Levins & Lewontin on Lysenko, was Re: Cuban cows

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Levins & Lewontin on Lysenko, was Re: Cuban cows
by Louis Proyect
21 May 2002 19:40 UTC


>Lou, you've referred off and on to Levins & Lewontin, _The Dialectical
>Biologist_. They don't treat Lysenko at all like this. See Chapter 7,
>"The Problem of Lysenkoism." There were many elements involved, and it
>was no matter of mere quackery.
>
>Carrol

Yes, of course. There is another side to Lysenko. In fact Stephen Jay Gould
treats him with considerable respect in one of his essays although I can't
remember the technical details.

^^^^^^^

CB: As I understand it, Lysenko's theory ran afoul, somewhat, of the fundamental biological dogma against the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Theories of inheritance of acquired characteristics are sometimes termed LaMarckian.

Cloning as a method of breeding an individual organism with particularly desirable characteristics is not LaMarckian, as long as the characteristics that one seeks to reproduce in the clones are inherited and were not acquired during the life time of the organism which is the "stud".