Ideology and the Production of Scientific Knowledge

 What were the causes of the shift away from Mendelian genetics in Soviet Biology?  Why was Lysenkoism preferred by the Communist Party leaders? What were the results of this choice?  Soviet biology is a rather obvious example of the interaction between ideology and science. Where else have we seen this interaction?

 Pre-Revolutionary Russian biologists engaged in debates over natural selection and alternative theories ( s)  “Darwinism” as a materialist theory appealed to some Marxists  Russian biology based on field and laboratory: accepted Mendelian genetics  many strong critiques of Lamarckian evolution up to 1920s

 Darwinism and Marxism both materialist explanations of the world: natural and social/human history  Both are explanatory sciences that have practical uses  Support for sciences (biology) after Revolution part of huge education campaign; biology answers Big Q’s

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 Key figures: Making contributions to genetics worldwide and took part in Modern Synthesis  Yuri Filipchenko: established “fly room” in Leningrad; mentor to Theodosius Dobzhansky  Nikolai Vavilov: botanist working on crop evolution; established seedbank from around the globe; arrested in 1940, died in prison 1943  Soviet geneticists worked with William Bateson, Herman Muller and other key geneticists on the foundations of the Synthesis  *All trained and working before the Revolution

 Centers of genetic research also centers of eugenic research in 1920s  some Bolsheviks within these institutes wanted to expand program to larger Soviet society  Plan for artificial insemination of women part of Five Year Plan (not carried out)  divorce women’s lives from reproduction (women as equal workers)  Ascent of Stalin led to disbanding of eugenics programs  ideologically untenable  1933 establishment of Institute of Medical Genetics  Eugenic past used by Lysenko to claim that genetics was fascist

 The Great Break ( ): Disaster of collectivization of agriculture in 1930s leads to widespread famine  Reorganization of science around partiinost, practicality and patriotism  Associated genetics research with German science and fascism

 Class background important influence on his scientific and political career  came from peasant family and hated the intellectual elite dominating Soviet science who followed Mendelian genetics  “Vernalization”: cold treating crop seeds led to resistance to crop failure due to cold and increased yields  Practical solutions (not theory-based) + peasant background = political gold for Communist Party leaders who backed Lysenko and exaggerated his successes

 Young group of “Marxist Biologists” attack the Old Guard as bourgeoisie idealists  methods of science must conform to Marxist dialectics  Political actors come to dominate Soviet science  Mendelian genetics formally outlawed in 1948  leads to purging, arrest and death of opponents of Lysenkoism (Vavilov) Lysenko with Stalin, 1935

 Muller a hero in Soviet genetics circles: radioactivity can spur genetic mutation  a potential environmental factor? (1927)  Enthusiastic advocate of Soviet-style eugenics; critic of American and British eugenics as racist, classist, sexist  Comes to USSR in 1933 to work at Institute of Medical Genetics  bad political atmosphere for eugenics (German fascism)  Writes Stalin letter in 1936 and publishes Out of the Night urging eugenic programs  gets his colleagues arrested and killed, he flees the country

“However, the more I heard and read, the clearer it became that Lysenko and his followers are not scientific in any proper sense of the word- they do not adhere to the recognized scientific method, or employ the normal scientific precautions, or publish their results in a way which renders scientific evaluation possible…Michurinism, as their form of genetics is called, is largely based on ancient superstitions… in any event, it is less a branch of science compromising a basis of facts, than a branch of ideology, a doctrine which it is sought to impose upon facts… This repudiation of the validity of science and scientific method, is a denial of freedom of the intellect…” Julian Huxley (1949)

Is all science ideological?