I Read Stories: The Vorkuta Event
The Vorkuta Event by Ken MacLeod
Cameron, a biology student, is writing a paper on discredited theories and discovers one of the professors in the department at one time was a supporter of Lysenko*. Out of a sense of mischief he adds the papers to his references.
Professor Walker gives him a dressing down, but then the student reveals the strangeness of the timeline; that Lysenko sent him a signed copy of the infamous The Situation in Biological Science: Proceedings of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the U.S.S.R., July 31—August 7, 1948, Complete Stenographic Report. In other words Lysenko thanks him before Walker supports him.
Walker then gives the full, somewhat unlikely tale, of how, while trying to get permission to dig up fossils in the Gobi desert in 1947 he finds himself recruited by Stalin to investigate a strange ocurrance, along with Lysenko. This, it is revealed is behind Lysenko’s outrageous (and incorrect) claims.
Read This: For a deep dive into biology of the 20th century that is also a horror story
Don’t Read This: If you don’t care about an outlandish explanation ofr Lysenko’s theories.
* Lysenko, a real historical biologist, promoted agricultural and biological theories which are nonsense yet were promoted in the Soviet Union for political reasons.
Cameron, a biology student, is writing a paper on discredited theories and discovers one of the professors in the department at one time was a supporter of Lysenko*. Out of a sense of mischief he adds the papers to his references.
Professor Walker gives him a dressing down, but then the student reveals the strangeness of the timeline; that Lysenko sent him a signed copy of the infamous The Situation in Biological Science: Proceedings of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the U.S.S.R., July 31—August 7, 1948, Complete Stenographic Report. In other words Lysenko thanks him before Walker supports him.
Walker then gives the full, somewhat unlikely tale, of how, while trying to get permission to dig up fossils in the Gobi desert in 1947 he finds himself recruited by Stalin to investigate a strange ocurrance, along with Lysenko. This, it is revealed is behind Lysenko’s outrageous (and incorrect) claims.
Read This: For a deep dive into biology of the 20th century that is also a horror story
Don’t Read This: If you don’t care about an outlandish explanation ofr Lysenko’s theories.
* Lysenko, a real historical biologist, promoted agricultural and biological theories which are nonsense yet were promoted in the Soviet Union for political reasons.
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