Letter to the editor

TrV-Nauka contains an article by V.I., Doctor of Biological Sciences from Moscow State University. Muronets [1] with criticism of the book by L.A. Zhivotovsky (incomparably milder than the devastating analysis of this anti-scientific work by E.I. Kolchinsky, director of the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the website of the Commission on Pseudoscience under the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences [2] ). In this article V.I. Muronets twice refers to my 1989 book “Power and Science,” but allows a free interpretation of my statements about the agricultural method of vernalization, proposed in 1929–1930 by the then simple agronomist T.D. Lysenko.

Dr. Muronets writes that the failure of vernalization was explained by me and Zhivotovsky by the incorrect execution of experiments by peasants in “hut-laboratories”, and writes: “... Zhivotovsky associates practical failures with non-compliance with agricultural technology by illiterate peasants, and Valery Soifer with the incorrect conduct of experiments by the same peasants. It’s not for me to judge who is right” (p. 12). This statement about my assessment of vernalization is erroneous. I presented in the book, firstly, the results of a five-year vernalization test, completed in 1935, at 54 experimental stations located throughout the USSR. In a study led by the largest plant breeder, Academician of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences P.N. Konstantinov (head of the department of the Timiryazev Academy, who led the experimental network of the USSR), vernalization was checked using strictly formulated and scientifically based methods (and not with the participation of “illiterate peasants”).

The results of vernalization were tested against 35 varieties, and it was clearly established that this method does not increase wheat yields, despite Lysenko’s promises (including personally to Stalin in the Kremlin) that vernalization would produce more grain in the country as a whole by 30 to at least 10 % from each hectare.

Secondly, in the book I cited derogatory criticism of the imperfection and simply absurdity of Lysenko’s proposal on vernalization by such prominent Russian scientists as P.I. Lisitsin, A.A. Sapegin, N.M. Tulaikov, and others (chapters 4–5 and 9). The book stated that vernalization is not used anywhere in the world under economic conditions, and now it is not even mentioned.

Just as Lysenko’s “theory of stage development” and any of his other proposals do not exist in world science - ultra-high-speed breeding of varieties in two or three years, summer planting of potatoes, “marriage for love”, the benefits of releasing chickens into the fields so that they pecking out weevils, or shoveling the soil throughout the country in the spring by collective farmers to “revive the microbes in it.”

One can agree with E.I. Kolchinsky, V.I. Muronets and many other specialists, that the publication of a book about L.A. Lysenko. Zhivotovsky is only opportunistic and not scientific in nature.

V.N. Soifer,
Honored Professor of the University. George Mason (USA), honorary professor of Moscow State University, Kazan, Rostov universities and the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and member of several other academies

1. V. Muronets. Timely incorrect book about Lysenko // TrV-Nauka. No. 24 (168), December 2, 2014.
2. http://klnran.ru/2014/11/kolchinsky-o-knige-neizvestny-lysenko