Library:The Dialectical Biologist - Revision history

Charhapiti at 20:08, 14 August 2025

2025-08-14T20:08:38Z

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			{{Message_box/archive}}

	{{Library work\|title=The Dialectical Biologist\|author=Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin\|published_date=1985\|type=Book\|source=[https://ebin.pub/qdownload/the-dialectical-biologist-0674202813-9780674202818.html Ebin]}}		{{Library work\|title=The Dialectical Biologist\|author=Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin\|published_date=1985\|type=Book\|source=[https://ebin.pub/qdownload/the-dialectical-biologist-0674202813-9780674202818.html Ebin]}}

ProleWiki at 12:46, 30 September 2024

2024-09-30T12:46:07Z

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	{{Library work\|title=The Dialectical Biologist\|author=Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin\|published_date=1985\|type=Book\|~~source_url~~=[https://ebin.pub/qdownload/the-dialectical-biologist-0674202813-9780674202818.html Ebin]}}		{{Library work\|title=The Dialectical Biologist\|author=Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin\|published_date=1985\|type=Book\|source=[https://ebin.pub/qdownload/the-dialectical-biologist-0674202813-9780674202818.html Ebin]}}

	== Preface ==		== Preface ==

ProleWiki: Updating parameter name

2024-09-27T17:57:12Z

Updating parameter name

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:57, 27 September 2024
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	{{Library work\|title=The Dialectical Biologist\|author=Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin\|published_date=1985\|type=Book\|~~source~~=[https://ebin.pub/qdownload/the-dialectical-biologist-0674202813-9780674202818.html Ebin]}}		{{Library work\|title=The Dialectical Biologist\|author=Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin\|published_date=1985\|type=Book\|source_url=[https://ebin.pub/qdownload/the-dialectical-biologist-0674202813-9780674202818.html Ebin]}}

	== Preface ==		== Preface ==

CriticalResist: /* 7 The Problem of Lysenkoism */

2024-04-07T11:38:10Z

7 The Problem of Lysenkoism

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CriticalResist: /* 7 The Problem of Lysenkoism */

2024-04-07T10:27:40Z

7 The Problem of Lysenkoism

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	=== 7 The Problem of Lysenkoism ===		=== 7 The Problem of Lysenkoism ===
	<blockquote>This chapter was first published in ''The ~~Radicalisanon~~ of Science'', edited by H. Rose and S. Rose (London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 32-64.</blockquote>THE LYSENKOIST movement, which agitated Soviet biology and agriculture for more than twenty years and which remains attractive to segments of the left outside the Soviet Union today, was a phenomenon of vastly greater complexity than has been ordinarily perceived, Lysenkoism cannot be understood simply as the result of the machinations of an opportunistcareerist operating in an authoritarian and capricious political system, a view held not only by Western commentators but by liberal reformers within the Soviet Union. It was not just an “affair,” nor the “rise and fall” of a single individual’s influence, as might be supposed from the titles of the books by Joravsky (1970) and Medvedev (1969). Nor, on the other hand, can the Lysenko movement be regarded, as it is by some ultraleft Maoists, as a triumph of the application of dialectical method to a scientific problem, an intellectual triumph that is being suppressed by the bourgeois West and by Soviet revisionism. None of these views corresponds to a valid theory of historical causation. None recognizes that Lysenkoism, like all nontrivial historical phenomena, results from a conjunction of ideological, material, and political circumstances and is at the same time the cause of important changes in those circumstances.		<blockquote>This chapter was first published in ''The Radicalisation of Science'', edited by H. Rose and S. Rose (London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 32-64.</blockquote>THE LYSENKOIST movement, which agitated Soviet biology and agriculture for more than twenty years and which remains attractive to segments of the left outside the Soviet Union today, was a phenomenon of vastly greater complexity than has been ordinarily perceived, Lysenkoism cannot be understood simply as the result of the machinations of an opportunistcareerist operating in an authoritarian and capricious political system, a view held not only by Western commentators but by liberal reformers within the Soviet Union. It was not just an “affair,” nor the “rise and fall” of a single individual’s influence, as might be supposed from the titles of the books by Joravsky (1970) and Medvedev (1969). Nor, on the other hand, can the Lysenko movement be regarded, as it is by some ultraleft Maoists, as a triumph of the application of dialectical method to a scientific problem, an intellectual triumph that is being suppressed by the bourgeois West and by Soviet revisionism. None of these views corresponds to a valid theory of historical causation. None recognizes that Lysenkoism, like all nontrivial historical phenomena, results from a conjunction of ideological, material, and political circumstances and is at the same time the cause of important changes in those circumstances.

	The bourgeois commentators’ view of the Lysenkoist movement is not particularly surprising, for it is entirely within their tradition that a major historical change can be the result of individual decision and the caprice of a powerful person or of a unique historical accident, with no special causal relationship. Thus Joravsky, whose book calls attention to a great many of the complex forces that contributed to the Lysenkoist movement, nevertheless explains its rise as essentially the consequence of “bossism,” in which the political bosses of Soviet agriculture, including the “supreme boss,” Stalin, embraced an incorrect scientific doctrine in a blind and capricious flailing about for solutions to Soviet agricultural problems, problems created by their own irrational program of collectivization. It is rather more surprising that socialist writers, who are supposed to know better, are equally narrow in their understanding. The liberal reformers, like Medvedev, view Lysenkoism as a boil on the body politic, a manifestation of the Stalinist infection that is poisoning a potentially healthy revolutionary organism. Some Maoists restrict their view to the philosophical aspects of the problem, using Mao’s essay “On Contradiction” in an attempt to prove, as L. K. Prezent claimed, that Mendelian genetics is incompatible with the principles of dialectical materialism and that a rigorous application of dialectical method will lead to Lamarckist conclusions.<ref group="Note">Prezent, an attorney by training, joined Lysenko first as a polemicist and then did some experimental work. He was an especially strident, dogmatic, and abusive participant in the debates.</ref> We must reject both of these viewpoints as too narrow. Of course it is true that authoritarian political structures in the Soviet Union and the bureaucratization of the Communist party had a powerful effect on the history of the Lysenkoist movement. Of course it is the case that the methods and conclusions of science contain deep ideological commitments that must be reexamined. But other factors in the material and social conditions of the Soviet Union were also integral to the Lysenko movement.		The bourgeois commentators’ view of the Lysenkoist movement is not particularly surprising, for it is entirely within their tradition that a major historical change can be the result of individual decision and the caprice of a powerful person or of a unique historical accident, with no special causal relationship. Thus Joravsky, whose book calls attention to a great many of the complex forces that contributed to the Lysenkoist movement, nevertheless explains its rise as essentially the consequence of “bossism,” in which the political bosses of Soviet agriculture, including the “supreme boss,” Stalin, embraced an incorrect scientific doctrine in a blind and capricious flailing about for solutions to Soviet agricultural problems, problems created by their own irrational program of collectivization. It is rather more surprising that socialist writers, who are supposed to know better, are equally narrow in their understanding. The liberal reformers, like Medvedev, view Lysenkoism as a boil on the body politic, a manifestation of the Stalinist infection that is poisoning a potentially healthy revolutionary organism. Some Maoists restrict their view to the philosophical aspects of the problem, using Mao’s essay “On Contradiction” in an attempt to prove, as L. K. Prezent claimed, that Mendelian genetics is incompatible with the principles of dialectical materialism and that a rigorous application of dialectical method will lead to Lamarckist conclusions.<ref group="Note">Prezent, an attorney by training, joined Lysenko first as a polemicist and then did some experimental work. He was an especially strident, dogmatic, and abusive participant in the debates.</ref> We must reject both of these viewpoints as too narrow. Of course it is true that authoritarian political structures in the Soviet Union and the bureaucratization of the Communist party had a powerful effect on the history of the Lysenkoist movement. Of course it is the case that the methods and conclusions of science contain deep ideological commitments that must be reexamined. But other factors in the material and social conditions of the Soviet Union were also integral to the Lysenko movement.

CriticalResist at 21:09, 2 April 2024

2024-04-02T21:09:28Z

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CriticalResist at 20:36, 2 April 2024

2024-04-02T20:36:18Z

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	In Model c, ''A''<sub>1</sub> is consumed by ''H''. Now ''A'' no longer responds to changes in ''N;'' the changes are passed on to ''H''. (Although the population level of ''A''<sub>1</sub> is unaffected, its turnover rate and age distribution are altered.) Once again we observe that change from below generates positive correlation. Model d introduces a second, inedible consumer. ''A''<sub>2</sub> picks up all the effect of changing the input of ''N'', leaving ''A''<sub>1</sub> and ''H'' relatively insensitive.		In Model c, ''A''<sub>1</sub> is consumed by ''H''. Now ''A'' no longer responds to changes in ''N;'' the changes are passed on to ''H''. (Although the population level of ''A''<sub>1</sub> is unaffected, its turnover rate and age distribution are altered.) Once again we observe that change from below generates positive correlation. Model d introduces a second, inedible consumer. ''A''<sub>2</sub> picks up all the effect of changing the input of ''N'', leaving ''A''<sub>1</sub> and ''H'' relatively insensitive.



	[[Category:Library works about science]]		[[Category:Library works about science]]
	[[Category:Library works by Richard Levins]]		[[Category:Library works by Richard Levins]]
	[[Category:Library works by Richard Lewontin]]		[[Category:Library works by Richard Lewontin]]

CriticalResist at 20:30, 2 April 2024

2024-04-02T20:30:25Z

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CriticalResist at 20:21, 2 April 2024

2024-04-02T20:21:44Z

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	As an example of what has been done in animals, Fig. 4.2 has been drawn from the data of Dobzhansky and Spassky (1944) on larval viability in ''Drosophila pseudoobscura''. Each line is the reaction norm for larval viability at three different temperatures for a fourth-chromosome homozygote, where the chromosomes have been sampled from a natural population. As the figure shows, a few genotypes are of uniformly poor viability, probably corresponding to homozygosity for a single deleterious gene of strong effect. However, most genotypes are variable in their expression, and there is a great deal of genotype-environment interaction, with curves crossing each other and having quite different environmental sensitivities.		As an example of what has been done in animals, Fig. 4.2 has been drawn from the data of Dobzhansky and Spassky (1944) on larval viability in ''Drosophila pseudoobscura''. Each line is the reaction norm for larval viability at three different temperatures for a fourth-chromosome homozygote, where the chromosomes have been sampled from a natural population. As the figure shows, a few genotypes are of uniformly poor viability, probably corresponding to homozygosity for a single deleterious gene of strong effect. However, most genotypes are variable in their expression, and there is a great deal of genotype-environment interaction, with curves crossing each other and having quite different environmental sensitivities.


			Fig. 4.2. Actual reaction norms for viability of fourth-chromosome homozygotes of ''Drosophila pseudoobscura''. Data from Dobzhansky and Spassky (1944).

	[[Category:Library works about science]]		[[Category:Library works about science]]
	[[Category:Library works by Richard Levins]]		[[Category:Library works by Richard Levins]]
	[[Category:Library works by Richard Lewontin]]		[[Category:Library works by Richard Lewontin]]

CriticalResist: first save

2024-04-02T20:20:56Z

first save

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