stanchevici Pdf

Stalinist Genetics focuses on the rhetoric of T. D. Lysenko, the founder of an agrobiological doctrine (Lysenkoism) in the Stalinist Soviet Union. Using not only scientific but also political and ideological arguments, Lysenko achieved an official ban on Soviet Mendelian genetics. Though the ban was brief and Lysenkoism, as a leading biological doctrine, was eventually deposed in favor of Mendelism, Lysenkoism remains a paradigmatic example of pernicious political interference in science. In this study, the critical orientation for reading Lysenko's major speeches is constitutional rhetoric. It combines Kenneth Burke's dialectic of constitutions and rhetoric of the subject. Painting a nuanced picture of intellectual, economic, ideological, and political life in the Soviet Union of the 1930s and 1940s, the book demonstrates how the rhetorics of Lysenkoism and Mendelism interacted with Stalinist culture in the fight for dominating Soviet science. The reader will learn how Lysenko's constitutional rhetoric created a space where scientific terms transformed into political and ideological ones, and vice versa. The book also shows how, in a dialectical flip, the Lysenkoist rhetoric eventually turned from tool to master. Contrary to Lysenko's intentions, his language gave his opponents, Soviet Mendelians, grounds on which to defend their science and criticize Lysenkoism. Stanchevici forcefully reasserts the blurriness of the boundaries between science and politics, and argues that scientific language reveals more plasticity and adaptability to the political situation than has hitherto been assumed. Intended Audience: Scholars in rhetoric, history, and philosophy of science; graduate or upper-division undergraduate course in the rhetoric of science or technical communication.

Author : Nikolai Krementsov
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 1996-11-25
Category : Science
ISBN : 1400822149

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Stalinist Science by Nikolai Krementsov Pdf

Some scholars have viewed the Soviet state and science as two monolithic entities--with bureaucrats as oppressors, and scientists as defenders of intellectual autonomy. Based on previously unknown documents from the archives of state and Communist Party agencies and of numerous scientific institutions, Stalinist Science shows that this picture is oversimplified. Even the reinstated Science Department within the Central Committee was staffed by a leading geneticist and others sympathetic to conventional science. In fact, a symbiosis of state bureaucrats and scientists established a much more terrifying system of control over the scientific community than any critic of Soviet totalitarianism had feared. Some scientists, on the other hand, developed more elaborate devices to avoid and exploit this control system than any advocate of academic freedom could have reasonably hoped. Nikolai Krementsov argues that the model of Stalinist science, already taking hold during the thirties, was reversed by the need for inter-Allied cooperation during World War II. Science, as a tool for winning the war and as a diplomatic and propaganda instrument, began to enjoy higher status, better funding, and relative autonomy. Even the reinstated Science Department within the Central Committee was staffed by a leading geneticist and others sympathetic to conventional science. However, the onset of the Cold War led to a campaign for eliminating such servility to the West. Then the Western links that had benefited genetics and other sciences during the war and through 1946 became a liability, and were used by Lysenko and others to turn back to the repressive past and to delegitimate whole research directions.

Author : N. L. Krement︠s︡ov
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Electronic books
ISBN : 0415350603

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International Science Between the World Wars by N. L. Krement︠s︡ov Pdf

This book addresses the function of international science through a detailed study of international congresses in genetics held from 1899-1939.

Author : Loren Graham
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674089051

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Lysenko’s Ghost by Loren Graham Pdf

Lysenko became one of the most notorious figures in twentieth-century science after his genetic theories were discredited decades ago. Yet some scientists now claim that discoveries in epigenetics prove that he was right after all. Loren Graham reopens the case, to determine whether new developments in molecular biology validate Lysenko’s claims.

Author : Zhores A. Medvedev
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 1969
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015046868041

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The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko by Zhores A. Medvedev Pdf

Presents the story of the Soviets from 1937-1964 in three ways; historically, by the author as a witness, and by the author as an active participant to the final stages of Lysenkoism, which he helped to topple.

Author : Dominique Lecourt
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2017-11-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781788732048

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Proletarian Science? by Dominique Lecourt Pdf

The Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko, who died in 1976, symbolizes one of the most notorious yet obscure episodes in the history of the Soviet Union. Emerging from provincial shadows in the Ukraine during the twenties, Lysenko achieved a meteoric career under Stalin's dictatorship, when ever greater claims were officially made for his 'environmentalism'. Overlord and autocrat of all Soviet biology after the Second World War, Lysenko's doctrines were promulgated throughout the international communist movement - from Britain to Japan - as a specifically 'proletarian' science, as opposed to mere bourgeois science. After Stalin's death, Lysenko soon plunged into discredit - although his agricultural recipes were to be approved again by Khruschev. Dominique Lecourt - author of the highly successful study Marxism and Epistemology - poses the question: what was the historical meaning of Lysenko? Was Lysenko no more than a brutal charlatan? Or did his ideas correspond - not to any canon of science - but to wider social forces at work in the USSR? Lecourt's sardonic and perceptive study provides a definitive critique of the follies of 'anti-Mendelian' biology, and a materialist account of the reasons for its triumph in Russia during the rule of Stalin. An important afterword traces the original idea of a proletarian science to its source in Bogdanov. In a major introductory essay, Louis Althusser poses the acute political problems which the history of Lysenko still represents for Communists everywhere, and for the first time directly indicts political repression in the USSR today.

Author : T. D. Lysenko
Publisher : The Minerva Group, Inc.
Page : 140 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2001-12
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780898756609

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Heredity and Its Variability by T. D. Lysenko Pdf

The classic of Stalinist aberrant genetic theory, horticulturist Lysenko rejected orthodox genetics in favor of the theories of those of the Russian horticulturist I. V. Michurin (d. 1935). Among his theories were that wheat raised under certain conditions produce seeds of rye and that theoretical biology must be fused with Soviet agricultural practice. He was the total autocrat of Soviet biology from 1948 through 1953, and believed that through inherited characteristics Stalinism would create a 'new man'. Lysenko held that heredity can be changed by husbandry, a theory that had disastrous impact on Soviet agriculture. He was dismissed from his post as director of the Soviet Institute of Genetics.

Author : Nils Roll-Hansen
Publisher : Humanities Press International
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015063358728

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The Lysenko Effect by Nils Roll-Hansen Pdf

Ukrainian agronomist Lysenko was the leader of an influential Soviet agrobiological school that rejected standard genetics and instead promoted a brand of pseudoscience that held sway among Soviet biologists for over twenty-five years. The dominance of Lysenko's pseudoscientific ideas has been characterized as the biggest scandal of 20th-century science. That it happened under a regime that took particular pride in building its policy on science makes the affair particularly interesting, even for Western observers free from totalitarian governments. The Soviet Union was the first country with a government policy and large-scale public support for science. Agricultural science was a main showcase for this unprecedented investment in science. Unlike other scholars who have studied Lysenko's influence, Roll-Hansen argues that the corruption of Soviet biology should not be explained primarily as the result of Stalin's despotism and the willful intervention of party hacks into the objective methods of science. Because of ideological and economic pressures to produce tangible benefits to society, says Roll-Hansen, Soviet biology, under Lysenko's leadership, succumbed to a wishful-thinking syndrome, which paved the way for Lysenko. By such thinking scientific objectivity was compromised in favor of ideas that accorded with progressive political ideals and economic goals as determined by the ruling politburo. Roll-Hansen draws provocative parallels between Lysenko's bad science in mid-20th-century Russia and attempts by Western theorists today to construe science in social constructivist terms or to exercise political control over scientific research. - from publisher description.

Author : Simon Ings
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Page : 491 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2017-02-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780802189868

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Stalin and the Scientists by Simon Ings Pdf

“One of the finest, most gripping surveys of the history of Russian science in the twentieth century.” —Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy Stalin and the Scientists tells the story of the many gifted scientists who worked in Russia from the years leading up to the revolution through the death of the “Great Scientist” himself, Joseph Stalin. It weaves together the stories of scientists, politicians, and ideologues into an intimate and sometimes horrifying portrait of a state determined to remake the world. They often wreaked great harm. Stalin was himself an amateur botanist, and by falling under the sway of dangerous charlatans like Trofim Lysenko (who denied the existence of genes), and by relying on antiquated ideas of biology, he not only destroyed the lives of hundreds of brilliant scientists, he caused the death of millions through famine. But from atomic physics to management theory, and from radiation biology to neuroscience and psychology, these Soviet experts also made breakthroughs that forever changed agriculture, education, and medicine. A masterful book that deepens our understanding of Russian history, Stalin and the Scientists is a great achievement of research and storytelling, and a gripping look at what happens when science falls prey to politics. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in 2016 A New York Times Book Review “Paperback Row” selection “Ings’s research is impressive and his exposition of the science is lucid . . . Filled with priceless nuggets and a cast of frauds, crackpots and tyrants, this is a lively and interesting book, and utterly relevant today.” —The New York Times Book Review “A must read for understanding how the ideas of scientific knowledge and technology were distorted and subverted for decades across the Soviet Union.” —The Washington Post

Author : David Joravsky
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 474 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2010-12-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226410326

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The Lysenko Affair by David Joravsky Pdf

The Lysenko affair was perhaps the most bizarre chapter in the history of modern science. For thirty years, until 1965, Soviet genetics was dominated by a fanatical agronomist who achieved dictatorial power over genetics and plant science as well as agronomy. "A standard source both for Soviet specialists and for sociologists of science."—American Journal of Sociology "Joravsky has produced . . . the most detailed and authoritative treatment of Lysenko and his view on genetics."—New York Times Book Review

Author : Raisa Berg
Publisher : Penguin Group
Page : 508 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1990
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015019560484

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Acquired Traits by Raisa Berg Pdf

Author : William deJong-Lambert
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2012-02-10
Category : Science
ISBN : 9789400728400

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The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research by William deJong-Lambert Pdf

This book uses the reaction of a number of biologists in the United States and Great Britain to provide an overview of one of the most important controversies in Twentieth Century biology, the “Lysenko Affair.” The book is written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of history/history of science. It covers a number of topics which are relevant to understanding the sources and dimensions of the Lysenko controversy, including the interwar eugenics movement, the Scopes Trial, the popularity of Lamarckism as a theory of heredity prior to the synthesis of genetics and Natural Selection, and the Cold War. The book focuses particularly on portrayals—both positive and negative—of Lysenko in the popular press in the U.S. and Europe, and thus by extension the relationship between scientists and society. Because the Lysenko controversy attracted a high level of interest among the lay community, it constitutes a useful historical example to consider in context with current topics that have received a similar level of attention, such as Intelligent Design or Climate Change.

Author : William deJong-Lambert
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2012-02-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 9789400728394

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The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research by William deJong-Lambert Pdf

This book uses the reaction of a number of biologists in the United States and Great Britain to provide an overview of one of the most important controversies in Twentieth Century biology, the “Lysenko Affair.” The book is written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of history/history of science. It covers a number of topics which are relevant to understanding the sources and dimensions of the Lysenko controversy, including the interwar eugenics movement, the Scopes Trial, the popularity of Lamarckism as a theory of heredity prior to the synthesis of genetics and Natural Selection, and the Cold War. The book focuses particularly on portrayals—both positive and negative—of Lysenko in the popular press in the U.S. and Europe, and thus by extension the relationship between scientists and society. Because the Lysenko controversy attracted a high level of interest among the lay community, it constitutes a useful historical example to consider in context with current topics that have received a similar level of attention, such as Intelligent Design or Climate Change.

Author : Kathleen E. Smith
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017-04-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674977464

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Moscow 1956 by Kathleen E. Smith Pdf

In 1956 Khrushchev stunned Communists by reciting a litany of Stalin’s abuses. His bid to rejuvenate the Party opened the door to upheaval, as Soviet citizens asked where the system had gone astray. Kathleen Smith contends that the year’s brief thaw set in motion a cycle of reform and retrenchment that would recur until the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Author : Evgeny Dobrenko
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 585 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2020-07-14
Category : Communism and culture
ISBN : 9780300198478

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Late Stalinism by Evgeny Dobrenko Pdf

How the last years of Stalin's rule led to the formation ofan imperial Soviet consciousness In this nuanced historical analysis of late Stalinism organized chronologically around the main events of the period--beginning with Victory in May 1945 and concluding with the death of Stalin in March 1953--Evgeny Dobrenko analyzes key cultural texts to trace the emergence of an imperial Soviet consciousness that, he argues, still defines the political and cultural profile of modern Russia.