Article ID: CBB324516660

A Controversial Idea as a Cultural Resource: the Lysenko Controversy and Discussions of Genetics as a ‘democratic’ Science in Postwar Japan (2015)

unapi

The Japanese discussion of the theory of Soviet agronomist Trofim D. Lysenko began in the postwar years under the American occupation. Leftists introduced Lysenko’s theory immediately after the war as part of a postwar scientists’ movement. Unlike many American geneticists, who sharply criticized the theory, Japanese geneticists initially participated in the discussion in an even-handed way; their scientific interests in the roles of cytoplasm and the environment in heredity shaped their initial sympathetic reaction. As the Cold War divide deepened, however, Japanese scientists began expressing sharp anti-Lysenko criticisms that resembled the American criticisms. Interestingly, throughout the period, Japanese geneticists’ overall aim in the discussion remained largely unchanged: to effectively reconstruct their discipline and maintain its proper image and authority. However, the shift in their reaction occurred due to an evolving sociopolitical context, especially the shift in the meaning of ‘democratic’ science from a science that employed democratic processes to a science of a liberal-democratic state. Regarding Lysenko’s idea as a cultural resource could help to explain how and why it was treated differently in different places, and why a controversy emerged in certain contexts but not in others.

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Authors & Contributors
de Jong-Lambert, William
Vezzosi, Elisabetta
Wolfe, Audra Jayne
Saito, Hirofumi
Roll-Hansen, Nils
Bini, Elisabetta
Concepts
Science and politics
Genetics
Cold War
Biology
Controversies and disputes
Science and ideology
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
19th century
Places
Soviet Union
United States
Europe
Poland
Moscow (Russia)
Russia
Institutions
Genetics Society of America
Rockefeller Foundation
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