The Way of Science

To illustrate the kind of agricultural and biological disasters that resulted from Lysenko's power, consider two classic cases: potato and maize ("corn" in the US).

1. Potato

In much of the world, potatoes are a major source of food, ranking nearly as high as the grains. As a crop derived from species native to the cool Andean region, they suffer from various diseases when grown too warm. Southern regions of the USSR (now Ukraine) were experiencing crop decreases from viral infections during this time of Lysenko's popularity. In the west, virology was a vigorous new science, and initially Soviet breeders followed their advice: destroy infected plants, and replace them with virus-free seed. Lysenko turned this approach into a political question, blaming the west for a conspiracy to destroy Soviet agriculture. He also accused western scientists of an ivory-tower mentality, and with being "divorced from agricultural practice," "lagging far behind Socialist agriculture" (in fact, they were far ahead). He promised to make Ukraine self-sufficient in potatoes in two years, simply by changing the time of planting to midsummer. (Obviously, the summer's heat would "shatter" the plants, and they would know how to re-form.) The viral control program and the potato breeding program were dismantled.

Clearly, Lysenko's approach could not possibly work, and it did not. Why was he not detected as a fraud? Think back to Uri Geller, and how the class was misled simply by leaving out critical bits of information. That's what Lysenko did. Out of 420 questionnaires sent to the collective farms, he picked the best 50 and used only those. Absurd? Well, if your audience has no real idea of statistics, or of basic techniques of scientific verification, any old evidence will do. (Do you think that the bulk of the American public can properly evaluate medical claims?)