Since 1948 Academician Trofim D. Lysenko has dominated the biological and agricultural sciences of the Soviet Union. His theory that plants can be changed fundamentally by changing their environments was scoffed at by the world's geneticists, but it had a strong appeal to his wishfully-thinking bosses. Backed by political favor, Lysenko gained so much power that his word was close to law. Scientists who opposed him were thrown out of their positions. Some disappeared.
Last week Lysenko himself seemed on the way out. Pravda, speaking with the full authority of the Communist Party, told...
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