On May 13, 2009, at 10:50 AM, Doyle Saylor wrote:
Epigenetics revives this debate. Lysenko was way in advance of the
technical confirmation of environmental affect (Epigenetics) on
genes that the Soviets claimed as their own doctrine. It's a good
example of how a disconnect between theory and practice can arise
politically and have dubious consequences. I would not rename
Epigentics, Lysenkoism, though in some sense his theory has merit as
a precursor demonstrating the pitfalls of the claim.
In the U.S. and Western Europe due to cold war pressures Lysenkoism
or environmental impact on inheritance was science anathema and a
very good example of the tyrannical aspects of big science. The
political linkages to anti-Lysenkoism made any discussion of the
topic verboten in public scientific discourse though various
marginalized voices may have kept the faith so to speak about
environmental influences.
Doyle, opponents of Lysenkoism would counter thus: (a) Lysenkoism was
also a political activity with its nonsense about genetics being a
"bourgeois science" and the purge of geneticists etc. (b) Lysenkoism
in scientific discourse, or rather Lamarckism's central idea is the
heritability of acquired traits, which at that time went against
parsimonious considerations and was arguably ill-substantiated. As you
rightly point out, epigenetics could well lead to a revival of these
ideas and investigations.
Be that as it may, I think your main point, splendidly stated, is
significant (and, if I may, is similar to the one I noted in my very
first post on this thread): the process by which scientific theses are
debated are political (your first paragraph), and these debates and
the politics of these debates betray the ideological basis of and
pressures on the participants (your second paragraph).
--ravi
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