Heredity east and west : Lysenko and world science / Julian Huxley.

  • Huxley, Julian, 1887-1975.
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Heredity east and west : Lysenko and world science / Julian Huxley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    HEREDITY EAST AND WEST conditions, by making their effects hereditary and so mak¬ ing them a part of itself. And apparently all of the hered¬ ity is supposed to be a result of this process of assimila¬ tion. Thus Lysenko {loc. cit.) defines heredity as the effect of the concentration of the action of external condi¬ tions assimilated by the organism in a series of preceding generations (his italics). Michurinism, even though it rejects some of the ideas of classical Lamarckism, is thus entirely Lamarckian in its general theoretical basis. This is clearly brought out by Lysenko {loc. cit.) when he writes Changes in heredity are as a rule the result of the organisms' development under external conditions which, to some extent or other, do not correspond to the natural requirements of the given organic form''' (his italics) ; and even more sweepingly by his assertion that the materialist theory of the evolution of living nature [which he has previously equated with Michurinism] involves recognition of the necessity of hereditary transmission of individual characteristics ac¬ quired by the organism under the conditions of its life; it is unthinkable without recognition of the inheritance of acquired characters (italics mine). As an example, he cites the vernalization of winter cereals, i.e., making them flower earlier by treating the seeds with moisture at a low temperature so that they behave like spring strains (see later for a detailed description). This effect is a well- established fact as regards any single generation; but Ly¬ senko claims that by a modified treatment, it can be rendered hereditary, so that a winter rye, for instance, can be turned into a permanently spring type.* • As mentioned later, other workers have not been able to confirm these results. 18