if you can ignore the Lysenkoist view of genetics that was popular at the time
This is probably really in the weeds, but what was the deal with Lysenkoism? As I understand it, there was a tension between notions of individual genetic traits and competition, and vulgar Marxist interpretations of that as being somehow bourgeois.
I feel like the more reasonable approach to this, is to take a page from Kropotkin and assert that, in the process of natural selection, there’s a dialectic between individual competition and cooperation between species (mutualism, symbiosis, etc.)
But obviously Lysenkoism doesn’t really do that, so what was the explanation given, instead?
Lysenkoist views of genetics thought, to my understanding, that you could change one species to another, and do other odd pseudoscientific stuff, based on a vulgar view of dialectics. Lysenko had some backing and wasn’t a pure crank, but the genetics aspect has been proven false and the gene does indeed exist.
This is probably really in the weeds, but what was the deal with Lysenkoism? As I understand it, there was a tension between notions of individual genetic traits and competition, and vulgar Marxist interpretations of that as being somehow bourgeois.
I feel like the more reasonable approach to this, is to take a page from Kropotkin and assert that, in the process of natural selection, there’s a dialectic between individual competition and cooperation between species (mutualism, symbiosis, etc.)
But obviously Lysenkoism doesn’t really do that, so what was the explanation given, instead?
Lysenkoist views of genetics thought, to my understanding, that you could change one species to another, and do other odd pseudoscientific stuff, based on a vulgar view of dialectics. Lysenko had some backing and wasn’t a pure crank, but the genetics aspect has been proven false and the gene does indeed exist.