Monday, March 14, 2005

Lysenko rides again

This is nuts -- Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens They seem to think that teaching creationism is going to be the magic bullet that turns the US into a Christian Right country and destroys those dastardly librrulls once and for all.
"To fundamentalist Christians, [Baptist minister] Fox said, the fight to teach God's role in creation is becoming the essential front in America's culture war. The issue is on the agenda at every meeting of pastors he attends. If evolution's boosters can be forced to back down, he said, the Christian right's agenda will advance. "If you believe God created that baby, it makes it a whole lot harder to get rid of that baby," Fox said. "If you can cause enough doubt on evolution, liberalism will die." . . . "Creationism's going to be our big battle. We're hoping that Kansas will be the model, and we're in it for the long haul," Fox said."
Yeah -- like Russia thought that so-called peasant genius Lysenko was going to solve all their agricultural problems because he was just SUCH a good communist.
"In December 1929, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave a famous speech elevating "practice" above "theory", elevating the judgment of the political bosses above that of the scientists and technical specialists. Though the Soviet government under Stalin gave much more support to genuine agricultural scientists in its early days, after 1935 the balance of power abruptly swung towards Lysenko and his followers. Lysenko was put in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union and made responsible for ending the propagation of "harmful" ideas among Soviet scientists. Lysenko served this purpose faithfully, causing the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists and the demise of genetics throughout the Soviet Union. This period is known as Lysenkoism." It was 35 years before Lysenko was repudiated.

No comments: