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American Lysenkoism, and the Darwinists Who Embrace It

Lysenkoism

On a new episode of ID the Future, Tod Butterfield interviews Michael Egnor, pediatric neurosurgeon at Stony Brook University, about the science-destroying practice of Lysenkoism. Dr. Egnor discusses Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet agronomist who for several decades in the 20th century was allowed to use the power of the state to enforce belief in Lamarckism in the Soviet Union.

The government punished people who questioned the reigning view, and the results were catastrophic. Today the term Lysenkoism applies to any use of government power to enforce scientific orthodoxy. It need not mean the Gulag; it could involve, for instance, the denial of federal grants to quietly enforce Darwinian orthodoxy. Lysenkoism punishes dissenters from politically favored ideas, and holds science back. How? Download the podcast or listen to it here, and find out.

Photo: Lysenko speaks, Stalin listens, via Wikicommons.