>>4931615No? It's not like the average American was particularly smarter than the average Russian by the mid-20th century, if anything it was probably the opposite. It's just totalitarian systems let fuck ups become a lot bigger when they occur.
>pic related, how fucking stupid were people to trust this guy?Lysenko was a peasant who offered up a practical means that promised to increase crop yields whereas his enemies were all cosmopolitan Jews who offered notting of practical value. Why trust a Jew over an honest peasant?
>>4931669There were experiments and they were "successful", crop yields did "increase" apparently if you trust the data. Replication is still an issue in science today, there's all kinds of bogus ideas in psychology and such that are well accepted but are as replicable as Lysenkos work. Polemics always play a role and theories are surly being surprised even today if they thread on vested interests.
>>4932238Lamarckism is just the notion that characteristics acquired during a lifetime can be passed on to the offspring (which actually has some truth to it e.g. epigenetics, retroviruses, etc). Darwin never totally rejected this notion if you actually read his work but he always believed that natural selection was the primary force that formed all species not some form of "conscious" self-direction.