In 1976, the science historian Loren Graham visited a fox farm in the countryside outside Novosibirsk, in Siberia. He was there to observe the experiments of Russian biologist Dmitri Belyaev, who, since the 1940s, had been selectively breeding Siberian foxes for domestication. Belyaev had reported impressive results in breeding friendly foxes. By selecting and interbreeding the least hostile foxes over many generations, he had created a “domesticated elite” of Siberian foxes—animals who not only lacked hostility toward humans, but sniffed and licked humans, much like dogs. Many had even changed physically, with wagging tails and floppy ears.
Belyaev’s breeding successes were impressive, but conformed to the accepted wisdom of mainstream genetics. Darwin himself had written a book on domestication and Belyaev was convinced that his results reaffirmed the importance of genes, mutation, recombination, and artificial selection—the foundational concepts of modern biology. But Graham observed more than foxes on his visit. He met and chatted with Belyaev’s assistants, the ones in charge of the animals’ daily care. One, a kindly woman dressed in the heavy clothing of the region, explained her theory about why the foxes were so friendly:
Love becomes hereditary? Graham might have dismissed these remarks as simply the sappy sentiments of a dedicated caretaker and animal lover; but he did not. As a historian of science with a keen interest in Russian history, he recognized her views as a fair paraphrase of the discredited genetic theories of Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976), who had argued, starting in the 1930s and against the prevailing genetic theories of the time, that acquired traits are heritable. Indeed, Graham says: “Lysenko claimed that he could get cows and their progeny to give more milk by caring for them attentively.” The animals’ life experiences, not their genetic pedigree, was what mattered, according to Lysenko—and according to the foxes’ caretaker.
When Graham raised this issue with Belyaev later on, back at his lab, the geneticist laughed it off: Such attitudes make them good caretakers, he said, but their views are harmless and unrelated to any enduring influence of Lysenko.
Dmitri Belyaev had good reason to play down any connection between his own work and the theories of Trofim Lysenko. A poorly educated and dogmatic agronomist, Lysenko was one of the most infamous scientists of the 20th century. He challenged many of the foundational ideas of genetics as they were then understood and accepted in the international scientific community, including the idea that genes were the main carriers of inheritance. Instead, he preached a doctrine that the traits an organism acquires during its lifetime can be passed on to its offspring.
This was a compelling and welcome idea in the Stalinist Soviet Union, in the midst of an agricultural crisis, because it raised the possibility of improving agriculture and livestock production. Indeed, Stalin gave Lysenko’s ideas official imprimatur in 1948, leading to an era of repression for geneticists who did not toe the line. Many were imprisoned in labor camps, and some were executed. Politics trumped science, and classical genetics was nearly extinguished in the Soviet Union for decades.
But Lysenko’s fall was as dramatic and thorough as his ascent. By the mid-1960s, Russian geneticists had declared him a fraud and condemned him for damaging Soviet agriculture. “Lysenkoism” became a pejorative synonym for pseudoscience, not only in Russia but around the world—and it carries that meaning even today.
Loren Graham pretty much forgot his encounter with the fox caretaker—until he had reason to recall it years later, at the turn of the 21st century. What jogged his memory was the emergence of a new field of inquiry—or doctrine—called epigenetics, which today is requiring a thorough rethinking of the science of inheritance. Epigenetics, in very broad paraphrase, is the study of changes in organisms that are brought about by modifications of gene “expression” rather than changes in the actual genetic code. Gene expression can be determined by environmental factors—such as nurturance—which trigger molecular changes. Furthermore (and this is more controversial) these molecular changes can be passed on to offspring, and to the next generation’s offspring, and the next, where they appear as inherited traits, including behavior.
To Graham, the central tenets of epigenetics sounded an awful lot like the inheritance of acquired traits, the long-discredited doctrine advanced by Lysenko. Is it possible, he got to wondering, that these new scientific insights might explain the friendliness of the Siberian foxes? Could it be that the love and attention of the caretakers was bringing about changes in the foxes—molecular changes and behavioral changes—that culminated in the “domesticated elite”?
Or to put it another, much more provocative, way: “Was Lysenko right after all?”
Lysenko’s Ghost attempts to answer this question, which is both scientifically complex and politically knotty. The book is a historical primer on the idea that acquired traits can be inherited, which, as Graham notes, was hardly original with Lysenko. Indeed, it dates back at least to Aristotle and was largely uncontroversial for 2,000 years. But these early thinkers never attempted to explain this notion scientifically. They lacked the tools of modern molecular biology, so their beliefs were really just that: beliefs that were, at best, unproven—and sometimes bizarre.
Consider the giraffe’s neck. Why is it long? This question is associated mostly with the 18th-century French botanist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who argued that giraffes lengthened their necks when reaching for food in the high branches of trees. He believed, in other words, that evolutionary changes were purposeful and individual, that these adaptations were passed on to future generations and accumulated over time. Lamarck’s theory stands in contrast to Darwinian theory, which explains long necks and other traits as the result of random variation and natural selection. Lamarck’s example appears in many modern biology textbooks, but only as an example of misguided—and discredited—evolutionary thinking.
Lamarck proposed no biological mechanism to bolster his belief. And how could he, since he was working and theorizing with neither the insights of Charles Darwin nor the tools of modern molecular biology? Contrast his naïve explanation of giraffe necks with another example, this one from actual epigenetic research by Michael Meaney at McGill. Meaney has done a lot of work with rats and he has found that, in certain litters, the pups who receive the most grooming and licking from their mothers grow up to be adults who dote on their own pups. This inheritance continues into future generations, and Meaney proposes that this trait—the attentive behavior—is connected with gene expression controlled by chemical attachments to the rats’ DNA. These attachments on the DNA molecule result from having experienced grooming and licking—the love, if you will. In other words, lavish nurturance is translated into molecular changes, which then are passed on and expressed as lavish nurturance.
In between Lamarck and modern epigenetics sits Lysenko. Was he, in his insistence that acquired traits can be inherited, reviving a foolish notion for political purposes, or was he a genetic visionary, unfairly maligned by the scientific community? Making this assessment requires a thorough understanding of 20th-century Soviet history, and Graham devotes a significant portion of this slim volume to the fascinating history of science and politics in Stalin’s era.
It’s important to know that the Lysenko revival, to the extent that it exists, is a peculiarly Russian phenomenon. Indeed, Graham emphasizes that the nature of the debate, about both epigenetics and especially about Lysenko’s legacy, is different in Russia than it is elsewhere. On the one hand, reputable Russian geneticists, out of Lysenko’s shadow, are wary even of dabbling in the controversial field of epigenetics, lest they be misperceived as Lysenkoists. On the other hand, another group of Russian scientists and intellectuals are rooting for the revival of Lysenko or, in some cases, declaring it done. In sharply politicized language, these Lysenkoists are writing articles with headlines such as “Lysenko’s Views Confirmed By New Science” and “Lysenko Was Right!” Graham dismisses these passionate revivalists as Stalinists nostalgic for the old Soviet Union.
And in the end, Graham answers his central question with an emphatic no. To the extent that Lysenko was right about the inheritance of acquired characteristics, he was unoriginal. Many argued this doctrine before him and even during his time; but without proof or theory. The modern field of epigenetics did not build on, or grow out of, Lysenko’s thinking or research. To the extent that Lysenko was original, his claims—that he could create a new species of wheat, for example—remain unproven and should be considered wrongheaded. In the end, Graham concludes, Lysenko was an incompetent scientist who, with the help of a repressive state, forced his views on the world.
Wray Herbert is the author of On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind’s Hard-Wired Habits.
