Ideology trumps science once again
About thirty or forty years ago, I recall seeing a story in the news about Soviet scientists who were sent to Siberia because the science they were pursuing (nuclear physics or something similar) was not consistent with Marxist ideology. As a consequence, the Soviet Union was falling behind in that particular field -- even behind the Chinese as I recall.
Today, via Kevin Drum, we see this from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Today, via Kevin Drum, we see this from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed to reward students majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain foreign languages.
That absence apparently indicates that students in the evolutionary sciences do not qualify for the grants, and some observers are wondering whether the omission was deliberate.
Remember what happened to the Soviet Union?
posted by walldon | 1:51 PM
1 Comments:
I think it was the Lysenkoism era. As I recall, Lysenko was the party-favored scientist who also attacked Darwinism and Mendelian genetics, instead following the old theory of acquired traits -- was that Lamarck? -- as more consistent with the idea of the perfectability of man in a communist society. Need to hit the old Wikipedia after signing off here.
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