Trofim Lysenko

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Denisovich and the family name is Lysenko.

Trofim Lysenko
Трофим Лысенко
Lysenko in 1938
Born
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko

(1898-09-29)29 September 1898
Karlovka, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire (now Karlivka, Poltava Oblast, Ukraine)
Died20 November 1976(1976-11-20) (aged 78)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
CitizenshipSoviet Union
Alma materKiev Agricultural Institute (1925)
Uman Agropolytechnicum [ru] (1921)
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsSoviet Academy of Sciences
Notable studentsArtavazd Avakyan [ru], Pyotr Kononkov [ru]
Signature

Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Russian: Трофи́м Дени́сович Лысе́нко; Ukrainian: Трохи́м Дени́сович Лисе́нко, romanized: Trokhym Denysovych Lysenko, IPA: [troˈxɪm deˈnɪsowɪtʃ lɪˈsɛnko]; 29 September [O.S. 17 September] 1898 – 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist and scientist.[1][2] He was a strong proponent of Lamarckism, and rejected Mendelian genetics in favour of his own idiosyncratic, pseudoscientific ideas later termed Lysenkoism.[3][4][5][6]

In 1940, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and he used his political influence and power to suppress dissenting opinions and discredit, marginalize, and imprison his critics, elevating his anti-Mendelian theories to state-sanctioned doctrine.[7][8]

Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics were dismissed from their posts and left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were imprisoned. Several were sentenced to death as enemies of the state, including the botanist Nikolai Vavilov, whose sentence was commuted to prison.[9] Lysenko's ideas and practices contributed to the famines that killed millions of Soviet people;[9] the adoption of his methods from 1958 in the People's Republic of China had similarly calamitous results, culminating in the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1961.[9]

  1. ^ An ill-educated agronomist with huge ambitions, Lysenko failed to become a real scientist, but greatly succeeded in exposing of the “bourgeois enemies of the people.” From such a “scion” who was “grafted” to the Stalinist totalitarian regime “stock”, impressive results could have been expected—and were indeed achieved. Reznik, Semyon; Fet, Victor (September 2019). "The destructive role of Trofim Lysenko in Russian Science". European Journal of Human Genetics. 27 (9): 1324–1325. doi:10.1038/s41431-019-0422-5. PMC 6777473. PMID 31089207.
  2. ^ "Валерий Сойфер". Интернет-журнал "Русский переплет" (in Russian). 15 May 1931. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  3. ^ Sterling, Bruce (June 2004). "Suicide by pseudoscience". Wired. Vol. 12, no. 6.
  4. ^ Gordin, Michael D. (2012). "How Lysenkoism became pseudoscience: Dobzhansky to Velikovsky". Journal of the History of Biology. 45 (3): 443–468. doi:10.1007/s10739-011-9287-3. PMID 21698424. S2CID 7541203.
  5. ^ Caspari, E. W.; Marshak, R. E. (1965). "The Rise and Fall of Lysenko". Science. 149 (3681): 275–278. Bibcode:1965Sci...149..275C. doi:10.1126/science.149.3681.275. PMID 17838094.
  6. ^ "Yongsheng Liu «Lysenko's Contributions to Biology and His Tragedies», 2004". 30 April 2011. Archived from the original on 1 February 2009. Retrieved 8 May 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  7. ^ "Лысенко Трофим Денисович". Герои страны (in Russian). 24 October 2019. Archived from the original on 23 December 2019. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference SRSU was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference atlantic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).