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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 8, July 27th, 1949.

Once More Into The Breach ... — Lysenko Hits London

page 5

Once More Into The Breach ...

Lysenko Hits London

The import of the Lysenko controversy is more and more stirring the British scientific world, although the Press rage has subsided somewhat. The social implications of the Soviet biological theories are also receiving deep attention among all progressive people here.

Last night I attended a symposium, on the controversy addressed by three prominent scientists and I should say there were over 600 people present—including Professor Haldane. I see there is another meeting to-morrow night at Clerkwell Green.

The occasion of the meeting last night was the recent arrival from Moscow of a 631-page book entitled "The Situation in Biological Science"—the English translation of the proceedings of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the USSR held last August. This book may well go down in history as the most important book in biology since Darwin's "Origin of Species." Typical of the Soviet Union, it is being published in enormous numbers and the English edition is available here at the low price of 9/6.

Social Implications

The first speaker was Dr. Alan Morton, a plant physiologist. He pointed out that last year's Conference was only the crowning point of a 20-year-old controversy, that the 700 scientists present were specialists and experts in their own fields—biology, agronomy, etc.—and that they were not ignorant of classical genetical theory, having in fact all been trained in it. Further, they almost all realised the social significance of the questions they were discussing. The world faces something of a crisis in agriculture and food production—particularly the capitalist world. With Socialism firmly established in the Soviet Union the order of the day is now "On to Communism." Communism requires the full satisfaction of all our material requirements and the key to this problem is agriculture. This problem the USSR faces with confidence and Dr. Morton contrasted the pessimism of a recent American book "Road to Survival" with the optimism permeating the report of the' Lenin Academy proceedings.

Attack On Chromosomes

Dr. Percy Brian, a micro-biologist, then went on to the [unclear: hrt] of the technical problem. The likeness between parent and offspring Has been attributed to the passage of genetical material-genes. Modem geneticists do not say that genes wholly determine the character of the organism which is the product of the interaction of genes and environment. But all say that environment has no effect on the gene itself. He then emphasised the interconnection of phenomena, that modern science finds itself, dealing with processes, not things, that cell metabolism is a constant flux and interchange of material and asked if the assumption that such genes, like surging rocks in a moving ocean, did not seem a little strange. The Conference report showed the existence of a tremendous body of experimental evidence supporting Lysenko well known to the scientists participating but not known here. It was found that stock and scion inter-effect each other and a proportion of the seed of one carries on the effect. Plants were "trained" by changes of environment affecting their various stages—by such means a spring wheat with 28 chromosomes became a winter wheat with 42 chromosomes—in a discrete step with no intermediate stage. If experimentation is carried on in the right way environmental changes can become hereditary. Hereditary transmission of environmental effects do not take place of course in an absolute way.

Brian questioned whether heredity is a product of chromosomes or of the whole protoplasm, and mentioned that Geoffrey and Schroeder of the USA had produced some very damaging criticism of the former. He said that there were two attitudes among geneticists here:
(1)Rejected the Soviet views as having no supporting facts.
(2)Accepted changes due to environment but only in a random way—X-rays, violent chemicals, etc.—and not adaptive.

(Haldane later in discussion ran through a whole list of environmental changes which western geneticists had shown produced heredity changes—water, oxygen, etc., as well as X-rays, etc.—and asked where was the western assumption that environment has no effect on the genes.)

Others suggested that chromosomes are not in the genes but throughout the protoplasm. Although there is here a slight convergence of Lysenko and the classicalists the basic difference remains.

Brian then dealt with some relevant aspects of micro-biology. An important practical problem here is the training of micro-organisms to resistance to drugs. Gale experimented with micro-organisms in relation to resistance to penicillin and found discontinuous change that cannot be explained by selective mutation. Flenschelwood of Oxford found certain effects which could be explained better as a direct effect on the organism and not by chromosome theory. Auxiliary hypotheses to the chromosome theory may enable present theories to be bolstered but they become more and more obstruse and less and less a useful guide to future investigation and an explanation of observed facts.

The Russians admit that much remains to be done and that Lysenko has not a fully cut-and-dried theory to replace the old, but this is never so with new theories.