Soviet genetics and world science : Lysenko and the meaning of heredity / [Julian Huxley].
- Julian Huxley
- Date:
- 1949
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: Soviet genetics and world science : Lysenko and the meaning of heredity / [Julian Huxley]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![applications, such as vertebrate paleontology, were extremely flourishing (see Huxley, 1945). However, in the case of genetics, the utilitarian criterion has been drastically employed—largely, I imagine, because the controversy has been so largely guided by Lysenko, and Lysenko is an agriculturist whose primary aim has been to achieve success through spectacular practical results. Thus, in his Report Lysenko (1948) says: Socialist Agriculture, the collective and state farming system, has given rise to a Soviet biological science, founded by Michurin—a science new in principle [italics mine throughout, unless otherwise stated], developing in close union with agronomical practice. ... It is no exaggeration to say that Morgan's feeble metaphysical ' science ' . . . can stand no comparison with our effective Michurinist agrobiological science. Lysenko later refers to Michurin as the great transformer of Nature, and says in our country the Morganist cytogeneticists find themselves confronted by the practical effectiveness of the Michurin trend in agrobio logical science. With reference to the special labora tory under Zhebrak, set up in the Timiriazev Academy by the Ministry of Agriculture, to study chromosome doubling (polyploidy) 1 in plants (which, I may mention, has obtained some extremely interesting results), Lysenko merely says that, in his view, it has produced literally nothing of practical value. Here is one example, ... to show how useless is the practical and theoretical programme of our domestic Morganist cytogeneticists. Finally, in the conclusion of his Report, he writes that a scientific handling of practical problems is the surest way to a deeper knowledge of the laws of development of living nature (italics his)—a 1 Reduplication of entire sets of chromosomes : see Chap. 4.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18022777_0061.JP2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
