It has now been now almost two years but the corona pandemic is in its ever-varying mutations are still raging all over the world, showing no sign of a respite in the immediate future. Millions have already lost their lives and much more is the number of people across the world who have lost their livelihood. Both the extension and spread of the disease is almost unparalleled. But along with the pandemic the world is drowned by unrelenting waves of an infodemic. Deliberate misinformation, ignorance, fake news and conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus and its outbreak have spread worldwide at an equal pace (if not faster) and is growing exponentially.
There is a wide section of people who consider Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown implemented by the government, all part of a greater conspiracy. The utter idiocy about covid-19 have earned such people the name “covidiots”. Some of them tell us that it is nothing new, merely the seasonal flu virus, so there is nothing in the corona virus to be afraid of. Then there are people who ‘know’ that the virus is manmade, and has its origin in a secret lab in China/ Bill Gates. There are also those people who believe that the virus is an outcome of a genetic mutation caused by the 5G bandwidth radiations. We also hear that it is the creation of the “big pharma” (the giant pharmaceutical industry) to create a world market of their pre-researched vaccine. The spectrum of these theories is stupendously wide. There are theories of “deep state” and comic-book like interpretations of the whole pandemic, whereby it has been claimed that the deep state wants to control the masses. All these theories are well entrenched and resonating in among the masses, whose reason must be sought in the common sense of the people. It is nothing but an eclectic soup of empiricism (something especially an idea is eclectic when it is chosen freely from diverse sources; an idea which appears best from diverse sources. Empiricism is a philosophy, a view that direct experience of an individual is the only source of knowledge and not the theoretical knowledge and indirect knowledge. It relies on immediate observations or experiments only, without any conceptual realization. Empiricism as a philosophy is popular among common masses, who in their daily struggle for existence are given no opportunity or time to think and hence to theorize. Disregard to theories is an essential feature of empiricism, so an empiricist knowledge of any social, biological phenomenon touches the phenomenon at the surface only, is perceptual and impressionist at its best and hence is incomplete and unscientific). Motely vulgar theories are having a free run, explaining the mechanisms and nature of society. Things get utterly unfortunate when such “unread”, “amazed” empiricists find themselves at the tail of the masses, but come forward to claim that, people do not believe in the existence of coronavirus. But what people believe and not believe cannot be a litmus test of the existence of the coronavirus. We have such empiricists among political activists as well who see the plea of the government that the lockdown was imposed to safeguard the lives of the people by mitigating the spread of the virus, a sham and was executed to kill two birds at a time, to open up new vistas for the profit of the corporate houses on one hand, and to introduce draconian, antipeople dictatorial laws, without the fear of any popular protests. Naturally they demanded that lockdown should be immediately lifted, to save the crashing economy and to end the deprivation of the workers robbed off their livelihood. But soon the spirit of the belief in the non-existence of the virus vaporized into thin air, and they ‘realized’ the reality of the virus, and the only way out then is to remove all road blocks to usher in the stage of herd immunity. This was the view of the believers, of ‘innocent’ people acting in good faith.
The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters - Francisco Goya
But the fascists, the status quoists in favor of the antihuman establishments all over the globe raised their clamor, insisting that the virus is not real, and there is no ground for the lockdown which has adversely affected the economy. Facing wide and sharp criticism these right wingers were forced to put the foot in their mouth and started seeing the virus, inviting herd immunity, which is possible only if all sorts of restrictions are removed, was alas the way out for them. Their logic also akin to that of empiricists when they said that only old and weak people would be vulnerable if restrictions are removed, and thus for the good of the younger generation and the healthy sections of the population mitigation procedures such as lockdown should be withdrawn and to be reimposed in the future to keep the economy running. The fascists and the right-wingers lied deliberately to hide the cleavage of haves and have nots of the society, while the empiricists have nothing to blame other than their ignorance and foolishness. But the common conclusion made both the camps conspiracy theorists. It is a case of wrong analysis of the situations leading to a wrong solution for curing and mitigating the disease. But the situation continues to evolve in stages and give birth to new theories. Now we find on stage a new category of “anti-vaxxers”; a category of naturalists who are asserting that vaccination is a conspiracy. Thus, there were popular protests against masks, lockdowns, and the handling of the disease.
This absurdity was generated and nurtured by the vulgar empiricist’s philosophy, and has been lapped up by the fascists and reactionary forces to propagate their ideology. But everything changes, new empirical facts emerge, contradicting theories based on earlier primitive facts, and so soon conspiracy theory fell into adverse waters, when newer facts started disproving their theories, and forcing them to take new recourse, and mysticism enters the arena. Every conspiracy theory is bound to conceptualize the existence of some mystical, unknown power playing behind the curtains of every phenomenon. Shallow empiricism and modern spiritualism are two opposites that coexist.
As writer of ‘Dialectics of Nature’ and philosopher of natural science Engels explained that dialectical opposite of shallow empiricism is modern spiritualism: “It is not the extravagant theorising of the philosophy of nature, but the shallowest empiricism that spurns all theory and distrusts all thought. It is not a priori necessity that proves the existence of spirits, but the empirical observations of Messrs. Wallace, Crookes, and Co. If we trust the spectrum-analysis observations of Crookes, which led to the discovery of the metal thallium, or the rich zoological discoveries of Wallace in the Malay Archipelago, we are asked to place the same trust in the spiritualistic experiences and discoveries of these two scientists. And if we express the opinion that, after all, there is a little difference between the two, namely, that we can verify the one but not the other, then the spirit-seers retort that this is not the case, and that they are ready to give us the opportunity of verifying also the spirit phenomena. Indeed, dialectics cannot be despised with impunity. However great one’s contempt for all theoretical thought, nevertheless one cannot bring two natural facts into relation with one another, or understand the connection existing between them, without theoretical thought. The only question is whether one’s thinking is correct or not, and contempt of theory is evidently the most certain way to think naturalistically, and therefore incorrectly. But, according to an old and well-known dialectic law, incorrect thinking, carried to its logical conclusion, inevitably arrives at the opposite of its point of departure. Hence, the empirical contempt of dialectics on the part of some of the most sober empiricists is punished by their being led into the most barren of all superstitions, into modern spiritualism.”
In the present scenario the big pharma/ the Deep state/ Super powerful corporates are the ‘supernatural’ forces coming to the rescue of the empiricists giving explanations to the ‘inexplicable’ (the origin of the virus, the reason various measures were taken, the wonderfully accelerated pace of reaching the vaccination stage etc.), thus the ‘empirical’ explanations turned into fantastic explanations.
The problem we are posed with is actually a complicated intricate set of problems. To raise the hidden essence at the phenomenal level, we need to untangle the web and to make the different components distinct. Empiricism is prevalent in medical sciences, over the society, in politics, and has a historicity, we will illustrate the understanding of the current problem with a historical insight of an incident that occurred in Soviet Russia: Lysenkoism.
Empiricism Prevalent in Natural Science
To understand the essence of any phenomena we must penetrate the outer appearance and reach its inner structure and constitution. It is achieved when our perceptual knowledge reaches to a stage of conceptual knowledge in practice. It is only in practice that our perception deepens to generalizations, to laws, causality, inner structure, and constitution of a process i.e. to conceptual knowledge. The dish of stars in the sky over us is an apparent reality. It is the past we’re looking into. If we look at the sky with a powerful telescope it is possible that we may be looking at a star that does not exist, it might have died, but its light is still reaching us and it appears that it is still there. Even the stars we see in night sky with naked eye are in range from few light years to thousands of light-years away and it takes thousands of years for light from some stars to reach us. It takes light around eight minutes to reach earth from sun. The sun we see is around eight minutes old. The night sky is an image of the past. We reach to the stage of conceptual knowledge that our sky, window to the universe, reflects a very dynamic picture of our universe. The Special theory of relativity gave us conceptual clarity on this concept. Breeding of larvae on rotten meat leaves the impression that a new form of life grew out of it. But it is only the microorganisms or flies present already in the environment which scavenge the meat and which makes it rot. Louis Pasteur proved it, leading to Germ theory. Robert Koch concluded that diseases are caused by various germs and not by the astrological positioning of planets and stars. Before it, the Miasma theory of Galen was popular according to which the diseases are caused by foul air. The concept of purity and naturalism is still conventional in traditional medical practices like Ayurveda, Yunani medicine and Homeopathy. All of them are based on empirical observations and some pre-modern biology concepts. Many correct observations are made by these empirical practices but that does not make them conceptual science. Many conceptions of these theories stand in contradiction to modern biology. Modern Biology is the study which is one of the youngest all modern sciences. First came the discovery of cell and then germ theory, and since then, each step has reduced the mystical forces to concrete material biological causes. Modern Physics rose with the rise of the bourgeoisie during the period of Renaissance. First it was proven by Copernicus and Galileo that the model of the universe was not Ptolemaic, which stated that the earth is the center of the universe. Apparently, the sun revolves around the earth, but science is required to know that appearance is not the reality and that it is the Earth that revolves around the Sun. Then in Chemistry, the phlogiston theory was also a similar concept according to which things catch fire because of a liquid substance called phlogiston present in them. Though phlogiston theory was a step forward but alchemy still hovered around the fire, explosion, and other chemical changes. Our knowledge of the constitution of chemical substances cleared the alchemy and phlogiston theories. After physics and chemistry matured modern biology was born. And with it grew modern medicine but cobwebs of old medicinal practices are present to this day.
Theory of Evolution and genetic theory are discoveries of modern science, and we got awareness regarding them only in the 19th and 20th century. Man first gained conceptual knowledge about galaxies and earth, and then only was able to understand himself and his descent. Newton preceded Lyell and Lyell preceded Darwin. The mechanical changes on the terrestrial level and cosmological changes were conceptualized in man’s knowledge before the motion of species, which is called evolution. In this sense, modern biology is a young discipline. Vaccination too, began only after knowing the immunity and other mechanisms of the human body and actions of germs on us. Edward Jenner discovered the vaccine for small pox and later Fleming discovered first antibiotic vaccine. Germ theory was discovered by Louis Pasteur and Koch and it could have developed in the 19th century only. It demolished the theory of spontaneous generation of life. Oparin and Bernal proposed the biochemical origin of life, which was, later proven correct by experiments of Urey and Miller. Discovery of cells, the establishment of the theory of evolution, germ theory and usage of vaccines are important steps in development of human knowledge. This knowledge is the reflection of eternally moving matter on our minds and hence is always relative. There is always a horizon of the unknown and a haziness of uncertainty for human knowledge. In the dialectic of ignorance and knowledge, there remain remnants or old skin of past theories over new conceptions. In science we should not use concepts like truth and error absolutely.
Remnants of theories of past get negated in practice. Empiricism is contrary to dialectical conception of natural science in the sense that it does not understand that the knowledge grows deeper and in practice, we reach from perceptual knowledge to conceptual knowledge. The spiral of practice-knowledge-practice is unknown to empiricists. Modern science has proven that its worldview is dialectical. To be dialectical is to recongnize
unity of opposites. The unity of life and death, positive and negative, positron and electron, wave and particle all are examples of unity of opposites. But various empiricist conceptions are still persistent. As modern biology is a younger science the spots of old empiricist and metaphysical theories are still present on it. Popularity of conspiracy theories around Covid-19 is a perfect example of empiricism widespread in the common masses. If now we see the problem of Covid-19, we can easily understand the different conspiracy theories and their source of ignorance around such theories.
Covid-19 is caused by SARS Coronavirus-2 and it affects the upper respiratory system of the patient. The virus is a strain of Coronavirus. Common cold is caused by certain strains of Coronavirus, which are different from SARS Coronavirus-2. When defining a disease, we define objective statistical parameters like basic reproduction number R(o) (number of people an infected person can infect), case fatality rate, and infection fatality rate to assess the danger a disease presents. What is a virus? A virus is the genetic material in protein coating that can have a lipid coating. SARS Coronavirus-2 has protein spikes protruding through the lipid coating around protein envelope containing RNA strands. The presence of lipid coating is reason why alcohol-based sanitizers or soaps are effective against the virus. According to the genetic structure it has been predicted that the virus has zoonotic origins (which means that it has passed to humans from some non vertebrate animals) and it has species jumped to humans via an immediate host. Most probably it has jumped from source host bat. Bat virus is genetically very similar to SARS Coranavirus-2. Various genetic structure studies on the virus reject the possibility of its origin in laboratory. All evidences point towards evolution of virus via natural selection. The current state of art technology in lab does not allow such evolution to be carried out in laboratory.
Viruses do not have a metabolic mechanism and depend upon living organisms for their propagation. Genetic material inside protein envelope is either DNA or RNA, which is the material of heredity. All characteristic information of an organism is present in this genetic material. The virus attacks a multicellular organism body by entering inside the cell and makes use of the metabolism of cells to replicate itself. SARS Coronavirus-2 enters the human body and gets attached to enzyme present on human cells through its protein spikes. The immune system of our body tries to attack the virus and immune responses are triggered. There are two types of immune responses: innate and adapted. The innate response is associated with the release of certain chemicals like cytokines, which tries to kill the infected cell and thus produce a systemic response like fever. All other symptoms like runny nose, sore throat, and muscle soar are effects of our immune system’s innate response to the pathogens. Thus, symptoms of flu, common cold, and Covid-19 are similar. Empiricists postulating on phenomenal knowledge there upon declare these diseases to be identical. Empirically Covid-19 can be called a viral infection identical to flu and common cold. The reason for the common masses believing in conspiracy theories is precisely because of this reason. The various medical practitioners of Homeopathy and Ayurveda also propagate such mysticism appertaining to the different viruses. These are practices based upon empirical observations to counter diseases when the body is invaded by foreign bodies. These are symptom-based. How will it counter Covid-19? They cannot. Many medical quacks use these empirical similarities to disprove the existence of novel Coronavirus.
The second type of immunity response is called adapted immunity response. Adapted immunity responses involve lymphocyte cells and antibodies that have particular response to specific pathogen. This immunity triggers the response whenever identifies a pathogen (a foreign substance) and produces antibodies, and cells specific to them, counter these pathogens and memorize the characteristic structure, called antigen, of pathogen so to attack the virus if it enters into our body again. Adaptive immunity can be natural or artificial. Artificially adapted immunity is developed through vaccines. It is the introduction of a vaccine, which has characteristic structure of disease-causing pathogen but does not harm our body, and our immune system recognizes the characteristic structure of the pathogen and attacks the pathogen when it actually infects us. This is a very simplified picture of a very complex process, but it was necessary to understand the basics about pathogens, immunity system and vaccination. But our covidiots, including empiricists, in absence of knowledge regarding vaccine and virology or epidemiology start to sing in chorus with anti-vaxxers that vaccine is a fraud and to recover from infection we must let our natural acquired immunity to work. But this is rejection of modern biology and if anyone lauds it, he must not declare himself having scientific outlook. This is the logic they give in support for herd immunity likewise. They maintain that scientists are working for pharmaceutical corporate giants not to produce vaccines but a commodity and to secure their profits. But this does not mean that vaccination is fakery. E=mc2 was used by scientists to make nuclear bomb resulting in annihilation of lakhs of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki but that does not mean that equation is incorrect. We must differentiate the science from how this system utilizes it.
A virus is not a matter of speculation as you can observe the virus under a microscope. Sars Coronavirus-2 has also been observed under electron microscope. You can test it by testing the antigen, protein of SARS coronavirus-2, present in the body. Or through RT PCR (reverse transcript polymerase condensation reaction) test of the virus, this tests the RNA of virus in upper respiratory tract of patient. It is unique for the virus. It is an objective fact. The biological structure of the virus, which distinguishes it from other viruses, is an objective fact. But the lack of knowledge of science leads to belief in all sorts of conspiracy theories.
These theories help to put a veil over the contradictions of capitalism. The COVID-19 spread among humans is due to the destruction of the environment. The habitat of wildlife is shrinking on a large scale because of the blind and anarchic growth of industrialization and agriculture. When their habitat is destroyed virus specific to particular species of wildlife come into contact with our society. Since the time human society has come into existence, viruses have been infecting us. But the blind profit drive is the reason why such viruses have started to enter human society causing severely frequent pandemics since the 1970s. The process of a virus entering human hosts is through ‘species jump’ where a virus associated with species of wildlife encounters humans, and through genetic evolution, starts to affect humans.
In capitalism, we are cursed with frequent epidemics as capitalists try to “rule over nature like a conqueror” and on the other hand, the public health infrastructure has been dismantled and health has been made a commodity. This wrecks havoc on the poor population. The ‘angel of death’, as Engels referred to the pandemics, spreads its wings over slums but does not leave the housing of the rich also. Unable to understand this socio-ecological origin and spread of virus Covidiots claim that scientists working under Big Pharma are creating these viruses in laboratory. Empiricists also share these fantasies.
Another point to note is that, whenever scientists had to revise their analysis Covidiots celebrated that this proves that scientists are wrong. The revision of death counts in some countries or the revisions of analysis of origin of virus was ridiculed. Science does not have answer to every question and is historically conditioned by our observations. But on this uncertainty and unknown, the metaphysician comes with a fantastic explanation to it. Scientists can only answer questions with uncertainties and unknowns. This is what separates it from religion.
In the analysis of Coronavirus whenever there is an error in observation and analysis, it is used by propagandists of conspiracy theoriststo uphold that scientists are wrong. Conspiracy theorists exploit empiricism prevalent in masses and are backed by various half-cooked theories regarding genes and other scientific concepts. One version of the conspiracy theory claims that through the Covid-19 vaccine, quantum dot bots will be introduced into the body, which will control the humans. It is just a fallacious concept. It resemblant to the theory that the new 500- and 2000-Rupee currency notes in India introduced after demonetization will have nanochips to track currency through satelite! The incomprehension of Complexity leads to such absurd mystic explanations of things. This is the modern spiritualism prevalent as a shadow of empiricism.
The genetic mutation of the virus by 5G technology and other claims are impractical. But due to ignorance, these ideas always reverberate. The lack of knowledge due to empiricism is always full of mystic theories the way magic worked in the primitive era. A magical explanation has been found for the unexplained. The primitive man acted for the celestial and terrestrial phenomena and to increase the chances in hunting. Empiricism has always been followed by spiritualism as its shadow.
Furthermore, lockdown and its implementation under the profit driven capitalist system, even in liberal democracies, will always be dictatorial for the common people. Secondly, if the implementation of lockdown is not followed with testing, contact tracing, quarantine, and treatment then it will fail. Lockdown failed to control infection in many countries. The failure to control covid-19 was due to the downfall of public health services, which had been systematically destroyed in every capitalist nation to support the private sector. The failure of the public health system wrecked havoc in general. Patients of cancer, cardiovascular diseases also faced a severe health crisis. There was a mental health crisis. Indeed, these factors were absolutely aggravated during the pandemic, but the pandemic is not the source of these factors, but all these facts are merged by empiricists, and for every tragedy the lockdown was held responsible. This is a simplification of the problem by empiricists and unable to grasp the essence of pandemic they seek the shallow reason behind the various phenomena present. Yes, most certainly, Big Pharma looks for every opportunity in the pandemic to make profits. Many governments used the pandemic to pass draconian laws. Bailout packages were announced, and few capitalists made huge profits. But pandemic was not the cause of these factors. The causation is reversed here. Big Pharma will seek profit in every tragedy, Fascists and the right-wing will seek every opportunity to impose draconian laws. But to reduce the problem caused by the structural crisis of capitalism on the pandemic, in fact, gives it a clean chit. Thus, it can be seen how the narrow empiricism of Covidiots leads them to absurd conclusions.
Genetics and narrow empiricism in Lysenkoism
In USSR during socialist era a similar mistake was committed. By socialist era we mean 1917 to 1954. The Lysenko movement led to the hinderance in the study of genetics. It was made difficult to criticize the incorrect views of Lysenko. A very naïve solution to the problem in agriculture was sought by Lamarckian understanding of Lysenko, which got support from socialist state machinery in the name of criticism of reactionary philosophy in Science. But that does not shadow the great heights the Soviet science has reached. We will present a detailed critique of all these positions in another article but here we will limit ourselves to the empiricist and layman understanding of Lysenko and his ridicule of theory which must serve as a lesson for empiricists of various shades. It was a blunder to support a metaphysical empiricist theory against the correct dialectical materialist theory of change in species. This was an example of mechanist understanding prevalent in the leadership of Communist Party. The Zhadanov thesis of 1946 is an example of this mechanist trend when art works of Eisenstein, Shostakovich, Vakhtangov and others were criticized for being ‘abstract’. Overall, a tendency of production forces first and economism was prevalent in Bolshevik Party. To gain a better understanding we should briefly seek the historical setting in which Lysenkoism grew. The period when Lysenkoism grew was post-NEP and inception of collectivization movement. Famine created by hoarding of grains also put pressure on agriculture. Secondly, there was a wide gap between agriculture and industry. Agricultural surplus was utilized for industrial expansion. This was an objective limitation, as only with large scale production, socialism could have sustained. To increase the output of agricultural produce was thus an immediate objective requirement. The historical condition was the first of objective conditions which prepared the ground for the mistake of Lysenkoism.
Secondly, the conditions for agriculture are difficult in Russia geographically. In such situations any agricultural technique or theory which yields better produce will obviously gain. Lysenko utilized vernalization, grafting and hybridization to lead better agricultural produce. Vernalization is to freeze the seeds and sowing them in spring season. The word is derived from Latin- Vernum which means spring. Lysenko was experimenting with grafting of various plants. He claimed this to be following Michurin on this stand and developed a Lamarckian evolutionary theory. Lysenko’s genetic theory model was Michurin-Darwinian. The geography of Soviet Russia is very difficult for agriculture. Grafting and various techniques helped overcome this handicap. Also, the crisis of agriculture required urgent measures. Lysenko came with an immediate solution. This was the second objective condition.
Thirdly, the young generation which grew up in socialist Russia was reaching University and technical institutes. Sons and daughters of workers and peasants were at the front of socialist construction. They were reaching universities and challenging the university elite from the pre-revolutionary era. Wind of change was blowing all through the education institutes. In 1930 collectivization movement began. The situation of famine created by kulaks, need for agricultural surplus and the collectivization movement, all asked the soviet workers and peasants to stand for the socialist construction. Five year plans were initiated and a healthy socialist competition was building socialism. Lysenko was one among many peasants who responded to political situation. He was the one who took the challenge raised by conditions of agricultural crisis. Correct political response of Lysenko was the third reason for the rise of Lysenkoism.
Fourthly, the state of genetics at that moment was still in its infancy. The genetics was modeled on Morgan and Mendel’s experiments, hence called Morgan-Mendel genetics. It was the basis on which modern genetics grew. The best model of the study was Drosophila (fruit fly). The scientists associated, were ridiculed by Lysenko as theorists without practice. The genetics was still in its infancy and the experiments of the theory could only be smaller steps at that time. Various scientists of Genetics from the western world were openly racist and reasoned that the white race was genetically hierarchic to the black race. The rulers and the ruled were predetermined according to heredity. Genetics was still building castles in air and had no practical say on many questions faced by soviet economy. The crisis of agriculture required urgent measures, but genetics provided only cautions and confusion. Lysenko openly claimed that through grafting and vernalization he will increase the harvest. It was the one of major cause of the rise of Lysenkoism.
Morgan-Mendelian Genetics was presumed to be a reactionary science mainly due to its practice in west and the political positions of leading scientists of genetics. It was associated with the eugenetics which was a racist theory. An alternative Lamarckian understanding of genetics, Michurian-Darwinian was proposed by Lysenko which rejected the existence of genes. Furthermore, it was speculated that the Morgan-Mendelian genetic science was not practical and those geneticists were “fly breeders and people haters”. A narrow empiricism was the philosophical cornerstone of Lysenkoism which criticized the genetic theory by defining it as reactionary ideology. According to Lysenko, “It is better to know less, but to know just what is necessary for practice.” He used revolutionary slogans to support his theory and condemn Mendelian Morganist school for propagating reactionary philosophy. His peasant background was also used as propaganda to counter pre-revolutionary era intellectuals. Earlier healthy debate continued between Lysenkoist group and the genetic school. Whole philosophical shell to the kernel of grafting and vernalization of Lysenko was created by Prezent. Mitin rightly criticized Prezent in 1939 and asked to divide the result of agronomy of Lysenko from philosophical scholasticism of Prezent. Although the whole Lysenkoist problem is filled in academia with anti-Stalin Propaganda, anti-socialist propaganda and fake facts. Yes, a mistake was committed but not what is often claimed in academia. The so-called objective study of Loren Graham and Joravasky is also heavily biased with anti-Stalin and anti-Soviet point of view. Helena Sheehan presents an objective picture, but her analysis misses the historical analysis. Levins and Lewontin present the best analysis of the Lysenko problem claiming it a conjecture of historical, political and scientific development of that time, although their understanding of problems of socialist construction is amateurish. We will present a thorough critique of Lysenko problem in a separate article and will limit ourselves to the content of present article.
Lysenko proposed that species of grain can be altered by altering the environmental conditions. The acquired characteristics during the lifetime of a plant will be transferred to its progeny; this Lamarckian understanding that only Environment decides characteristics of the organism was the theoretical premise of Lysenko. But this is incorrect. This was an empiricist understanding of change in species. But the experiments of Lysenko were yielding results, and harvest did improve. The reason for this improvement was not a Lamarckian adaptation of the seeds, but it can be explained by multiple factors among which the primary factors were technique of grafting and vernalization. Lysenkoist position explained that the phenotype of an organism depends only on environment; while the genetics school pointed out that it depends only on the genotype. Although, the genetic school upheld that the expression of genes is only dependent on genes, but the expression is probable while Lysenko proposed deterministic solutions to the problems of speciation. On one hand, the Genetic school put emphasis only on genes and ignored the environment and on the other hand, the Lamarckian standpoint of Lysenko put emphasis only on the environment but rejected the existence and influence of genes. Both of the standpoints were incorrect, but genetics school was less erroneous than Lamarckian school. Genes primarily decide the phenotype, but environment provides condition for its development. Secondly, while genetic school was probabilistic and never cared to explain the probabilistic nature of its origin rather claimed it to be an intrinsic property. It put more emphasis on ‘contingency’. Lysenko’s theory was deterministic and emphasized on ‘necessity’. The dialectic of necessity and contingency was broken. The debates between Lysenko and Genetic school became a public topic. Workers’ magazines were debating both theories. Lysenko was winning the narrative because he responded to a political question and claimed that he can end the agricultural crisis. Contrary to the claims of academia and media Lysenko never was supported by state machinery because of his theory during Great Purge. In Great Purge, people both from Lysenkoist and the Genetic school side were persecuted for conspiracy against state and not for their biological standpoint. Only in 1948 after the Second World War and the announcement of the cold war, ‘wrong’ Genetics was condemned, and Lysenko was made the head of agronomical institute and Genetics institute of academy of science. Again, contrary to the claims of academia, research in genetics continued but with Lysenko as the head of the agronomical and genetic studies. Research on genetics was Lysenkoist i.e. Michurian Darwinian and not Morgan-Mendelian. This was incorrect standpoint of the party. The understanding contradicts the understanding of soviet union leader Lenin, who said that we must differentiate between the philosophical point of view of a scientist and his scientific theory. It is an important lesson which we must keep a note of, as Lenin was very clear on how we should treat the theory of natural science and philosophical position of scientists concerned. Lenin emphasized:
“It should be remembered that the sharp upheaval which modern natural science is undergoing very often gives rise to reactionary philosophical schools and minor schools, trends and minor trends. Unless, therefore, the problems raised by the recent revolution in natural science are followed, and unless natural scientists are enlisted in the work of a philosophical journal, militant materialism can be neither militant nor materialism. Timiryazev was obliged to observe in the first issue of the journal that the theory of Einstein, who, according to Timiryazev, is himself not making any active attack on the foundations of materialism, has already been seized upon by a vast number of bourgeois intellectuals of all countries; it should be noted that this applies not only to Einstein, but to a number, if not to the majority, of the great reformers of natural science since the end of the nineteenth century.”
The method of natural science is dialectical. That is we must divide one into two and not merge two into one. First is the method of dialectics, while the other is the metaphysical method.
This dialectical treatment was blurred during the Lysenko debate, but it owes to the nascent state of genetics also. But the mechanist understanding prevalent in Soviet Russia allowed growth of such narrow empirical theory and pushed back the development of Soviet genetics. The reductionism of Lysenkoism also is repeated by Empiricists in Covid-19 that the scientists engaged in research are from rich class.
In the current scenario, the analysis of coronavirus has been refuted akin to Lysenkoism where slogans have replaced concrete analysis and narrow empiricism is prevalent instead of scientific analysis. Coronavirus is a virus that jumped species from a bat or some other wild animal and caused an upper respiratory infection. To just follow empiricism or layman stance our Covidiots claim the disease, to be only seasonal flu or common cold. The different infection fatality rate and case fatality rate are objective facts for the different diseases. They claim that government is conspiring and fooling people whenever facts appear which are contradictory to their stance. The implementation of lockdown, its autocratic implementation, its failure in some countries and aggravation of the economic crisis were not product of conspiracy of few capitalists and deep state. Narrow empiricist viewpoint is at root of all these conspiracy theories.
- Dr. Sunny Singh
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