American Lysenkoism

From American Medical Lysenkoism by Gary Levy.  Captures a thought I have been having over the past couple of years.

We clearly have had increasing evidence over the past six years of epistemic authoritarianism.  Increasing numbers of institutions are attempting to impose a worldview and suppress speech and research which contradicts that worldview.  This is most apparent in regard to Covid-19 but the dynamic is visible across the board.  

Other examples of imposed orthodoxy include the various manifestations of the transgender agenda, Critical Race Theory, Social Justice orthodoxies, DEI, ESG, Climate Alarmism, Keynesianism, etc.  This is on tip of the normal, but possibly increasing, level of political lying, erroneous reporting, malicious Machiavellianism, etc.  

This efforts to impose one truth, centrally determined, is enormously destructive.  The example from the modern era is Lysenkoism from the Soviet Union.  

Lysenkoism (Russian: Лысенковщина, romanized: Lysenkovshchina, IPA: [lɨˈsɛnkəfɕːʲɪnə]; Ukrainian: лисенківщина, romanized: lysenkivščyna, IPA: [lɪˈsɛnkiu̯ʃtʃɪnɐ]) was a political campaign led by Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko against genetics and science-based agriculture in the mid-20th century, rejecting natural selection in favour of a form of Lamarckism, as well as expanding upon the techniques of vernalization and grafting. In time, the term has come to be identified as any deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable.

More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the Soviet campaign to suppress scientific opponents. The president of the Soviet Agriculture Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, who had been Lysenko's mentor, but later denounced him, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed. Research and teaching in the fields of neurophysiology, cell biology, and many other biological disciplines were harmed or banned.

Lysenkoism was a contributor to the mass starvation from agricultural failures and famine in 1930s Soviet Union resulting in the loss of several million lives.  

The attempt in the US over the past two years to establish a single, centrally determined, Covid-19 truth paired with a coordinated effort to suppress dissonant views, restrict speech, enforce punishments (firings and social stigmatization, and so on).  The parallel with Lysenkoism has become increasing obvious as it has become increasingly clear that the already suspect policies and centrally determined truths were indeed flat out wrong.  

Useful to see someone else pointing out the parallel.