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Article ID: CBB127467717

Mendel Lives: The Survival of Mendelian Genetics in the Lysenkoist Classroom, 1937–1964 (2015)

Peacock, Margaret (Author)

Science and Education
Volume: 24
Issue: 1
Pages: 101-114

URI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-013-9667-5

DOI: 10.1007/s11191-013-9667-5

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Encyclopedias and dictionaries Textbooks Curriculum change Science education and teaching Mendelism; Mendelian inheritance Authoritarianism; totalitarianism Science and politics Genetics 20th century Soviet Union Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich

The demise of Soviet genetics in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s has stood for many as a prime example of the damage that social and political dogmatism can do when allowed to meddle in the workings of science. In particular, the story of Trofim Lysenko’s rise to preeminence and the fall of Mendelian genetics in the Soviet Union has become a lasting testament to the dangers of state power and a seemingly blatant manifestation of totalitarianism in practice. In recent years, historians have begun to complicate this story. The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which this conventional account of state power in Soviet biology, symbolized by the disappearance of Mendel, still holds true. Using middle school textbooks, encyclopedias, and pedagogical journals that were published between 1934 and 1964 this article argues that despite its efforts, the state apparatus was functionally incapable of eradicating genetics from its schools.

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Article Erik L. Peterson; Kostas Kampourakis (2015) The Paradigmatic Mendel at the Sesquicentennial of “Versuche über Pflantzen-Hybriden”: Introduction to the Thematic Issue. Science and Education (pp. 1-8). unapi

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