Science denial is the opposite of science. It's a process by which we pick evidence after deciding on which conclusion we want to arrive at. There are denialists about climate change, evolution, HIV AIDS, vaccines, germ theory, and the fact that we live on a round earth. These denialists are motivated to reject a scientific consensus, and they use a variety of well-documented mechanisms to reinforce their own pre-decided conclusions. Their opinions are not harmless, and their impact can be measured in deaths and injuries, lost opportunities for scientific advancement, and a general lowering of the academic achievements where they hold sway. This leads me to the question, what would a science denialist state look like? Can you imagine? In fact, we don't have to imagine. The Soviet Union for almost 30 years denied the reality of the theory of genetics that Gregor Mendel demonstrated in the 19th century. Let's start at the beginning of a story. It starts with a young scientist. His name is Trophy M. Lysenko, born to a peasant family in what is today Ukraine in 1898. He lives in a time of turmoil, a revolution, a world war, the rise of a new government, and a new leader. He attends university in Kiev, begins working on a subject he probably knows well, the family business of agriculture. Soviet agriculture is in shambles thanks to failed collectivist reforms, part of Stalin's first five-year plan. Stalin took land forcefully from Kulaks, the relatively wealthy land lords who owned the farms, and gave it to the people, the Botrach's embeddiak peasants, who worked the land as a collective. This disruption in traditional roles created an instability, and that led to greatly reduced crop yields and livestock. Over 11 million people died in the resulting agricultural chaos in the early 1930s. Lysenko at the age of 29 is working at a research station in Azerbaijan in 1927 under the guidance of a senior scientist Nikolai Vavlov. He makes an important discovery about wheat. There are two types of wheat being grown at the time. Spring wheat can be planted in the spring and it germinates, puts down roots and is ready for harvest in the late summer or early fall. Winter wheat, by contrast, is planted in the fall and spends the winter in the cold ground in the vegetative state and only puts out heads of wheat after 30 to 60 days in near freezing temperatures. Winter wheat is hardier, richer and protein and has higher yields. The problem comes in the near freezing states, an extra cold winter can kill the winter wheat crop. The discovery Lysenko made was a process he called gerovization. He took winter wheat seeds and chilled them and soaked them for up to 60 days. This made them behave like spring wheat. They could be planted after the ground thawed, germinate and immediately produce heads for harvest. Failed winter crops, frozen dead in the ground, could then be rescued by his process of gerovization of a seedstock. As it happens, this was actually a process that farmers had used since the 1800s had been documented by a German botanist Gustav Gosner under the name Vurnalization. But it wasn't widely known in Soviet academic circles, so it looked like a new discovery. Where Lysenko goes off the rails is in his rejection of the new field of genetics. At the same time he's chilling his wheat seeds. Major discoveries are being made by geneticists in the Soviet Union, Europe and the US. There's a new model organism that scientists are using to make major advances, the common fruit fly, Drosophila Melana Gaster. The father of modern genetics, TH Morgan, has produced a crop of fly geneticists who have rediscovered the importance of the hereditary laws of that 19th century Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel and his famous pea plants. They've begun to discover the nature of how heredity works, genes and recombination, and Morgan's students spread this new field of genetic analysis around the world. Unfortunately, Lysenko is not very keen on these new ideas of genes and later DNA. He rejects the new knowledge and Mendel's laws, largely because he doesn't understand them well. He has his own theories that borrow more from Lamarck than Darwin. He supposes that plants have a will and are all working for the betterment of their community. Plants that fail and die are laying down their lives for their plant brethren, working for the common good. Also, unfortunately, he is identified by the Soviet high command as matching a profile, a desirable person. What do they love so much about this young scientist? Well, he comes from a peasant background, a man of the people. His theories promise to deliver immediate gains in crop yields at a time when people are starving to death in the streets. His theories promise more food next year, not 10 years from now, which has great propaganda value. The core philosophies of Lysenko align well with Soviet thinking, collectivism, and strength acquired from adversity. It's a narrative they can sell to get the workers into the fields, a sense of hope that Soviet science and technology could overcome the limitations even of nature. The Soviet science community did not respond well to this government-backed science propaganda. It contradicted what was known about genetics and contained unscientific assumptions and philosophy. By 1940, Lysenko's friendship with Stalin led to his appointment as director of the Soviet Institute of Genetics, and through his influence he marginalized or even fired scientists who descended. Some ended up in gulags in Siberia, others simply switched fields in careers, and some came in decline with official Soviet policy. As a result, the wheels of progress in the life sciences, or at least in molecular biology and biochemistry, ground to a halt. The best minds avoided these fields, and only the politically-minded students pursued it. Soviet biology was frozen in time while other nations were making major strides. Lysenko's influence began to decline with the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. The new leadership were more open to alternatives, and leading scientists were eager to voice their long-suppressed opposition. One scientist, Andrei Sakharov, during a General Assembly vote in 1964 to confirm a supporter of Lysenko, opposed on the grounds that he is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudoscientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death of many genuine scientists. By 1965, in light of growing opposition and political embarrassment, Lysenko was removed from his post in disgrace. He died 11 years later at the age of 78 in virtual obscurity. One of the most lasting and tragic legacies of Lysenko was his establishment of an eight-point agricultural plan, which was adopted in the Soviet Union, leading to starvation and deaths of up to 15 million citizens, and in China, where it caused perhaps twice that number, 30 million Chinese citizens dead, and legacies of malnutrition and want. Lysenko's legacy for us today, however, is an important lesson. State supported and state-enforced pseudoscience or science denialism can have tragic and lasting effects. It's very easy for someone to label the opposition's ideas as Lysenkoism, but there are some unique characteristics to look for. One, a single charismatic leader, often described as an outsider, rebel, or iconoclast. Two, ideas that face serious, fact-based opposition from the majority of scientists in that field. Three, politically expedient conclusions that support the positions of the people in power. The use of broad statements or axioms to substitute for evidence and testing. Having watched the US election of now President Donald Trump, I think it's more important than ever to guard against a new Lysenkoism in American science. Whether that is related to climate change, vaccines, evolution, or any other topic, you should be on our guard to keep science evidence-based and not a tool of political control. Science has no borders, by which I mean an experiment conducted in Iran or France or in Houston, Texas will give the same results. But it can be locally suppressed or held back. What is its stake? Is the pace of human progress, both globally and within individual countries? The lesson of history is that science advances most quickly, where it is free to question. Thanks for watching.