Note: I wrote this with the assistance of AI. I decided it worth the effort to explain the process I used. I don’t want to distract from the message of the main post which I think is very important so I will explain my process at the end.
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History is full of cautionary tales about what happens when political authority takes precedence over evidence. One of the most striking examples comes from the Soviet Union – the rise of Trofim Lysenko, a man whose scientific errors were amplified, defended, and enforced by political power. While the details are unique to its time and place, the underlying pattern — political leaders elevating certain claims and suppressing dissent — is not confined to history. Today, echoes of this dynamic can be seen in the political battles surrounding figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump.
Lysenko’s Rise and the Suppression of Genetics
Trofim Lysenko came to prominence in Soviet agricultural science in the 1930s. He claimed to have discovered a process called vernalization, in which exposing seeds to certain temperatures could convert winter wheat into spring wheat. While vernalization itself had limited, real-world applications, Lysenko went further, asserting that this acquired trait could be inherited by future generations of plants. This contradicted established genetics, which held that such changes were not heritable.
Science can, of course, survive incorrect claims — provided those claims can be tested, debated, and rejected when evidence doesn’t support them. But Lysenko’s error was not confined to a scientific paper. He sought control over his field, working to purge respected geneticists such as N. I. Vavilov, who supported modern genetics and whose research contradicted Lysenko’s theories. Lysenko began publishing articles that attacked other scientists not on scientific grounds, but because their work conflicted with Marxist-Leninist ideology.
Stalin embraced Lysenko’s claims. The idea that agricultural productivity could be vastly increased through a politically approved method was irresistible to a regime determined to prove the superiority of socialist science. Skepticism toward Lysenko’s theories became politically dangerous. Being an advocate for genetics could cost you your career – or your life. Vavilov, once one of the Soviet Union’s most celebrated scientists, died in a Siberian prison after years of harassment and deprivation. He met death in a Siberian prison.
The result was catastrophic: Soviet biology was set back decades, with ripple effects on agriculture and public welfare. Sound science was discarded because it clashed with political ideology.
The Pattern Behind the Story
The Lysenko episode illustrates a dangerous feedback loop:
1. Political endorsement of a contested claim — A leader embraces a theory because it aligns with ideological or political goals.
2. Suppression of opposing voices — Dissent is framed as disloyalty, incompetence, or even treachery.
3. Institutional capture — Gatekeepers in academia, government, or media are replaced or pressured into conformity.
4. Long-term damage — Decisions made in the service of political narratives undermine public trust and institutional integrity.
This is not just about flawed science. It’s about what happens when truth becomes subordinate to power.
Modern Echoes: Kennedy, Trump, and Politicized Truth
In modern America, the specifics are different, but certain elements feel familiar. Both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump have built political momentum around claims that many experts dispute. In both cases, political alignment has amplified these claims far beyond their scientific or evidentiary support.
The dynamic is not identical to the Soviet experience — the U.S. retains robust legal protections for dissent, and no scientists are being sent to Siberia. But there are parallels worth noticing.
The similarities lie in the logic of politicized truth: when a political leader or movement defines which facts are acceptable, disagreement becomes more than an intellectual matter — it becomes a loyalty test.
Why This Matters
The temptation to shape truth to fit political needs is not confined to authoritarian regimes. Democracies can fall into softer versions of the same trap. When political allegiance dictates what counts as valid evidence, the result is the erosion of trust in institutions designed to safeguard accuracy — universities, public health agencies, election systems, the press.
Once trust is lost, rebuilding it can take decades. In the Soviet case, biology eventually recovered, but not before generations of scientists had been silenced and countless lives affected by misguided agricultural policies. In the U.S., the stakes involve public health preparedness, the peaceful transfer of power, and the credibility of the democratic process.
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AI and me – what came from what source
Like so many others, I am experimenting with AI and trying to decide how I should use AI in my writing in a way that is intellectually honest. Typically, I use AI to chat with the large collection of digital notes and highlights I have accumulated over the past decade or so. The approach used to write this post is a variation of that approach.
Given our present situation in which the role and control of Universities is being questioned and challenged, I wanted to read something on this topic. This is often how I approach issues important to me. I decided on a book by Jonathan Cole that I have since thought may not have been the ideal choice because it was published in the early days of the Obama administration. I have since decided that the arguments made have some unique value because they predated our present circumstances and hence cannot be interpreted as a direct reaction.
In reading a section of the book that argued for how political meddling in what I would call the “university process” can be destructive. Included in this section was the example of biologist Lysneko. This account resonated with me in a way I hope the post makes clear. It seem such a close approximation of how I see present political meddling, I thought I would use the example as an effective object lesson.
Here is how the post you read was generated. I paraphrased aspects of the Lysneko story as presented in the book and identified what to me seemed the stages by which a university can be corrupted. I created a post asking ChatGPT to generate a post based on this content that then would suggest a parallel between Trump and Kennedy in our present. I input nothing more about Trump and Kennedy allowing the AI to use its own information. What you read was nearly the word-for-word output from this prompt. I did make a few small modifications.
Jonathan Cole (2011) – The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected (2011)