Trofim Lysenko was the Director of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the 1930s under Josef Stalin. He was a fierce critic of modern genetic theory, and instead advocated the theory that characteristics acquired by plants during their lives could be inherited by later generations stemming from the changed plants. In other words, if you grafted a branch from one tree onto another, the offspring of that tree would have the hybrid properties of the two trees. Similarly, if you, for example, pulled all the leaves off a shrub it’s descendants would be similarly leafless. A fascinating, internally logical, and very intuitive theory. Unfortunately, it was complete nonsense.
At this time in scientific theory Mendelian genetics had been accepted by the broader scientific community. Mendelian inheritance - the core of this genetics theory - was initially introduced in the work of Gregor Mendel published in 1865 and 1866 and was then rediscovered (as it were) in the early 1900’s. It was initially very controversial as most paradigm shifts in science are, but when the theories were integrated with those of Thomas Morgan in 1915, they became the beginning of what we now know as modern genetic theory.
So, we must ask our self, why did Lysenko receive the attention he did? 20 years after the foundations of genetics had been laid bare for the scientific community Lysenko, a peasant farmer, rose to prominence in the USSR by flatly contradicting what most scientists took as writ. The answer, as I have discussed before, lies in political bias.
Lenin, a monster by all accounts, also introduced the term “politically correct”, meaning of course that the standards of truth were variable and ultimately politically malleable. Something was true if the party decreed it. This was the first, central idea of the communist regime; the State was God.
Second, a popular idea in Marxist ideology is that man is, in his entirety, a product of his class and social environment. Although there is some truth to the notion that we are products of our environment and upbringing our propensity to be reinforced by our environment is a product of our genetic makeup. Marxist intellectuals, however, did not wish to allow people the freedom (as it were) to naturally select their own behaviour, instead a man must be entirely at the whim of his environment.The idea was simple. if they could force people to adopt the moral and practical applications of socialism then the offspring of those first generation would be genetically predisposed to such collectivisation and subjugation at the hand of the state. A beautiful theory, and very appealing to Marxist leaders who, privately, must have realised the difficulty (or impossibility, as we now know) in maintaining their world indefinitely.
So what has this little trip down history lane have to do with behaviour change and modern psychology? Well modern psychology has been broadly lucky. We have not been subject to the political pressures some modern sciences have (i’m thinking climate science). We are under little pressure, as it were, to agree with modern intellectuals and prop up ailing philosophical movements.
Except there is one aspect of modern psychology that IS under this pressure.
In a sense, it is our Original Sin, our ultimate flaw. You see - as you may have heard - we are unfailingly irrational. Much like the area of climate change (and all it’s difficulties and judgements) has been seized upon by political opportunists on both the left and right so too has the idea that we are (now famously) “Predictably Irrational”.
Yes, we are flawed. To the core. We are incapable of making rational decisions and, as such, must be hand-walked through life by our benevolent leaders. It’s the vogue idea of the radical political leaders who, with apparent benevolence, wish only to relieve us of the burden of freedom. I’ve talked about this before so I won’t dwell, but consider how Lysenkoism may inform this interesting leap to irrationality.
It’s patently clear that we are not predictably irrational - not only does our social, economic, political and environmental world withstand the day to day activity of billions of people who (apparently) should be making irrational decisions, but when you actually look at these experiments (and I have) you find results that say something along the lines of “46% made the wrong choice”. An alarmingly high number, perhaps, but let us not forget 54% chose correctly. Are we supposed to write them off? Why did they choose correctly and the others didn’t?
I propose that we are not definitively doomed to make illogical choices, but are in fact capable of learning how to make rational decisions - we may learn rationality (an idea common in the time of Plato and Aristotle, but apparently forgotten today).
Yet I ask, have you ever tried to convince a psychologist of this? Our political leaders have seemingly decided that their constituents are morons (Gordon Brown calling a woman bigoted, the way Labour Party allow self serving unions to dictate terms to workers, the way Conservatives seem chronically incapable of listening to constituent complaints) and so have lapped up (as a post hoc rationalisation) the idea that we are predictably irrational. It may not surprise you that funding is directed towards those who can - in novel and interesting ways - show why people are incapable of living on their own and need a new social program to help them.
Lysenkoism is still alive in many ways, more as a methodology than a specific idea. Psychologists are pressured to continue lines of research that reinforce the politically correct opinion that people are incapable of making appropriate choices and that the solutions are almost always expansions of government provisions in some way. To suggest the alternative is to be labelled a denier, an extremist or - shock - a Libertarian!
Obviously not all psychologists, funders or politicians are corrupt or malicious. We are all doing the best we can with what we have. I am not saying there is a direct - soviet style - conspiracy to cover up the truth, merely the interaction of conflicting interests between the slave and the master (or, if you prefer, the beggar and the purse-holder). I’d caution you, in whatever line of work you partake, to keep an eye out for Lysenkoism. Never accept a truth, simply because the authority above you has said it. Be critical, skeptical and active-minded and you won’t go far wrong.
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