Science: Watchful Unorthodoxy

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Soviet scientists lost face with their free colleagues a few years ago when they were forced to support pseudo-scientific theories that conform to Communist orthodoxy. Many scientist sympathizers, including Britain's Professor J.B.S. Haldane, broke with the Russian line over the dogma that Trofim Lysenko's sloppy genetics teaching (i.e., that environment is the big determinant in the development of life) is the only true doctrine. it was widely predicted that subjection to such authority would seriously damage the morale of Soviet scientists, and that the ill effects would soon show up on the practical level.

Apparently some Soviet bigwigs have come to the same conclusion—in part. Last week an article in the Moscow magazine Culture and Life attacked dogmatism in science. It advocated a constant review of accepted scientific theses in the light of new knowledge and experience. It even slapped Soviet geneticists, i.e., Lysenko & Co., for following too obediently the doctrines of the late Horticulturist Ivan Michurin.

The author chosen to give this attack on authority a look of authority was Yuri Zhdanov, a biologist and son of the late Andrei A. Zhdanov, member of the all-powerful Politburo. In his plea for intellectual unorthodoxy he quoted texts by the leading authoritarians of Communism, Premier Joseph Stalin and China's Mao Tse-tung. Obviously, the scientific "line" is still in the same strong hands.

Some Soviet scientists might be reassured. Others would continue to watch their instruments suspiciously lest heretical ideas creep out of them.