Two views of life have long existed in biological science. Some assert that there exists an immutable hereditary substance that is unaffected by the external environment. Essentially, such a view (which represents the position of Weismann) is identical to the belief that life did not develop from non-living matter.

A different view is held by the doctrine of neo-Lamarckism. According to this doctrine, external influences change the characteristics of an organism, and these acquired characteristics are inherited.

If a scientist finds that 95% of plants perish in an experimental planting, he says: nothing can be done, the case is hopeless.

That is what the books teach. But one should pay attention not to the 95% that perished but to the 5% that survived, that consequently acquired new characteristics. There you have your servants of science.

Lysenko is an empiricist; he does not get along well with theory. This is his weak side. I tell him: what kind of organizer are you if you, as President of the Agricultural Academy, cannot organize a majority behind you?

The majority of biological science is against Lysenko. They support those trends that are fashionable in the West. This is a remnant of the situation in which Russian scientists, considering themselves pupils of European science, felt they had to blindly follow Western science and treated every word from the West with servility.

The Morganist-Mendelists are bought people. They consciously use their science to support theology.

Note

In 1948, Yu.A. Zhdanov held the post of head of the science sector of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the CC. He later recounted his disagreement with Stalin's position on biology, which led to consequences when he gave a lecture at the Polytechnic Museum criticizing aspects of Lysenko's approach. Stalin responded sharply at a Politburo meeting, but in the end, by summer 1952, he gave instructions to Malenkov to "liquidate Lysenko's monopoly in biological science" and to bring Lysenko's opponents into the VASKHNIL presidium.