RE: paleonet Good opinion piece on creationism.

["Blake Paul" <Paul.Blake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk]On
> Behalf Of Breandán MacGabhann
> Sent: Thursday, 20 January 2005 7:50 AM
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: paleonet Good opinion piece on creationism.
> 
> 
> It is a good article. Right up to this part anyway:
> 
> "There was a man in the last century who practiced top-down 
> science with harrowing consequences. His ideology came first, 
> and science had to fit it. He denounced the important genetic 
> studies of Mendel as the work of "enemies" - not exactly the 
> language of science. He insisted, among other things, that 
> wheat plants could bear rye seeds. His notions sent real 
> scientists to exile and execution and condemned whole 
> populations to starve. He wasn't a scientist himself but he 
> played one at the Kremlin. His name was Trofim Lysenko, and 
> his ideology was communism."
> 
> Why? Why, why, why, why, why does he feel the need to bring 
> politics into it? This is part of the problem, people 
> sticking in their two cents about something that is entirely 
> irrelevant. If the religious would keep their noses out of 
> science instead of trying to tell scientists what to do or 
> believe then we wouldn't be in this mess. And there is 
> absolutely no need to bring politics into it. That's just 
> asking for trouble.
> 
> Breandán
>

I think that was the writers point.  Lysenko felt that Darwininan Evolution and Mendalian Genetics were incompatible with communism.  He felt that Lamarckian Evolution better fit with his politics.  Scientists who disagreed were imprisoned, killed, or had to flee.  Lysenko got his way and Russian agriculture suffered.  It is an important lesson that science should not be forced to match an ideology, be it religion or politics.

Regards
Paul Blake





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