The Absolute Worst Scientist Of All Time - And Why He’s Popular Again

Few scientists have caused more death and suffering than Trofim Lysenko. He was a Soviet botanist whose ideas around genetics (i.e., he didn’t believe in it) led to massive famines across multiple decades when Josef Stalin promoted his ideas across the country. And yet… He’s becoming popular again. Why? Let’s look at it.

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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
1:50 - The Great Purge
4:38 - Trofim Lysenko
6:45 - Trofim's Beliefs
9:50 - The Beginning of the End of Lysenko
12:45 - Epigenetics
15:00 - Sponsor - Brilliant

[vanadyan]

My Mom used the starving people in Africa line once, I asked her to name two of them and got my ass beat. Good times.

[TheWanderingFire]

My father *was* a starving kid - he barely survived the Hunger Winter in the Netherlands during WWII, so when we didn't want to eat what was placed before us, we would get a lecture about his rickets and eating nothing but the cores of cabbages and tulip bulbs. There was literally no way to compromise - dinner stayed on the plate until you finished it.

[mastergecko]

My grandfather lived through the great famine in China, he told me that there were no birds in the sky and you won’t hear any crickets, frogs or cicadas during summer nights because people ate all of them or else they’d starve to death. There were also dead trees everywhere since people started eating the tree barks when they run out of stuff like rats and bugs to eat, those were some harrowing times.

[tealkerberus]

When I was a kid it was "starving children in Africa" and I more than once asked "so why don't you send this to them?"
No useful answer, just more bad parenting and shaming.

[tkengathegrateful]

A friend of mine used to say "Drink up, there are children sober in Europe!"

[ElizabethVass]

I live in Kazakhstan, it's refreshing to hear someone even mention the tragedy of famine in post Soviet counties. Thanks for spreading the word

[mypetmilkfly]

I read about the chinese famine in the book Wild Swans. The author was a child in china at the time. She talks about the horrific things her parents witnessed and how even though they were well off for the time, her parents still starved themselves to keep the children full. The things that happened during that famine were appalling

[jladdyost]

Cows treated well do give more milk, in addition to having to have good genes and good food and clean water. About planting crops too close together, there is a farmer saying: "A given crop is its own worst weed."

[alexanderstone]

The fact that Lysenko is popular again demonstrates the extent to which Russia has fallen victim to its own propaganda. He demonstrably set back Soviet agriculture decades, caused it to become a net importer of food when it could have been either food secure or an exporter. We know that because Russia right now is a net exporter of food, or at least they were prior to the Invasion of Ukraine, I dunno if they still are. It goes without saying that they benefited enormously from that. Thus there is no rational political reason for trying to rehabilitate Lysenko. Not even as a means of destabilizing the west, since he was always ignored there.

[pjmlegrande]

Lysenko was a pseudo scientist. An example of the kind of horror that ideological rigidity enforced by violence will produce. Stalin liked him. That’s all that mattered

[debbiehenri]

My mother used the 'Starving children in Africa' version.
It wasn't that I didn't like the food she made, it was the quantity she put on the plate, starting the threats when I was so full I felt sick.
It didn't matter how much I told her I was full, she would threaten to backhand me - her ringed fingers like knuckledusters. (I bet many a person on this comments section knows exactly what it's like to get a sharp engagement ring slapped across the cheek).

Looking around at the high number of partly finished kids meals in my local café, I would say that 90% of people just don't understand that a child can get by on a lot less food than they generally put on their plates.

As a consequence of my mother's bullying tactics, I decided to parent 'differently.' From the beginning, I would put just a small amount of food on my son's plate and instructed him to 'tell' me 'if' he wanted some more.
He has never had any food issues during his life so far (age 28), maintaining a good, steady average weight throughout - unlike me who has zipped up and down the scales due to crash diets and binges.

[JayHop]

My mother’s father my grandpa, who was Ukrainian escaped Soviet Union 1936 after surviving the Holodomor couple of years before.Much of his family died.Made it to America in 1938.Anyway I remember as a kid the adults talking about the Holodomor and horrific other events back then.

🇺🇸✊🇺🇦

[syriuszb]

Interesting, I live in post Warsaw Pact country, and I have never heard about "eat your food because kids in China are starving". I heard it, but not about China, but about Africa. Maybe since China was/ is communist, saying that kids are starving in China was politically dangerous, so our parents were saying it about Africa instead.
And about main topic, it is crazy, that people try to rehabilitate him. And parallels between him and current anti science/ pseudo science movement is terrifying.

[Judith_Remkes]

Africa. My mom always said kids in Africa. And there are still lots of people starving in Africa today.
OT: Can't believe I never heard of this famine before!

[TheAnon]

One thing to remember about the "wealthier farmers" is that they were just that, "wealthier" not wealthy. Maybe their small house was made of something fancy like brick or plastered wood rather than compacted earth or plain wood, roof tiles instead of straw, maybe an extra room. Excesses like that.

[richardhildreth]

My parents always said that there were starving children in Europe. I said, "Put this in a Care box and send it to them." They didn't. I don't think they really cared about them. I did. I sent Project Care a couple dollars. Not much, but I was 10 or 11.

[Emymagdalena]

The unexpected generational gap of “there are starving kids in Africa” and “there are starving kids in China.”

[McChes]

In the UK my mum used the “starving children in Africa” line. But there were actually children starving in Biafra at the time, so she kind of had a point.

[antonstezhkin]

There is a legend about Lysenko and Landau (a Soviet physicist). Landau asked "if we cut off the right ear of a horse for many generations, at some point we'll get a breed of horses born without the right ear?" Lysenko answered that was true. "And how does your theory explain virgins?" Landau replied

[sybyr]

1:29 the graph is literally sadam husseins hiding spot