Lynsenkoism? a/k/a Lysenkoism

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Tue Feb 6 21:55:51 PST 2001


CB: I don't have any illusions about this. Read up on it in _The Dialectical Biologist_ by Marxist biologists Levins and Lewontin, and maybe you will lose some of your confusion. Half the URL you put out are by crackpots. Is this one one of those ?

Heh, only half? Nah, that URL http://www.dcu.ie/~comms/hsheehan/lysenko.htm was offered in all seriousness. My reading up on science topics could use some encouragement, btw. (I have to suppress a chuckle when I see quantitative articles in the AJS or APSR in Soc. or Political "Science" belaboring the obvious behind loads of the higher math. Of what use was that stuff to a Mills, Merton or Dahl? Though if I could understand P. Sraffa... http://cs.muohio.edu/Archives/hes/sep-1999/0037.html hmm, Witgenstein & Sraffa...well what the hey cf. "Wittgenstein and Marxism, " edited by Gavin Kitching http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/politics/staffnames/kitching.htm His book, "Rethinking Socialism, " was a good read.) Besides Levins & Lewontin, who I haven't read, offhand I can only think of Stephen Jay Gould as on the left. Any recommendations, lbo'ers on science writers who are lefties? As a kid, I loved a book, "Mathematics for the Millions, " which I gather was written by a Popular Frontist in the 40's. And Verso (?) has a new bio of J.B.S. Haldane. Michael Pugliese



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