"Lysenkoism was a
political campaign
conducted by
Trofim Lysenko,
his followers and
Soviet authorities
against genetics and
science-based
griculture." ****
In the Soviet Union,
Lysenko was opposed
by classical geneticists,
including Nikolai Vavilov.
Vavilov had
a global reputation
for his system
of banking seeds
as genetic material.
Vavilov was arrested
in 1940, and died in prison
about two years later).
"More than 3,000
mainstream biologists
were fired or even
sent to prison,
and numerous
scientists were
executed as part
of a campaign
instigated
by Lysenko
to suppress
his scientific
opponents." ****
In August 1948, Lysenko told
a meeting of Soviet agricultural
scientists that Stalin had
endorsed his environmentalist
(mis)understanding of heredity.
Lysenko and his cronies were
advanced, extbooks were
rewritten, and the
geneticists were fired.
U.S. observers
were horrified
when they
learned of this
political
intervention
into science.
By the late 1940s,
the absence of
scientific freedom
was being called
"Lysenkoism.”
Soviet Union science
was transformed
into a propaganda tool.
The Americans, unlike the
Lysenko-dominated Soviets,
wanted to be represented
as beacons of free inquiry.
Contemporary science
can be very expensive.
All scientists recognize
that financial support
is essential for science.
"Strings" attached to that
money could compromise
research objectivity.
An assertion that
“science is political”
is an attack on science,
because it implies
a political connection
to the reliability of the
knowledge it produces.
Funding can at least
steer science toward the
subject matter desired,
if not the rsults.
Climate scientists who desire
additional funding for their
next study related to climate,
may not find any if they
had said anything good
about CO2 in their first study.
Government funding
of climate science
makes climate science political.
makes climate science political.