When science follow ideology
 

quote:
Amid revolution and civil war, Vavilov became a professor of agronomy in Saratov, a Volga port on the edge of Russia's fertile black-earth farmland, where he pursued research into breeding more productive crops, which the Bolsheviks would need to offset future famine. At first, Vavilov struck up a rapport with Vladimir Lenin, who understood the ultimate economic promise of his botanical expeditions. As head of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Vavilov established 400 research institutes throughout the Soviet Union and collected samples of 50,000 varieties of wild plants and 31,000 wheat specimens. With the death of Lenin, in 1924, the Kremlin's enthusiasm began to wane.

Stalin hated genetics — and chromosomes in particular, not least because the idea of genes as physical structures passed down through the generations suggested that nature wasn't changeable. His five-year plan for agriculture was a lethal mixture of science and ideology. It borrowed from the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck a belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics (e.g. that giraffes grew long necks because they stretched their heads higher and higher to reach the fruit on trees). Such a belief has never been experimentally verified, in spite of many attempts, but it fit perfectly with the Bolshevik view that people could be re-educated to think and act differently from their bourgeois predecessors, that one generation's suffering and torment could produce a new kind of being, Homo Sovieticus.

Using a wide variety of memoirs and archival documents, Pringle shows how the internationally acclaimed Vavilov was outmaneuvered by the "barefoot scientist" Lysenko, an uneducated peasant whom Stalin no doubt preferred to the unreliably bourgeois professor. Lysenko promised the Soviet leader that he would turn the Russian wasteland into a grain-laden Garden of Eden, using the bogus science of "vernalization" to eliminate the normal two-year growth cycle of winter wheat.

more review at: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts/2008/09/05/370710.htm

Bot,
Slightly, maybe completely off topic, but you raised a point I have wanted to explore.

As you state, current science has debunked the idea that acquired traits are passed on genetically. Yet, I seem to recall that in many discussion here that evolutionists have made that very argument. A specific illustration fails me at this time, but is there some convenient "borrowing" of that idea into modern evolutionary thought?

It is a common mistake that promoters of evolution make so I wouldn't be surprised that you find it here. The Lamarckian argument says that giraffes have long necks because over many generations of neck-straining to eat canopy leaves, giraffes developed longer necks. I wrote a term paper on Lamarckism & Lysenko when I was an undergrad. One of the things I did was a lit review searching for instances of Lamarckism in the popular literature. It is rare, but I don't recall having a great deal of problem finding examples.

Another mistake that sometimes comes-up in evolution is a teleological -- that function follows a design. For example: Giraffes have long necks SO that they could more effectively graze in treetops.

When evolutionists use either of those forms of argument, usually they are trying to take a short-cut to what they believe is a more important point about evolution.

I have often self-described as a superstitious agnostic. I am too awed by the magnificence of the universe to NOT entertain the belief in God. For this reason I am especially susceptible to the teleological argument. I'm okay with it, but it's a biological heresy nonetheless.

B

Based on the knowledge I have of a few PhD's who teach at Hopkins, you are not alone in your heresay.

I don't recall seeing these arguments by promoters of evolution, but rather as straw-man arguments by detractors. If you can find evidence in support of your claim, I would like to see it.

Christ Matt, go forth and Google. Back when I gave a **** I used a library.

B

I cannot think of a search string that would find such information. A suggestion in that area is also welcome.

You're a university student, correct? Perhaps a key word search such as "larmarckianism" would be a great place to start. Once you get that search, look for additional key words. Repeat.

IIRC that's the first search term I used in a card catalog back in the dark ages. As I learned more I refined my search. I think it only took a couple of days by hand.

B

I was a university student, more than a decade ago. But what does mathematics have to do with this subject?

Keyword literature searches.

Just google the answer your looking for, then gather up the pieces needed to arrive at it in reverse. :D