Palko passes along this story from Edouard Kolchinsky et al.:
One of the most disturbing trends in current Russian science is the so-called ‘re-thinking’ of the historical role of Lysenkoism. There is a growing body of literature reasssessing or even fully rehabilitating the erroneous ideas of Lysenko. . . .
In the second half of the 2000s, a series of seemingly scholarly publications appeared with the objective to re-habilitate Lysenko and to discredit Vavilov. . . . Subsequently, however, scientists with degrees in biology, agriculture or medicine joined the campaign. For example, Lysenko’s former PhD student, Petr Kononkov, published an edited volume entitled Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, Soviet Agronomist, Plant Breeder, Biologist. Another book by Kononkov by the title Two Worlds, Two Ideologies takes Lysenko into the general context of competing Western and Soviet/Russian ideologies. Remarkably, Kononkov’s book was sponsored by the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications, an executive organ of the government, established in 2004 by decree of the President. With respect to the interpretation of historical and biological data, the latter book is plainly Stalinist and Lysenkoist. Kononkov imagined Lysenko as a patriotic humanist with a worldview deeply rooted within the Russian Orthodox culture, though the Orthodox Church in no way supports the neo-Lysenkoist doctrine. . . .
This is upsetting on many levels. Recall Paul Alper’s principle that you should always beat a dead horse because it is never really dead. We keep seeing this in junk science, whether it be Freakonomics-endorsed schoolyard evolutionary biology on sex ratios, Pinker-endorsed mathematical mumbo-jumbo on the critical positivity ratio, Turing-endorsed confidence in ESP, himmicanes, and whatever’s been on NPR and Ted more recently.
Lysenkoism’s got it all: a political connection (recall that modern biology and genetics were considered to be insufficiently blank-slatist to be acceptable as Soviet society), academic politics (Lysenko getting powerful allies and using this to get his way), attacks on critics (the small-minded second-string Stasi terrorists who impede the progress of truth), a mix of scientism and mysticism, a screwed-up scientific theory, and flat-out fraud. Extra credit for portraying the backstabbing lying political pseudoscientist as a cuddly patriotic humanist. My key point here, though, is the dead horse principle. When they try to resurrect someone as discredited as Lysenko, you kind of wonder whether it’s a 1984-style thing, that the absurdity is part of the point: they’re demonstrating their power by advancing an obviously insane position and showing that nobody can stop them. In that way, this differs from the junk science examples. My guess is not that Freaknomics, Gladwell, Pinker, etc., are pushing discredited theories as part of some power trip; rather, I suspect they just want these theories to be true, so they don’t look hard at the evidence against them.
I wonder how the situation has evolved (no pun intended) in the 4 years since the publication of that article?
For readers who want a blow-by-blow retelling, as well as an assessment of the revival of Lysenkoism, check out this recent piece: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332851519_Lysenkoism_Against_Genetics_The_Meeting_of_the_Lenin_All-Union_Academy_of_Agricultural_Sciences_of_August_1948_Its_Background_Causes_and_Aftermath
I feel like I must be missing something. His theories led to immediate practical agricultural techniques. From that narrative it sounds like russia kept experiencing ever larger famines as his methods were put in place.
There must have been some kind of evidence they worked though, right? Even if it was misinterpreted or fraudulant.
Not sure what you’re saying. “Lysenko’s career was fast-moving, although his ideas lacked a scientific basis,he failed to follow accepted scientific methodology, and, in particular, he denied statistics. However, he proposed allegedly new agricultural techniques to improve yields and re-ported achievements (which were often imaginary because his techniques were immature or their testing with standard scientific procedures did not confirm their claimed efficacy).To cover his failures, Lysenko repeatedly made new promisesof increased yields.” What is your source for “immediate practical agricultural techniques?” Lysenko’s defense of his techniques were that they were consistent with Marxist theory. When results failed to materialize, as with the rest of Marxist theory, the problem was with enemies of Marxism — kulaks destroying their own crops, irredentist forces, etc. etc.
It talks about some method for getting crops to grow by exposing the seeds to cold and such.
It seems pretty straightforward to see if something like that works.
This sounds like lack of “significance” to me. That makes more sense.
Maybe Lysenko figured out how to increase crop yields in the same sense that the Chinese figured out how to deal with COVID-19 in the winter of 2019/2020.
lol… Rejecting NHST doesn’t make any stuff you propose any better. Only actually better ideas can do that.
I assume you have misinterpreted what I said. I am just looking for an explanation for why what appears to be clearly failed applications of this theory continued for decades in the face of obvious failure.
If they managed to generate some promising looking results, then blamed implementation, etc would explain it.
Anon:
Lysenko was a terrible scientist but an excellent political manipulator, which allowed him to thrive under Stalinism.
I just think if he promised better crop yields in 3 years, then it didn’t happen, he must have presented some kind of “evidence” that it would still work if x,y,z.
I guess it is not that crazy to think people just bought into an ideology and ignored all evidence to the contrary. But still, usually there is some kind of assessment of the success in practical issues like crop yields.
Anon:
Back in the day, it wasn’t about evidence, it was about getting your enemies fired, sent to prison etc.
The “fun” part about working in an autocracy is that there isn’t some kind of objective (or somewhat objective) committee of experts you need to convince. You need to convince exactly one person, and that one person doesn’t usually know what you are talking about. Who need any statistics at all if you have the ear of the Boss and the savvy to phrase your claims in a way that is effective on his ignorant psyche? Same with Stalin, same with Putin.
Did your post on critical positivity ratio previously contain any reference to Pinker? A CTRL+F turns up nothing now.
Wonks:
See here and here (with Pinker blurb here.
Was there suppose to be a link?
Links added; thanks.
Aside from some book blurp, what is the bad theory you think Pinker is pushing?
Emil:
As I wrote in the above post, the discredited and never-made-sense-in-the-first-place “critical positivity ratio” theory.
Slightly off-topic. I guess that I never really noticed how dumb a name “Freakonomics” is for a research group. It would be hard to come up with a worse one.
“recall that modern biology and genetics were considered to be insufficiently blank-slatist to be acceptable as Soviet society”
What does blank-slatist mean? Thanks!
It refers to the model of human psychology that asserts the primacy of nurture and rejects the relevance of nature; that is, the belief that human nature is largely irrelevant and human psychology is almost totally pliable by experience. This is an important belief for certain ideologies that have been criticized for failing to account for human nature.
With a little bit of luck and work you can revive almost any crazy idea.
I believe the Flat Earth Society began as a spoof and now we have real believers. There have been anti-vax sentiments since about 5 seconds after Jenner announced his findings but Andrew Wakefield managed to turn it into a huge movement. I was certainly not expecting it but I do not think we should be all that surprised to see a revival of Lysenkoism.
I think I read about a small revival of “vitalism” challenging germ theory not too long ago.
“When they try to resurrect someone as discredited as Lysenko, you kind of wonder whether it’s a 1984-style thing, that the absurdity is part of the point: they’re demonstrating their power by advancing an obviously insane position and showing that nobody can stop them. In that way, this differs from the junk science examples.”
The US Chamber of Commerce is the largest Businesslobby on Planet Earth and it is at war against Truth and Climate Science for 50 years now, think about it.