#lysenko — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #lysenko, aggregated by home.social.
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“Then there is the strategy recently presented by Trump’s science adviser, a former employee of #PeterThiel with the unique distinction of having no relevant experience in research whatsoever. #MichaelKratsios wants to shift decision-making from experts in universities to private corporations, which, helped by AI, are supposedly better positioned to spot potential breakthroughs.
This constitutes a major break with the enormously successful approach the US took after the second world war: pour taxpayer money into basic, open-ended science which no private company would risk sponsoring – but with both citizens and American capital eventually benefiting from the inventions that came out of fundamental #research. Kratsios wishes the government to adopt “the intentionality of a serious investor” in order to usher in a new “golden age of science” (declaring something “golden” seems enough to succeed in Trump-world). De facto, as critics have rightly pointed out, this seems a strategy to take money from what Trumpists perceive as their political enemies – #universities – and shovel it to their allies in tech.”
Hang on, wasn’t centralist planning in the golden era of Chinese, Soviet Communist ideology?
#OpEd / #Lysenko <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/07/trump-scientific-research-universities>
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“When you mix science and politics, you get politics:*…
Agronomist and political operator Trofim Lysenko (left, giving a speech at the Kremlin in 1935) and U.S.S.R. dictator Joseph Stalin (right) purged geneticists who did not renounce Mendelian genetics. A new funding framework proposed in the United States could similarly quell certain areas of scientific inquiry, many scientists and activists say.Tina Hesman Saey on a looming threat to the U.S…
Soviet scientists in the 1930s knew what could happen if they bucked the party line: denunciation, firing and banishment from the scientific establishment, even imprisonment and death. Political reprisals against those who opposed the views of dictator Joseph Stalin and his followers — and the dubious science they endorsed — led to the starvation of millions, as well as to decades of lost progress in fields from agriculture to molecular biology.
Now, scientists are warning that history could repeat itself — but in the United States.
A new proposal from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget would put political appointees in charge of funding decisions traditionally overseen by scientists. In recent years, the federal government has funded about 40 percent of basic science research in the United States.
The OMB’s more than 400-page proposed rule change would let political appointees decide how to hand out federal research funds and who can get them. It would cut funding for collaboration with scientists in other countries and restrict scientists’ ability to communicate their findings. What’s more, it could prevent research on matters that President Donald Trump’s administration has deemed “not in the national interest” — such as studies on health disparities, mRNA-based vaccines and research that doesn’t recognize biological sex as a strict binary.
The new rules would also give OMB the power to rescind previously approved research funds. The proposal “poses a sweeping threat to federal grantmaking and the responsible stewardship of American taxpayer dollars,” the science advocacy group Stand Up for Science Foundation said in a report. In addition, it would impact nonscientific grants supporting services for mental health, housing, education, veterans and Tribal nations, affecting the health and well-being of millions.
So far, OMB has received more than 98,000 comments on the proposal. The public comment period closes July 13. It then will be up to OMB to decide whether to keep the rule as is, revise it or scrap it.
These far-reaching measures are already drawing parallels to dark moments in scientific history. Some researchers say the recent mass firings, policy changes and grant cancellations at federal research institutions, including the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, closely mirror what happened in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin. “A similar threat now hangs over U.S. science,” the editorial board of The New England Journal of Medicine wrote in June.
Its editorial invoked the example of Trofim Lysenko [see here], an agronomist and astute political operator who rose to power in the 1930s Soviet Union under Stalin.
Until the 1930s, “the Soviet Union was a real powerhouse in the field of genetics,” says Lee Dugatkin, an evolutionary biologist and historian of science at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Then, Lysenko came along. “This guy was your sort of classic charlatan,” Dugatkin says. “He had the equivalent of a mail order degree in agriculture, but he was quite good with the press, and he started to basically spread this idea out there that he was capable of dramatically increasing crop yield, particularly wheat.”
Lysenko’s supposed innovation was a process called vernalization and amounted to soaking seeds in freezing water. The resulting plants — and all their offspring — should be resistant to the U.S.S.R.’s famously cold winters, Lysenko reasoned.
His reasoning was based on a disproven idea in evolutionary biology called Lamarckian inheritance. French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and his followers thought that things an organism experiences in its lifetime can be handed down to the next generation. The classic example is a giraffe that has to stretch to reach leaves producing offspring with long necks.
This idea ran counter to Mendelian genetics, which holds that genes — not environmental influences — control traits and are passed to offspring. Mendelian geneticists thought it would take five years to breed more cold-tolerant crops. Lysenko said he could do it in two to three years.
Stalin didn’t have time to wait. He was trying to get collective farms going and needed to increase crop yields to feed more than 150 million people. Large parts of the country had already suffered from famine in 1932 and 1933 and about 6 million people died. Some resorted to cannibalism.
Stalin embraced Lysenko’s quick-fix approach. That decision, says Michael Gordin, a historian of science at Princeton University, was “something that the majority of people at the time, and everyone since, considers the wrong side of the dispute.”
Lysenko was put in charge of a prestigious genetics institute and forced his scientifically unsound farming practices on the collective farms. His methods were disastrous.
Soaking seeds in freezing water hampered germination, leading to crop losses. Millions starved. Meanwhile, Mendelian genetics was branded a “whore of capitalism,” and geneticists were forced to renounce their views or lose their jobs. Many were jailed, and almost a dozen were executed or died in prison.
The Soviet Union lost its scientific leadership role and sat on the sidelines for important scientific discoveries of the 1950s and beyond. One, Gordin says, was the development of “massively” productive hybrid corn. The country also missed out on the discovery of DNA and the advent of molecular biology, putting Soviet genetics decades behind the rest of the world.
Soviet genetics did not recover from Lysenko’s influence until after the break-up of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gordin says. “I think you’d be hard pressed to find anybody who thinks that … Russia is today, or Ukraine, or any post-Soviet successor state, is a leading molecular biology country.”…
The Soviets did it, and it didn’t end well: “Here’s what happens when you put politicians in charge of science,” from @thsaey.bsky.social in @sciencenews.bsky.social.
See also: Idiocracy
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As we remember the past so as not to repeat it, we might recall that it was on this date in 1834 that the Spanish Inquisition (finally) ended. Authorized by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478, the Inqusition was initially led by inquisitors (Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín) who were appointed by the future Catholic monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It was originally (ostensibly) intended primarily to identify heretics; its aim, to maintain Christian orthodoxy. But it became an effective instrument of state power by replacing the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control.
Over its course, the Inquisition prosecuted an estimated 150,000 people for various offences. An estimated 3,000–5,000 were turned over to the state for execution, particularly in the initial 50 years, mostly by burning at the stake. Other punishments included penance and public flogging, exile, enslavement on galleys, and prison terms ranging from several years to life. In many of these punishments an important motive was the confiscation of all the victims’ property.
As Monty Python observed, “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” And nobody expected it to last 356 years.
Burning of heretics at stakes (auto-da-fé) in a marketplace during the Spanish Inquisition. (source) #agriculture #culture #funding #genetics #history #Lysenko #OfficeOfManagementAndBudget #OMB #politics #research #Science #scientificResearch #SpanishInquisition #Stalin -
Here's What Happens When You Put Politicians in Charge of Science
https://1ban.news/omb-politicians-lysenko-science-history/
#1ban #omb #politicians #lysenko #science #research -
The PEOPLE'S pseudoscience!
https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1855250/the-people-s-pseudoscience
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The PEOPLE'S pseudoscience!
https://piefed.social/c/tankiejerk/p/1855246/the-people-s-pseudoscience
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Right now, the Pasieczniks perform #Chopin #Szymanowski #Lysenko #Barwinski and #Kosenko in Duszniki-Zdrój https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/the_pasieczniks_perform_chopin_szymanowski_lysenko_barwinski_and_kosenko_in_dusznikizdroj/88523/ #wch
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In 25 minutes, the Pasieczniks perform #Chopin #Szymanowski #Lysenko #Barwinski and #Kosenko in Duszniki-Zdrój https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/the_pasieczniks_perform_chopin_szymanowski_lysenko_barwinski_and_kosenko_in_dusznikizdroj/88523/ #wch
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Today, the Pasieczniks perform #Chopin #Szymanowski #Lysenko #Barwinski and #Kosenko in Duszniki-Zdrój https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/the_pasieczniks_perform_chopin_szymanowski_lysenko_barwinski_and_kosenko_in_dusznikizdroj/88523/ #wch
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"Lysenkoism: Permitting Ideology to Eclipse Reason
by Alister R. Olson, Michael P. Clough, and Benjamin C. Herman
This story highlights six tactics of science misinformation and disinformation efforts: the lack of competence among false experts, the creation of false legitimacy in order to fabricate a fake scientific controversy, cherry picking, putting forth conspiracy theories, avoiding peer review, and appeals directly to the public. See Features of Science Misinformation/Disinformation Efforts: Understand how to detect false information for more information regarding these tactics.
After the Russian Revolution ended in 1923, the newly formed Soviet government began to prioritize the sciences. Leading the Soviet genetics program was the esteemed geneticist Nikolai Vavilov. Vavilov was the winner of the Lenin Award, founder and head of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) and the Institute of Plant Breeding (VIR), and member of the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture of the U.S.S.R. [1]. Under Vavilov, Soviet geneticists made significant advances, and the program was considered to be second only to the United States during the 1920s [2]. However, by 1948, Vavilov had been imprisoned, the Soviet genetics program had been completely dismantled, and millions within the Soviet Union were dead from starvation. Understanding the disintegration of the once vibrant Soviet research program has lessons for combatting the extensive misinformation and disinformation present in today’s world."
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#politics #alt #science #facts #lysenko #history #starvation #Russia #authoritarianism #investment #humanity
Heather Cox Richardson 6/2/25
When Political Ideology and Pseudo Science Join Forces -
Colette Delawalla, Victor Ambros, Carl Bergstrom, Carol Greider, Michael Mann, and Brian Nosek have written an excellent critique of the new Trump "gold standard" for science.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/29/trump-american-science"Instead of being about #OpenScience, it grants administration-aligned political appointees the power to designate any research as scientific misconduct based on their own “judgment” and includes the power to punish the scientists involved…Science does not proceed by sequentially establishing unassailable conclusions, but rather by steadily accumulating numerous lines of evidence, scrutinizing its weaknesses, and pursuing additional evidence. Almost any study…falls short of meeting every aspect of the White House’s list of best practices. This has nothing to do with laziness, let alone misconduct…; it’s simply a consequence of the fact that science is difficult…Political appointees loyal to the president can willfully find justification to label any research finding as scientific misconduct, and then penalize the researchers involved accordingly."
#Censorship #DefendResearch #Lysenko #Trump #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics
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Prayer for Ukraine by Mykola Lysenko 🎶
As members of a human community, we have a duty to care for and support each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFX7zY_ArKc
#StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦
#classicalmusic #Music #Musica #classical #MykolaLysenko #Lysenko #MusicSky #ukrainianmusic #Bluesky #SlavaUkraini
#RussiaIsATerroristState -
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Right now, Bondarenko and Martineau perform #Tetsenko #Lysenko #Rubinstein, Rimsky-Korsakov and #Mussorgsky in #Madrid https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/bondarenko_and_martineau_perform_tetsenko_lysenko_rubinstein_rimskykorsakov_and_mussorgsky_in_madrid/86531/ #wch
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In 20 minutes, Bondarenko and Martineau perform #Tetsenko #Lysenko #Rubinstein, Rimsky-Korsakov and #Mussorgsky in #Madrid https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/bondarenko_and_martineau_perform_tetsenko_lysenko_rubinstein_rimskykorsakov_and_mussorgsky_in_madrid/86531/ #wch
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Today, Bondarenko and Martineau perform #Tetsenko #Lysenko #Rubinstein, Rimsky-Korsakov and #Mussorgsky in #Madrid https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/bondarenko_and_martineau_perform_tetsenko_lysenko_rubinstein_rimskykorsakov_and_mussorgsky_in_madrid/86531/ #wch
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@classicalmusic
#MykolaLysenko 1842 - 1912
Cantata The Rapids Roar /Bijut' Porohyä/
#UkrainianRadioSymphonyOrchestra
#VolodymyrSheiko#musik #music #musique #musica #classicalmusic #romanticmusic #Lysenko #Лисенко
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Right now, the Krechovskys, Semes and Gotoff play #Skoryk #Shostakovich #Bartók & #Lysenko in #Washington https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/the_krechovskys_semes_and_gotoff_play_skoryk_shostakovich_bartok__lysenko_in_washington/86071/ #wch
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In 20 minutes, the Krechovskys, Semes and Gotoff play #Skoryk #Shostakovich #Bartók & #Lysenko in #Washington https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/the_krechovskys_semes_and_gotoff_play_skoryk_shostakovich_bartok__lysenko_in_washington/86071/ #wch
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Today, the Krechovskys, Semes and Gotoff play #Skoryk #Shostakovich #Bartók & #Lysenko in #Washington https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/the_krechovskys_semes_and_gotoff_play_skoryk_shostakovich_bartok__lysenko_in_washington/86071/ #wch