>>> debsian at pacbell.net 02/07/01 12:55AM >>>
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 ?
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debsian: Heh, only half?
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CB: Actually this one is not that bad. Helena Sheehan discusses Lysenko in the context of the interaction of Soviet scientists and British scientists , and gives bio sketches of J.D. Bernal ( who Justin mentions), JBS Haldane, and Chrisopter Caudwell.
By the way, the article reminds that Lysenko sort of had an early post-modernist theoretical position in biology. Lysenko was arguing anti-genetic determinism, and a form of voluntarism. People don't usually equate Stalinist errors with post-modern-like trends, rather the opposite.
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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