#lysenkoism — Public Fediverse posts

How can anyone consider voting for a party that spreads #misinformation? Abandoning #facts and #evidence is a straight route into disaster and will cause deaths. Please read up on #Lysenkoism, if you do not believe this. #ReformUK #Democracy #PostTruth

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/06/doctor-aseem-malhotra-reform-conference-speech-royal-family-cancer-covid-vaccine

#mRNA #RFKJr #Lysenkoism

"Cancelling mRNA studies is the highest irresponsibility

The rest of the world is not following the US government’s dangerous path, and will stick with the technology that helped the world out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A technology that played a key part in saving millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic1 should be feted to the skies. Instead, US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr announced last week that the US federal government is terminating 22 grants worth nearly US$500 million for projects researching messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.

This is the technology that, in his first term (2017–21), US President Donald Trump included in Operation Warp Speed: the federal government’s $18-billion programme to procure COVID-19 vaccines for US populations in record time2. It is also the technology that is showing potential for treating cancers3, autoimmune diseases and inherited conditions such as sickle cell disease. But now, in a statement accompanying the grant cancellations, Kennedy stated that 'these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu'. And in an article for The Washington Post, Jay Bhattacharya, director of the US National Institutes of Health, wrote that mRNA technology 'failed to earn the public’s trust', which fuelled vaccine hesitancy.

Shock and disbelief does not even begin to describe the reaction from mRNA and public-health researchers. The Alliance for mRNA Medicines, which represents companies and universities, said in a statement: 'Secretary Kennedy’s unscientific and misguided vilification of mRNA technology and cancellation of grants is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.'

True words. Yet this announcement is not unexpected. Kennedy’s views on vaccination are well known, and outside the research consensus. As Nature’s news team and others have reported for months, the Trump administration is busy removing independent specialists and replacing them with political appointments in many cases. This has happened in science and public-policy domains including health, economic statistics and the environment.

Often, where the world’s one-time science superpower has led, others have keenly followed. But not in this instance. There is no queue of countries lining up to adopt the Kennedy doctrine. One reason is that most countries appreciate that the mRNA manufacturing platform can be repurposed for different uses. Predicting how many vaccines to stockpile for an emergency has always been a huge headache for governments, as has been the cost of keeping manufacturing facilities open when they are not in use. With mRNA, when a platform isn’t being used to make vaccines, it will not just sit idle, racking up costs, but instead has the potential to be used to manufacture other therapeutics."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02612-9

#RFKJr #Lysenkoism

"US health secretary and vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr has called for the retraction of a Danish study that found no link between aluminium in vaccines and chronic diseases in children — a rare move for a US public official. Aluminium has been used for almost a century to enhance the immune system’s response to some vaccines. But some people claim the ingredient is linked to rising rates of childhood disorders such as autism.

Public-health officials in Kennedy’s position rarely request that studies be retracted, says Ivan Oransky, a specialist in academic publishing and co-founder of the media organization Retraction Watch. Through this request, 'Secretary Kennedy has demonstrated that he wants the scientific literature to bend to his will', says Oransky."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02682-9

The Soviet Era's Deadliest Scientist Is Regaining Popularity in Russia
Trofim Lysenko’s spurious research prolonged famines that killed millions. So why is a fringe movement praising his legacy?
By Sam Kean (2017)
#Lysenkoism

https://archive.ph/2023.03.07-161017/https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/trofim-lysenko-soviet-union-russia/548786/

“Make America Healthy Again”: The new #Lysenkoism | Science-Based Medicine

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/make-america-healthy-again-the-new-lysenkoism/

A live example[^1] why I like the #Lysenkoism reference[^2] to #MAGA even more:

Kennedy recently told Fox News that by letting the highly pathogenic bird flu spread through flocks, farmers could “identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it.”

What RFK says is an obvious reference to the pseudo-scientific social darwinism[^3], an idea that is very popular among rich MAGA supporters because it explains why they are rich. What we see here is an unintentionally ironic transposition of the social darwinism from the society onto other aspects of civilisation, in this case food industry.

Why ironic? Because there’s nothing further from the biological evolution than the mass poultry farms, which are one of the primary targets - and causes - of zoonotic diseases such as the bird flu. If RFK actually understood what he’s talking about, he would simply call for letting all the millions of birds free so that they can combat the disease on their own. But then the problem of bird flu would solve itself simply because one of its primary causes is overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions in the arms.

What we’re now seeing in statements like RFK is a really bizarre mix of distorted ideas from actual science, happily mixed and filtered through arbitrary religious beliefs. That is literally what Lysenkoism was all about, except Marxism-Leninism took over the role of religion there.

[^1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rfk-jr-wants-to-let-bird-flu-spread-on-poultry-farms-why-experts-are/

[^2]: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/make-america-healthy-again-the-new-lysenkoism/

[^3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

How pseudo-science drives out science when powered by quasi-religious ideology? This is a very good long-read about the similarities between 1920’s #Lysenkoism and today’s #MAHA movement.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/make-america-healthy-again-the-new-lysenkoism/

On a personal note, in early 2000’s I got interested in #Marxism specifically through Lysenkoism - I simply couldn’t believe how apparently educated people could, for a quarter of century, aggressively push pseudo-scientific nonsense that visibly contradicted the physical, observed reality. This article explains very well how that happened, and how it’s happening again.

"...in the process of airing the administration's grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information."

#lysenkoism

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/trump-annoyed-the-smithsonian-isnt-promoting-discredited-racial-ideas/

If you need some inspiration, have a look at this article by #PlantTransformation pioneer Csaba Koncz about the great #PlantScience Legend, Hungarian 🇭🇺 György Pál Rédei: "Dedication: George P. Rédei - Arabidopsis Geneticist and Polymath" Rédei fled communism & #Lysenkoism & created the Col-0 line.

Dedication: George P. Rédei Ar...

@annaleen

The stunning banned word in this list is "bias." No researcher can write a legitimate document without acknowledging the biases that may have swayed the collection and interpretation of data. It is an absurdity to not discuss biases.

And banning all these other words is just as horrifying.

#Lysenkoism

@tg9541 @benroyce BUT mechanisms at the atomic, molecular, and genetic 🧬 level *are* real, and as familiar as an old friend to #chemistry and #biochemistry.

Rejection of consensus #science (that is both falsifiable and reproducible) for political reasons is even more dangerous. It is called #Lysenkoism after the #Russian pseudo-scientist that #Stalin used to weaponize politics against actual science.

I’ll just say it is not unknown in #USpol. 💦

#Resist

1/19 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 #𝗟𝘆𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗸𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮: During the years of famine in the mid-to-late 1920s in Russia, Russian agricultural scientists were pressured to produce new crop varieties. Trofim Lysenko was the Scientist who jumped at the chance and made the biggest promises. #Pseudoscience #Propaganda

le lyssenkisme, qui, dans l’Union soviétique de #Staline, entraîna le bannissement de la génétique au nom de l’idéologie #communiste
[...]
Sur #Lyssenko, il y a peu d’archives.
[...]
#TrofimLyssenko est à part. C’est un #agronome de base qui, grâce à #Staline, arrive à dominer la biologie en #UnionSoviétique et à faire interdire la génétique jugée "bourgeoise"

[F]. Conclusions

The work of #Lukianenko and certain other grain breeders led to an explosion of research on HYVs in #Russia from the 1960s onward, as well as substantial genetics research and greatly improved education that began even before #Lysenko’s removal from power. These topics, however, lie outside the scope of this article. (109) This study of #Lukianenko challenges the prevailing view that #Lysenko held back Soviet genetics for a generation. While certainly during the heyday of #Lysenkoism, the #Soviet regime victimized many excellent #Soviet geneticists and wasted money and time on fraudulent Lysenkoists’ “research,” many other scientists conducted valid, substantial, and important work—particularly in the area of plant breeding. #Lukianenko was not the only agricultural scientist who did such research in these years, but his work had more national and international significance than that of any other #Soviet agricultural scientist in this period.

This work differed greatly from the conventional view of scientific research in the time of #Lysenko: #Lukianenko’s work began before #Lysenko’s rise and continued despite his dominance. #Lukianenko’s work relied substantially on plant varieties from outside the #USSR, in many cases brought into the #USSR through the work of #NikolaiVavilov. He also relied on conventional principles of genetics, including the guidelines for plant breeding published by #Vavilov, as well as some breeding theories and techniques from outside the #USSR. In particular he and his co-workers independently sought and achieved the same goals as the Italians around #Strampelli in the early 20th century and #Borlaug in the #GreenRevolution of the 1950s-1960s.

#Lukianenko’s work during #Lysenko’s time and afterwards produced several extremely important wheat varieties that had the same characteristics as the #GreenRevolution varieties created by #Borlaug. #Lukianenko’s Bezostaia-1, a semi-dwarf rust resistant HYV earned the highest praise from European and American breeders including #Borlaug as one of the best of the HYVs. This finding thus goes beyond even #Krementsov’s points about scientists’ evasion of #Lysenko. The work of #Lukianenko and his colleagues, more than simply continuing previous genetics-based work in plant breeding, achieved breakthroughs that put it at the forefront of world wheat breeding, both in their methods and their results. Because of the accomplishments of #Lukianenko and his co-workers in #Krasnodar, a post-Soviet Russian symposium on breeding of wheat and triticale commemorating #Lukianenko was entitled “The Green Revolution of P. P. Luk’ianenko.” (111) Thus despite #Lysenko, Soviet agronomists and #agriculture thus participated in the international #GreenRevolution under #Lysenko’s dominance as well as afterwards.

le lyssenkisme, qui, dans l’Union soviétique de #Staline, entraîna le bannissement de la génétique au nom de l’idéologie #communiste
[...]
Sur #Lyssenko, il y a peu d’archives.
[...]
#TrofimLyssenko est à part. C’est un #agronome de base qui, grâce à #Staline, arrive à dominer la biologie en #UnionSoviétique et à faire interdire la génétique jugée "bourgeoise"

[F]. Conclusions

The work of #Lukianenko and certain other grain breeders led to an explosion of research on HYVs in #Russia from the 1960s onward, as well as substantial genetics research and greatly improved education that began even before #Lysenko’s removal from power. These topics, however, lie outside the scope of this article. (109) This study of #Lukianenko challenges the prevailing view that #Lysenko held back Soviet genetics for a generation. While certainly during the heyday of #Lysenkoism, the #Soviet regime victimized many excellent #Soviet geneticists and wasted money and time on fraudulent Lysenkoists’ “research,” many other scientists conducted valid, substantial, and important work—particularly in the area of plant breeding. #Lukianenko was not the only agricultural scientist who did such research in these years, but his work had more national and international significance than that of any other #Soviet agricultural scientist in this period.

This work differed greatly from the conventional view of scientific research in the time of #Lysenko: #Lukianenko’s work began before #Lysenko’s rise and continued despite his dominance. #Lukianenko’s work relied substantially on plant varieties from outside the #USSR, in many cases brought into the #USSR through the work of #NikolaiVavilov. He also relied on conventional principles of genetics, including the guidelines for plant breeding published by #Vavilov, as well as some breeding theories and techniques from outside the #USSR. In particular he and his co-workers independently sought and achieved the same goals as the Italians around #Strampelli in the early 20th century and #Borlaug in the #GreenRevolution of the 1950s-1960s.

#Lukianenko’s work during #Lysenko’s time and afterwards produced several extremely important wheat varieties that had the same characteristics as the #GreenRevolution varieties created by #Borlaug. #Lukianenko’s Bezostaia-1, a semi-dwarf rust resistant HYV earned the highest praise from European and American breeders including #Borlaug as one of the best of the HYVs. This finding thus goes beyond even #Krementsov’s points about scientists’ evasion of #Lysenko. The work of #Lukianenko and his colleagues, more than simply continuing previous genetics-based work in plant breeding, achieved breakthroughs that put it at the forefront of world wheat breeding, both in their methods and their results. Because of the accomplishments of #Lukianenko and his co-workers in #Krasnodar, a post-Soviet Russian symposium on breeding of wheat and triticale commemorating #Lukianenko was entitled “The Green Revolution of P. P. Luk’ianenko.” (111) Thus despite #Lysenko, Soviet agronomists and #agriculture thus participated in the international #GreenRevolution under #Lysenko’s dominance as well as afterwards.

le lyssenkisme, qui, dans l’Union soviétique de #Staline, entraîna le bannissement de la génétique au nom de l’idéologie #communiste
[...]
Sur #Lyssenko, il y a peu d’archives.
[...]
#TrofimLyssenko est à part. C’est un #agronome de base qui, grâce à #Staline, arrive à dominer la biologie en #UnionSoviétique et à faire interdire la génétique jugée "bourgeoise"

[F]. Conclusions

The work of #Lukianenko and certain other grain breeders led to an explosion of research on HYVs in #Russia from the 1960s onward, as well as substantial genetics research and greatly improved education that began even before #Lysenko’s removal from power. These topics, however, lie outside the scope of this article. (109) This study of #Lukianenko challenges the prevailing view that #Lysenko held back Soviet genetics for a generation. While certainly during the heyday of #Lysenkoism, the #Soviet regime victimized many excellent #Soviet geneticists and wasted money and time on fraudulent Lysenkoists’ “research,” many other scientists conducted valid, substantial, and important work—particularly in the area of plant breeding. #Lukianenko was not the only agricultural scientist who did such research in these years, but his work had more national and international significance than that of any other #Soviet agricultural scientist in this period.

This work differed greatly from the conventional view of scientific research in the time of #Lysenko: #Lukianenko’s work began before #Lysenko’s rise and continued despite his dominance. #Lukianenko’s work relied substantially on plant varieties from outside the #USSR, in many cases brought into the #USSR through the work of #NikolaiVavilov. He also relied on conventional principles of genetics, including the guidelines for plant breeding published by #Vavilov, as well as some breeding theories and techniques from outside the #USSR. In particular he and his co-workers independently sought and achieved the same goals as the Italians around #Strampelli in the early 20th century and #Borlaug in the #GreenRevolution of the 1950s-1960s.

#Lukianenko’s work during #Lysenko’s time and afterwards produced several extremely important wheat varieties that had the same characteristics as the #GreenRevolution varieties created by #Borlaug. #Lukianenko’s Bezostaia-1, a semi-dwarf rust resistant HYV earned the highest praise from European and American breeders including #Borlaug as one of the best of the HYVs. This finding thus goes beyond even #Krementsov’s points about scientists’ evasion of #Lysenko. The work of #Lukianenko and his colleagues, more than simply continuing previous genetics-based work in plant breeding, achieved breakthroughs that put it at the forefront of world wheat breeding, both in their methods and their results. Because of the accomplishments of #Lukianenko and his co-workers in #Krasnodar, a post-Soviet Russian symposium on breeding of wheat and triticale commemorating #Lukianenko was entitled “The Green Revolution of P. P. Luk’ianenko.” (111) Thus despite #Lysenko, Soviet agronomists and #agriculture thus participated in the international #GreenRevolution under #Lysenko’s dominance as well as afterwards.

le lyssenkisme, qui, dans l’Union soviétique de #Staline, entraîna le bannissement de la génétique au nom de l’idéologie #communiste
[...]
Sur #Lyssenko, il y a peu d’archives.
[...]
#TrofimLyssenko est à part. C’est un #agronome de base qui, grâce à #Staline, arrive à dominer la biologie en #UnionSoviétique et à faire interdire la génétique jugée "bourgeoise"

[F]. Conclusions

The work of #Lukianenko and certain other grain breeders led to an explosion of research on HYVs in #Russia from the 1960s onward, as well as substantial genetics research and greatly improved education that began even before #Lysenko’s removal from power. These topics, however, lie outside the scope of this article. (109) This study of #Lukianenko challenges the prevailing view that #Lysenko held back Soviet genetics for a generation. While certainly during the heyday of #Lysenkoism, the #Soviet regime victimized many excellent #Soviet geneticists and wasted money and time on fraudulent Lysenkoists’ “research,” many other scientists conducted valid, substantial, and important work—particularly in the area of plant breeding. #Lukianenko was not the only agricultural scientist who did such research in these years, but his work had more national and international significance than that of any other #Soviet agricultural scientist in this period.

This work differed greatly from the conventional view of scientific research in the time of #Lysenko: #Lukianenko’s work began before #Lysenko’s rise and continued despite his dominance. #Lukianenko’s work relied substantially on plant varieties from outside the #USSR, in many cases brought into the #USSR through the work of #NikolaiVavilov. He also relied on conventional principles of genetics, including the guidelines for plant breeding published by #Vavilov, as well as some breeding theories and techniques from outside the #USSR. In particular he and his co-workers independently sought and achieved the same goals as the Italians around #Strampelli in the early 20th century and #Borlaug in the #GreenRevolution of the 1950s-1960s.

#Lukianenko’s work during #Lysenko’s time and afterwards produced several extremely important wheat varieties that had the same characteristics as the #GreenRevolution varieties created by #Borlaug. #Lukianenko’s Bezostaia-1, a semi-dwarf rust resistant HYV earned the highest praise from European and American breeders including #Borlaug as one of the best of the HYVs. This finding thus goes beyond even #Krementsov’s points about scientists’ evasion of #Lysenko. The work of #Lukianenko and his colleagues, more than simply continuing previous genetics-based work in plant breeding, achieved breakthroughs that put it at the forefront of world wheat breeding, both in their methods and their results. Because of the accomplishments of #Lukianenko and his co-workers in #Krasnodar, a post-Soviet Russian symposium on breeding of wheat and triticale commemorating #Lukianenko was entitled “The Green Revolution of P. P. Luk’ianenko.” (111) Thus despite #Lysenko, Soviet agronomists and #agriculture thus participated in the international #GreenRevolution under #Lysenko’s dominance as well as afterwards.

This is a remarkable speech about the Climate Agenda by Bonner Cohen, Ph.D. Watch it till the end and learn what it has to do with #Lysenkoism.

https://rumble.com/v1h07nn-power-and-money-whats-really-behind-the-climate-agenda.-bonner-cohen-ph.d..html