Loren Graham is Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The ways that politics, religion, cultural norms, and ideologies of
all kinds distort science is at the heart of Lysenko’s Ghost. Those
ideologies can alter our interpretation of facts and reshape our
understanding of natural events.
*Technology Review*
Graham has delivered an account of one of the most infamous and
important, yet least-known episodes in twentieth-century
science—one on which he is the leading scholar.
*Edward O. Wilson*
This book adds valuable new insights into the current debates
concerning elements of the newly emerging field of epigenetics and
its connections to the older debates about the inheritance of
acquired characteristics, especially in the context of Russia and
the theories of Lysenko. Graham is in command of the materials
throughout and in many cases he is one of the few who knows the
materials at hand.
*Everett Mendelsohn, Harvard University*
A thoughtful, historically grounded, and engaging commentary on
current Russian perspectives on Lysenko and his legacy in the
context of recent developments in epigenetics and Russian politics
and culture.
*Daniel Todes, Johns Hopkins University*
Graham’s book is a timely and important antidote to the idea that
everything that is not mainstream heredity is Lysenkoism.
*Science*
[Graham’s] survey of the terrifying milieu in which Lysenko thrived
includes a discussion of the eugenics movement in the Soviet Union,
and the short book thus encompasses two major types of threat to
the integrity of scientific inquiry: institutional interference
from without and political infection from within. The latter
threat, in particular, is ever present…Graham’s survey of
Lysenkoism and eugenics in Soviet Russia contains important lessons
about threats to the health of science.
*Wall Street Journal*
Graham offers a sweeping history of the concept of inheritance of
acquired characteristics as it shaped, and was shaped by,
philosophy and politics in the 19th and 20th century. The book
highlights how the scientific process can be imperiled when
political objectives—here, Lysenko’s goals for demonstrating that
environmental conditions can induce heritable biological change—are
prioritized over experimental design and data analysis.
*Choice*
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