Talk:Lysenkoism/Archive 1

Questions for Mr Lysenko
What was your work?

Why did you have such success? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.100.137 (talk) 14:04, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Lysenko is dead and can't answer your questions now. But I think our article covers what you want to know well enough. Everyking 14:11, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Michael Crichton
I suggest the statement "More recently, author, Michael Crichton, compared the current Environmental Movement to Lysenkoism." be removed from the article. But rather than remove it without asking, I thought it best to raise the issue here first.

Many people, even famous ones, say many things, much of it nonsense. That does not mean their nonsense should be given credibility in the Wikipedia.

Comparing a movement to Lysenkoism implies that it contradicts the scientific consensus but has state or politically connected support. The enviromentalism that Crichton criticises indeed does have the support of most states and politicians, but it is also the scientific consensus. If anything Crichton is the one who can be compared to Lysenko. His anti-environmental views contradict the scientific consensus and in this he has the support of many top politicians in the US, possibly even the current President. Frankly though, making analogies with Lysenkoism should be done sparingly. Lysenkoism was a dreadful period for many people living in the former USSR. Only the worst excesses of state-supported pseudo-science should be compared to it. (Nathan Geffen) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.54.202.18 (talk) 13:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Quite. Crichton is known for supporting pseudoscience in opposing the scientific consensus on climate change. &mdash; Dunc|&#9786; 16:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

If Crichton's comparison to the environmental movement is removed, I would argue that Carl Sagan's quote referencing Creationism be removed as well. By Nathan Geffen's standard, Lysenkoism should only be compared to excessive, dangerous forms of pseudo-science, of which Creationism is a poor example. Perhaps the Wikipedia entry on Lysenkoism is not the place to push any particular political or social agenda. (A.V.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by A.V.~enwiki (talk • contribs) 22:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Creationism is both a pseudoscience and dangerous, as not only does its anti-science agenda damages a knowledge-based economy, but its wider cultural aim of a fundamentalist theocracy. Just as political fundamentalism is dangerous to science (communism, fascism), is religious fundamentalism. There are other differences too; Carl Sagan was a distinguished scientist, Crichton is a science fiction author.  Sagan represents the view of scientific community, Crichton represents the view of a few dissenters funded by monied oil companies.  Science has no agenda, pseudoscience does. &mdash; Dunc|&#9786; 17:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's ridiculous to compare Lysenkoism to Creationism, while Crichton's more legitimate comparison falls by the wayside. Crichton's Lysenko reference was to the damaging aspects of the environmental movement that cause both starvation and retard development in third world countries. His complaints against the environmental movement are supported heavily in the appendixes of 'State of Fear' by respected researchers, from physicist, Richard Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law (MIT Press), to physicist and Director of the American Physical Society Robert Park, Voodoo Science, the Road from Foolishness to Fraud, to Fred S. Singer, formerly Director of both the US Weather Satellite Service and the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences. Beyond Crichton's comparison to Lysenkoism, the damage to developing countries and the myths within the environmental movement have been outlined in Eco-Imperialism, Green Power/ Black Death by Paul Driessen, endorsed by Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. Wikipedia's neutrality policy simply states that articles are to remain objective. Several changes ago, the Lysenkoism page referred to a statement of opinion by Michael Crichton that falls well within Wikipedia's policy. If Carl Sagan's opinion of what is a harmful pseudoscience can be included, then Michael Crichton's statement should stand as well. A.V.~enwiki 07:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's also significant, in this discussion of which prominent authors' examples of Lysenkoism to use, to consider that creationism's verifiability (forget truth) is much more questionable than that of Lysenko's ideas or of various claims of the environmental movement(s). (In the hopes that I may discourage any Lysenkoist dismissal of my point, I say that, to my mind, creationism is neither scientific nor correct, while environmental movements have done more good than bad.) Morypcaina134.241.138.23 00:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC) (Soapbox? What soapbox?)


 * This conversation has everything to do with modern controversy and absolutely nothing to do with Lysenkoism, save that it compares the objects of modern controversy to Lysenkoism in order to discredit them. Let's not hijack the article, guys. Fearwig 22:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether or not you agree with Crichton, his comment belongs more appopriatly in articles on global warming critics and Crichton himself, linking to this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.97.241.202 (talk) 04:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Guys, stop with the Micheal Crichton insertions, he's a fiction writer, and he goes against the scientific consensus, so don't use him as your sole source. True, he has a lot of references in the back of his book, but that does not mean he is well-referenced, it means he read a lot of material, and confused his conclusions with thier results. His opinion can be included in the Micheal Crichton section of Wiki. But when trying to define and give the history of a word, we're looking for the purest, most obvious examples. If you want to cite a specific example of a fringe global warming theory, cite and name it as such. Presenting "some Global Warming theories" as Lysenkoist implicates the entire idea, which is misleading. As for Creationism not being Lysenkoist, that's ridiclious. Modern biology is based on evolutionary theory (Bioinformatics, Genetics, Ecology, Biochemistry, etc wouldn't exist without it). Creationism and ID are both fundementally hostile and utterly contridictory towards not only to evolutionary theory (a theory only slightly less well supported then the theory of gravity), but the scientific process in general. Thus, they not only retard scientific development, they also encourage nonrational thinking in other fields as well. In Short: Lysenkoism simply said that "genetics are bunk" back when the idea was only in it's adolecence. Creationism says that the world in <10,000 years old. ID says that HIV shouldn't be able to adapt to drugs (because it evolves really, really quickly). Neither can be tested, because we're lacking a God-orometer. Conclusion: This is politics trumping science, stop wasting scientists' time. Global Warming requires multiple stations across the globe recording weather data over several decades, which we have been doing. It doesn't matter if one station in 100 shows a decades-long fall in temperature, when all the others show the opposite; we have the concepts of "medians" and "means" for that type of thing. Conclusion: Because both temperature and CO2 levels have been rising in tandem over the past few decades, and CO2 does indeed absorb IR EMR, global warming due to carbon forcing is certainly possible, even to the most hard-core skeptic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.240.10.170 (talk) 05:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Consensus" is not a scientific term. There used to be a "consensus" a few decades ago that we were headed for global cooling.  I'm old enough to remember and I have an attention span. BipolarBear 22:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Creationism is Lysenkoism. This article's intro defines Lysenkoism as "the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias" and that's creationism to a T. Creationists have a predetermined conclusion (that the Biblical account of creation in the Book of Genesis is the complete and literal truth), and they manipulate and distort the scientific process to "confirm" their existing belief. Crichton's comparison of Lysenkoism to environmentalism, on the other hand, is totally baseless nonsense. 75.76.213.106 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC).

Merge?
I don't agree with Mikkalai's merge proposal. I don't see why we can't have different articles for the man's biography and for his theory. The theory is more than just the man, after all, and it's notable in its own right, independent of Lysenko himself (there's a notable idea, and a notable person&mdash;deeply connected but still separate on an important level). If you want to read about the theory you may not want to read an extended discussion of the man, or vice versa. Moreover, there is plenty of info to fill two separate articles, so why try to cram it all into one? I think having separate articles is the way to go. Everyking 02:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm going to have to agree on that point. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 12:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

POV statement?
"Why John Desmond Bernal, Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society. almost alone among Western scientists, chose to make an aggressive public defence of Lysenko, and some years later, give an implausible obituary of ‘Stalin as a Scientist’, is still not clear."

This paragraph is chiefly notable because, to my mind, the rest of the article is relatively very close to NPOV. Morypcaina134.241.138.23 00:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason why he defended Lysenko was because he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britainin the 1930's. OH GEE!  WHAT A COINCIDENCE!--Capsela 15:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I don't think it's too difficult to figure out. Bernal was a Marxist and inclined to be a bit more sympathetic to the USSR, and against what he perceived as knee-jerk attacks on its scientists, than others. In any case, many non-Lysenkoist things in the west were also being labeled as "Lysenkoist" (i.e., legitimate work on cytoplasmic inheritance) which certainly didn't help anything. --Fastfission 16:14, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Michurinism
In The Rise and Fall..., Medvedev indicated that Lysenkoism has very little in fact to do with Michurin's ideas, and resulted from Lysenko's misunderstanding of his works. I will try to find my copy and fix this. There was a concrete "science" to Lysenkoism, it was just bad science, reinforced by bad experimental methods and what was either an overt or unconscious urge to make the results artificially favorable. Lysenkoism had tangible principles, they were just incorrect principles. It was a synthesis of Marxism, Lamarckism and a scattering of Ivan Michurin's ideas, meant to be the Communist counterpart to Darwinism--it got called Michurinism by Lysenko and his followers because Michurin was a historically respected Russian and that gave it legitimacy in the eyes of the party and probably most of the semi-educated people. Fearwig 22:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup suggestions, arguments
Okay, I'm not here to debate the merits of Lysenko's work--I think all of us (or all of us that count) are in agreement that the philosophy is pseudoscience to the core. But there are a lot of unprofessional and potentially inaccurate statements in the article. "Lysenko's actual 'science' was nonexistent," is more a derogatory sentence than a descriptive one, for instance. While mention is made of Loren Graham and David Joravsky's arguments, there are contrary arguments published by reputable historians (citations pending), and there are accounts (including that of Medvedev, who was directly involved in the fight against Lysenkoism) that Lysenko's theories did have ideological origins and that they were indeed meant to apply to biology as a whole, vegetable, animal, and human by both implication and express mention. While citations are lovely, it is not wise in compiling a historical article to include sentences such as "In reality, as historians such as Loren Graham, David Joravsky, and others have argued, the success of Lysenkoism was more related to internal Soviet political maneuverings at the time than anything else," because they imply that the discussion is closed when it is very much open and subject to argument in the historical community. Two authors are not, after all, a unanimous consensus among historians, even when "and others" trails after their name. :) Fearwig 18:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If the subject is up for debate, then I haven't seen the debate. In practically every modern source in the history of science you will see deference to the views put out by Joravsky and Graham, and they are held up as the definitive views of Lysenkoism. If you want to cite some important work to the contrary, be my guest! --Fastfission 03:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Neo-Lysenkoism
The section on neo-Lysenkoism was essentially the parroting of the "racial realistic" point of view that associates all people who argue that race is a social construct or at least biologically more complicated than typological race theory would let on is "Marxist biology" and thus "neo-Lysenkoism." While there are certainly biologists who were Marxists (i.e. Lewontin) to say that this is the same thing as their being "neo-Lysenkoists" is nonsense and misleading at best—it is just a term used to tar and feather opposition, to imply that they are pseudoscientists, etc.

I think that we should have a section here about how people use the term in a modern sense—the spectre of Lysenkoism comes up even in mainstream biology when discussing genetics and society and the possibility of using political controls to effect research (i.e. James Watson brings it up in a few of his essays), but to just parrot the POV of the right-wing "racialists" who label everyone who disagrees with their research as "neo-Lysenkoism" is definitely a violation of our NPOV policy and not useful, either. See the "Modern usage" section of the scientific racism article to see how this sort of thing should be handled if it is to be neutral—Wikipedia's articles must be careful not to endorse the POV of those doing the labeling, but point them out (and their converse). --Fastfission 03:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Modified this category slightly - the comparison of ID to Lysenkoism remains, but the explanation was blatantly POV, so I constrained it somewhat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.117.4.27 (talk) 07:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

re: neo-Lysenkoism stays
I believe that the neo-Lysenkoism section should remain, at least as a framework for revision. I include the likes of Kamin, Lewontin and Gould in the section simply because at various times they have been labeled as neo-lysenkoites, and it must be acknowledged that their rejection of the role of genes as even partly underlying determinants of social agency (the modern consensus post E. O. Wilson), although not taken as far as Lysenko, stems from the same ideological basis, namely Marxism and its substitution for objective science. Therefore I contend that the analogy (which has not been made by myself but by others – please actually read references before deleting sections, "Fastfission") between Lysenko and the anti-sociobiology/race as social construct crowd is a valid one. Also please note that I describe the term neo-lysenkoite as being a derogatory one, this should imply to any reader that the term was clearly designed to inflame, and although the aforementioned similarities exist, does not imply that Gould, Kamin, Lewontin etc are/were operating within the soviet lysenkoist ‘scientific’ paradigm. Dr. Eggman 24 August 14:38 (EST) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Eggman (talk • contribs) 13:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If you want a section to stay, it needs to be better written. If you want to use it as a framework for revision, please do. But it needs work. Putting all of the "race as a social construct" people into the same category as those who would reject that genes had any importances in social behavior (which I'm fairly sure none of those authors would say—that's a simplification of their views of the sort practiced by the so-called "racial realists" and others who think that caricature is a good way of discussing people who disagree with them) is incorrect as well; thinking that race is a social construct in no way implies that one does not believe in the power of genes to determine human behavior (one can believe genes do many powerful thing without believing that those which control for "racial" characteristics have anything to do with the status quo). --Fastfission 14:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


 * But race is a real, biological fact, and those thinking it's a social construct are utter, unscientific, magical-thinking fools. So, it doesn't seem problematic to call them out on that. 69.253.222.184 (talk) 21:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the section. The whole article is lacking, this section in particular, and has not been improved despite calls for sources and rewrites. Insulting someone as being "Lysenkoist" is not worth mention in an encyclopedia unless it meets the notability bar. Darwinian evolution supporters have been called also "Lysenkoist" by name callers on the other side because they've pushed ID and creationism out of the schools. From all sides, this is just debate rhetoric, it's not a substantive claim. Material needs to be sourced, and those sources identified. WP is not a discretionless collection of everything from everywhere that anybody ever said about everything.Professor marginalia 18:57, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. Gould's objections to race as a scientific classification are based in solid genetics. We can agree or disagree, but to call him a Lysenkoist is pretty absurd. So is the claim that he rejects genes. --MiguelMunoz (talk) 21:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Why are those guys are all called Marxist (without any citation or reference)? In the biography of Jay Gould for example, it is not mentioned at all. I'd agree with the poster above that in this state the section should be removed or alternatively provide reliable references and possibly correct false claims.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Gould was a self-proclaimed marxist, he said it countless times. I'll find some references and add them to the article. 201.21.76.2 (talk) 19:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

There is no doubt that Gould has been accused of being a Lysenkoist, because of his criticism of The Bell Curve and theories of racial superiority. But Gould did not reject the theory of evolution, nor did he reject the theory of genetics. He was criticising some questionable interpretations of genetics to social policy. The discussion needs to be qualified, because in fact Gould is highly respected as a scientist, even though some have passionately disgreed with his criticism. Whether or not Gould was a Marsist is irrelevant, that in itself does not make him a Lysenkoist.

If we are going to include this section, certainly there needs to be a mention of Creationism as neo-Lysenkoism. That is a much better example of ideologically motivated pseudoscience. DonPMitchell (talk) 21:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

ID
Is intelligent design really "untestable"? It seems to me it could be proven false if you could show that evolution could indeed occur in the time alloted to the current level of complexity without outside intervention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.97.241.202 (talk) 04:48, 1 September 2006


 * Even if we showed that there was no such thing as irreducible complexity (which is demonstrably the case) we could never show that the form of evolution currently observed was not the will of some extradimensional creator. It would disprove a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, but not creationism itself.  Serendi pod ous  08:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You answered your own questions Serendipodous|ous; all scientific theories must be testable, if your "theory" of an extra-universe creator cannot be falsified, then it's not real science at all, and therefore is pointless.207.216.33.144 (talk) 10:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Lysenkoism and China
The bit on China could be expanded. I would like the article to answer some basic questions: Is Lysenkoism still alive in China? If not, when did it end? Who ended it and why? How long did it take? (If I knew the answers, I'd write the paragraph myself.) What it says about China isn't very satisfying. --MiguelMunoz (talk) 21:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I have in fact deleted the section on China simply because it has no source, citation, and is most likely incorrect. It makes little sense why China would adopt a policy in favor of Lysenkoism when at the time of the GLF, they were reliant on a host of Soviet advisors and techniques. If the Soviets rejected this in 1948, it simply would not correlate.

--Riot Fred (talk) 21:17, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Shouldnt the Great Leap Forward be under the repercussions for using Lysenkoism. I think the GLF page already includeds it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.208.98.89 (talk) 09:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Many famous brazilians gave support to this fraud
Many famous brazilians such as Carlos Marighella and Luís Carlos Prestes gave support for this fraud.Lysenkoism was also a type of eugenics. In fact, Stalin chose lysenkoism as the official eugenics pseudo-science, in late 1930 decade. Soviet Union created the first national eugenics association, in january of 1918. This eugenics association was leadered by Trotsky from january of 1918, until 1920 decade. Agre22 (talk) 13:52, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Got any sources to back that up? If you can please put your ideas into the article itself with the sources given.207.216.33.144 (talk) 10:21, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Hating Mendel for being a priest?
From the current article: "If the field of genetics' connection to Nazisms wasn't enough, Mendelian genetics particularly enraged Stalin and other atheists due to its founder Gregor Mendel's being a Priest, a fact that flew in the face of the Marxist ideology that religion was backwards and evil." This claim is not sourced and doesn't make much sense to me (I mean even less than the other Lysenko stuff ;). Mendel did not derive his methods from the Bible. Furthermore, there were so many Christian opponenents of the theory of evolution that the regime's anti-Christian bias might as well have worked in the opposite direction of what is implied in the article. Thoughts on this? Evidence one way or the other? --78.51.163.126 (talk) 21:55, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

In Our Time
Rich Farmbrough, 03:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

Misunderstanding?
As far as I know, "Lysenkoism" was not a pseudoscientific theory. The theory was known as Inheritance of acquired characteristics long before Lysenko. Lysenkoism was a political campaign to deny achievements of genetics, to fire all scientific opponents and place them to Gulag. Yes, he claimed the inheritance of acquired characteristics too. Should this be fixed? Biophys (talk) 19:41, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hodja Nasreddin -- Lamarckism was not pseudo-scientific in Lamarck's day, but by Lysenko's time it was rapidly being discredited by the rise of the Modern evolutionary synthesis... -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Rewrite
I would suggest a re-write of the phrase: "change in species among plants through hybridization and grafting, as well as a variety of other non-genetic techniques". Hybridization is a breeding method perfectly consistent with genetics and used genetics in its practise. So what is being said here? Did Lysenko argue that hybridization led to new species and not simply hybrids? I think this needs re-drafting for clarity of whatever is being argued here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.193.193.28 (talk) 20:13, 15 May 2014 (UTC)


 * This talk page hasn't been edited in years and I don't know how well watched it is, so it would probably be best that you go ahead and make any necessary clarifications yourself. WP:BOLD is fine in this instance. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:13, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * If the user doesn't know, then I don't think that would be a good idea. Everyking (talk) 03:21, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Doesn't know what? And why would it be impossible for them to find out? The editor who added the phrasing hasn't edited in about three years, so asking them what they meant is not practical. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

"formally ended in 1964"
That may give a misleading impression. According to Fads and Fallacies: In the Name of Science, "In 1954 Lysenko was severely rebuked in a speech of Khrushchev's and later by several official party organs. He was branded a 'scientific monopolist' and 'academic schemer' who stifled all theories opposed to his own.  He was accused of failing to make practical contributions to Soviet agriculture. ...in 1956 he resigned as head of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences." -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Source checking
@Ramos1990. This PowerPoint presentation does not even tell who was author. Why do you think that was " presentation by Prof. Daniel Orlovski from SMU Russian history dept" (edit summary)? My very best wishes (talk) 02:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi My very best wishes, good question. Here is the webpage for his presentation: (link to his powerpoint presentation is there too). Hope this clarifies it. I was thinking about linking this page on the ref, but was not sure on how to do that without double linking the transcript and the powerpoint :)Mayan1990 (talk) 05:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Why use a PowerPoint presentation found on the internet (this is a self-published source by someone who admits that he is "not a scientist" in your link) if there are so many books about it written by biologists? My very best wishes (talk) 01:10, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * He is professor of Russian and Soviet history so he has lots of expertise in Russian history of which Lysenkoism is a long part. See his profile ]. Him not being a scientists is not an issue since even most scientists do not engage in historical writings. The Lysenko affair is a historical affair that was about politics, ideology, and science and historians do engage in all of these topics. Its normal if you look into history of science books. What do you think?Mayan1990 (talk) 01:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Soyfer and Birshtein are biologists who published books on the subject. It would be fine to use anything by Orlovsky if he published this in a peer reviewed journal or a book. But right now this is simply a self-published source (and a very poor one - a PowerPoint presentation on the internet) that should not be used even by WP standards - please see WP:RS. My very best wishes (talk) 01:50, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Agreed about Soyfer and Birshtein but not because they are biologists. Even the wikilink you sent said "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Since Prof Orlovsky is an expert who has certainly published on science and the Soviet Union and other issues before and also because he was invited to give a presentation of Lysenkoism by Profs. John Cotton and Randall Scalise at SMU, I think there should be no issue. He is an established researcher and he does provide a professional summary of Lysenkoism that captures the essence of the affair. If he was not an expert and if this was some random site, I would agree, but this is not the case since it is all academic.Mayan1990 (talk) 05:43, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Why use a self-published/unpublished source if there are books on the subject that tell essentially the same? I do not see any reason except promoting the unpublished lectures by Orlovsky and his postdoc. My very best wishes (talk) 17:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Affects on productivity
We have a section on 'repercussions' but it doesn't say anything about whether following Lysenkoism reduced agricultural productivity or caused other problems. Any material to add about this? RJFJR (talk) 18:06, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Lamarckism
Why isn't this simply Lamarckism? What did Lysenko come up with that was different? 21:22, 22 June 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kortoso (talk • contribs)


 * The importance here is that Lysenkoism is a historical example of the institutional adoption of Lamarckism, and the tragic consequences thereof. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 21:19, 18 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Is it Lamarckism? In The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Gould discusses Lamarckism as a theory involving a tendency to evolve towards "higher" life and a tendency to adapt to particular situations via inheritence of acquired characteristics. I know Lysenkoism shares the last part. But does it share the rest? I removed the first passage saying it "built on Lamarckian concepts" because it wasn't in the citation, and it oversimplifies Lamarckism.173.66.5.216 (talk) 20:10, 11 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I've read that comrade Stalin himself was a Lamarckist.Miacek (talk) 15:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Bit more background needed on this.
Evolution as described by Charles Darwin, and as we accept it today, is actually a very pure form of capitalism: The strong survive, the weak die; that is the only criterion. That life itself was ruled by this concept was, of course, completely unacceptable to the Stalin politburo. So Lysenko, the consummate politician, produced a "theory of evolution" that was more "aligned" with socialist concepts. That is why it was so enthusiastically embraced by Stalin, despite it being demonstrable nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.166.95.10 (talk) 06:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)


 * First, "survival of the fittest" in the Darwinian sense mainly means leaving behind more descendants than the other members of your species do. Second, Darwin himself did not make shallow economic analogies to his theories, nor was he greatly influenced by capitalist ideology (though his theory was in part inspired by a logical dilemma pointed out by Malthus).  Third, Darwin was a scientist, Lysenko wasn't... AnonMoos (talk) 23:13, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Duplicate citations
The same source is cited twice under two different ISBN's and with different publication years. Not sure which should take precedence... - Miskaton (talk) 18:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

TRIZ
On the 1st May 2016, an anonymous author added "TRIZM" to the "See also" section. It's been there ever since, but the TRIZ page does not hint that TRIZ is considered to be clap-trap, and I can't find any criticism of it. Could a connection to Lysenkoism be found or stated, or the link deleted? If there is a connection, it might be best placed in a criticism section under TRIZ. JBel (talk) 13:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I've removed it as off-topic. It might easily also be POV but that hardly matters. You are free to make such edits yourself, as long as you explain what you're doing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:33, 17 September 2018 (UTC)