A Problem of Loyalties

J.B.S. Haldane, Britain's leading geneticist and a staunch Communist, has been beset for some time now by a problem of basic loyalties. Should he follow the Moscow-approved genetics line of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (briefly, that environment controls the heredity of organisms)? Or should he follow the Morgan-Mendelian theory (that the genes in the reproductive cells control heredity), generally accepted outside the U.S.S.R., but formally denounced by Soviet officialdom as unscientific and un-Marxist?

In the current issue of Britain's Marxist Modern Quarterly, Professor Haldane, after some obviously painful soul-searching, has found a fairly reasonable, though notably un-Marxian answer: these is much to be said on both sides.

Detachment Is Difficult. "Ill-informed criticism" of Western genetics by party-liners, Haldane says, has made scientific detachment in this case "much more difficult"; he wryly adds that if Western geneticists actually "held the views attributed to them, they would doubtless deserve severe criticism." But he pleads also for open-mindedness on the part of the West: "It is of the utmost importance that biologists in this country should be able to appreciate both the positive and the negative elements in the views put forward by Lysenko." As a scientist, he begs both sides to assume that one of the two concepts does not necessarily rule out the other, and to work at the problem with ultimate truth as the goal.

"Until I read Lysenko's speech," he says, with a nod to the party, "I had not recognized the idealistic character of Mendel's formulation of his results." Lysenko, he argues, opened Haldane's eyes to a new refinement of the truth: "What is inherited is not a set of characters, but the capacity for reacting to the environment in such a way that, in a particular environment, particular characters are developed." Genes "exhibit a good deal of stability in their reproduction," Haldane writes, but not "complete stability, or evolution would be impossible." Parting company with Lysenko, he notes that if genes were "at the mercy of every environmental change, heredity would be impossible."

Unjustifiable Attacks. Haldane also criticizes the logic of Lysenko's followers: "We do not cease to believe in atoms," he writes, "because they can be split. Nor need we cease to believe in genes because they can be changed."

"If this discussion were merely academic," he concludes, "I might well keep out of it, as others in similar positions have done." But the scientist in Haldane had, at least temporarily, vanquished the straight party-liner, even though his stand might well get him tabbed as a deviationist. "I believe that wholly unjustifiable attacks have been made on my profession [by supporters of Lysenko], and one of the most important lessons which I have learned as a Marxist is the duty of supporting my fellow workers. We are not infallible, but we certainly do not hold many of the opinions . . . attributed to us."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.