Trofim Lysenko was a Russian celebrity born on September 29, 1898. He was a controversial agronomist known for his unorthodox agricultural theories, which rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of his own ideas. Lysenko's influence in Soviet agriculture led to significant changes in farming practices, but his methods were criticized for their lack of scientific basis. He remains a contentious figure in the history of science, representing the dangers of ideology in scientific practice.
"Agricultural practice served Darwin as the material basis for the elaboration of his theory of Evolution, which explained the natural causation of the adaptation we see in the structure of the organic world. That was a great advance in the knowledge of living nature."
"Darwinism as presented by Darwin contradicted idealistic philosophy, and this contradiction grew deeper with the development of its materialist teaching."
"Even when Darwin's teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its scientific, materialist core, its teaching concerning the evolution of living nature, was antagonistic to the idealism that reigned in biology."
"Darwin investigated the numerous facts obtained by naturalists in living nature and analysed them through the prism of practical experience."
"Progressively thinking biologists, both in our country and abroad, saw in Darwinism the only right road to the further development of scientific biology."
"And the more profoundly the science of biology reveals the laws of the life and development of living bodies, the more effective is the science of agronomy."
"Close contact between science and the practice of collective farms and State farms creates inexhaustible opportunities for the development of theoretical knowledge, enabling us to learn ever more and more about the nature of living bodies and the soil."