This is a nice 1-hr Nova special (1974) on Lysenkoism based on David Joravsky book, “The Lysenko Affair” (1970). Anyone unaware of the story ought to watch this. It has implications for the formation of “ideologies,” or sets of beliefs shared and promoted by groups for advancing their interests*.
The film shows a mentality sometimes adopted by the American public. The mentality has a clear disdain for the scientific method and favors “holistic” approaches. It is outwardly not scientific except for those who have little understanding of science. Thus, it is not as much pseudoscience as it is unscience.
Unscience may threaten the health of an authoritarian system. Under Stalinism, as illustrated in the film, it was easy for those against science to gain power. However, unscience is so easily spotted that it poses little threat to science today. The bigger threat is pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience does not manifest as a clear disdain for scientific methods. It mimics the methods of science. Pseudoscience allows empiricists to take phenomena as evidence for a theory without the theory actually testing falsifiable predictions—only giving the appearance of doing so. Cherry picking, imprecise applications of models, and misinterpretations of data are hallmarks.
Pseudoscience is found in fields where “general theory” is divorced from empirical work. This allows theorists to build theoretical paradigms without actually providing falsifiable hypotheses to test. Empiricists buy into these paradigms because they allow major claims and publications in flashy journals with little effort.
In fields where pseudoscience has spread, there are two main ways to break free of its dogma. The first is to appeal to a broader scientific audience. The second is to appeal to philosophers or sociologists of science.
My own field of social evolution is strongly affected by pseudoscience. My first attempt to correct the dogma spoke to those in my field. Experiencing censorship, I then appealed to evolutionists more generally. However, those outside my field deferred to experts within it, leading to censorship again. Therefore, I am now working on two papers in the sociology and philosophy of science. The first talks about the incentives of science and how to fix them. The second traces the origin of a pseudoscientific paradigm in the field of social evolution and explains how to replace it.
Vavilov, at an early stage, had a chance to speak up against Lysenko. Instead of refuting Lysenko’s pseudoscience, Vavilov played a political game. However, this only fueled Lysenko’s rise to power. With a bit of self-reflection, I can see that I played a political game. Instead of calling people out on their pseudoscience, I gave others the opportunity to defer to facts and evidence and abandon their pseudoscience quietly. I played a political game because those whose ideologies I questioned were in positions of power. I tried not to offend them, and this allowed them to censor my work.
Ultimately, Lysenko became the director of genetics and Vavilov’s superior. When Vavilov finally took a stand against Lysenko, Lysenko accused him of agricultural sabotage. Vavilov was then force-marched 600 miles from Moscow to Saratov. He became desperately ill and his family, living in Saratov, was not notified of his presence. Vavilov died on January 25 1943 in prison.
Vavilov’s tale inspires me. Vavilov stood up to defend science, knowing the possible consequences. In contrast, there is no threat of secret police knocking on my door. Whatever negative consequences I might experience will be trifling in comparison.
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*What is “ideology?” From Joravsky’s “The Lysenko Affair, pp. 2-3:”
We can define ideology most briefly as the supposedly rational beliefs shared by a group only because they are members of that group.
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When we call a belief “ideological,” we are saying at least three things about it: although it is unverified or unverifiable, it is accepted as verified by a particular group, because it performs social functions for that group.
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Ideology, then, is unacknowledged dogma that serves social functions. The main purpose of scholarly analysis is to discover the function. The concept of ideology is the analogue in sociology to the concept of rationalization in psychology, only it is much more disruptive to social harmony…Ideology is one of those nasty terms, lie exploitation or aggression, that threaten to poison the well of rational discourse yet cannot be avoided, for there are nasty aspects of human affairs that must be named. It should be used only when rigorous investigation has showed that a group accepts dogmas as rationally verified knowledge. Until then, we should use neutral terms like “beliefs…”
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If subjects feign belief out of fear of their rulers, the subjects are hypocrites or liars and the rulers are ideologists…Widespread subtle hypocrisy presents a special problem…it is the hazy border between ideology and mendacity.
Joravsky, David (1970) The Lysenko Affair. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.