Lysenkoism?

[RedSunRising]

Was it really as a mad as people make it out have been?

Can anyone explain it simply?

Do any Communists still defend it?

[Die Rote Fahne]

Never heard of it...

[Omsk]

Lysenkoism is used colloquially to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives.
It was an idea made by Trofim Lysenko (Soviet agronomist who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin.) and was held high in the Soviet Union until 1964 (or so) when Nikita Khrushchev aided by the Soviet scientist denounced Lysenkoism and his teaching on the field of science,and biology.
It was,although popular in China from 1948 until 1956, when, during a genetics symposium opponents of Lysenkoism were permitted to freely criticize it and argue for mendelian genetics.
It had lesser impact in the German Democratic Republic and a number of other socialist states.
However, Czechoslovakia adopted Lysenkoism in 1949.

That is for the historical information on Lysenkoism.

[Gorilla]

I think someone in the Stalin Society gave a paper with a qualified defense of some aspects of Lysenko's work. I am too lazy to look on the website to see if it is up there. Or maybe it was on the YouTube channel, whatevs.

EDIT: Sorry, I was thinking of "Darwin’s far-reaching application of dialectical materialism to Biology" Presented by Godfrey Cremer
April 2009 http://www.youtube.com/user/ProletarianCPGBML?gl=GB&hl=en-GB#p/u/82/ff8oMjUQ51o which does not seem to address Lysenko except maybe in passing.