Soviet """""Science""""""

Olga Borisovna Lepeshinskaya was a Soviet biologist, a personal protegée of Vladimir Lenin, later Joseph Stalin, Trofim Lysenko and Alexander Oparin. She rejected genetics and was an advocate of spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter.

Lepeshinskaya completed her study as a feldsher in St. Petersburg in 1887 and practised at various places in Siberia. In 1898 she joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and later the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1903 she and her husband left Russia and went into exile to Switzerland for three years. In 1915, she completed her medical training in Moscow.

Lepeshinskaya was a participant in the October Revolution. She lectured at the University of Medicine in Moscow until 1926, briefly interrupted by a 1919 stay at the Tashkent University, then worked at the Kliment Timiryazev Institute of Biology. In 1941 she became the head of the Department of Live Matter at the Institute of Experimental Biology, USSR Academy of Medical Sciences for the remainder of her career.

In the 1920s Lepeshinskaya discredited the work of her supervisor, Alexander Gurvitch, who investigated biophotons and mitogenic rays. She claimed that low doses of ultraviolet light were released by dying cells that had been treated with high doses of UV light. Later she claimed that cells could propagate by disintegration into granules which could generate new forms of cells, different from the parental cells. Also, crystals of inorganic matter could be converted into cells by adding nucleic acids. Further, she espoused spontaneous generation and the presence of a "vital substance". These claims were propagated as official dogma in the Soviet Union. A claim that soda baths fostered rejuvenation led to a temporary shortage of baking soda. She based her career on claims to observe de novo emergence of living cells from non-cellular materials, supporting such claims by fabricated proofs which were "confirmed" by others eager to advance in the politicized scientific system. Actually, she filmed the death and subsequent decomposition of cells, then projected these films reversed.

In May 1950 at the special symposium "Live Matter and Cell Development" for the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences that was supported by Stalin and chaired by Alexander Oparin, Lepeshinskaya gave the keynote speech, and her "discoveries" were celebrated as revolutionary by the invited audience. She was the recipient of the Stalin Prize for that year, and her ideas became mandatory instruction in biology. In 1952 a second conference took place to demonstrate "using experimental methods" that the bourgeois Virchowian concept of cell development (only a living cell can produce another cell) was replaced by a "new dialectical-materialistic theory on the origin of all living cells from non-living matter." While her impact and dogmatic dominance have parallels to those of Lysenko, her claims were never officially renounced but just faded away.

She involved her daughter Olga and her son-in-law Vladimir Kryukov in her work; in contrast, her husband, Panteleimon Lepechinsky, thought little of it. "Don’t you listen to her. She’s totally ignorant about science and everything she’s been saying is a lot of rubbish" he told a visitor.


Lepeshinskaya worked well into her eighties and died in Moscow at the age of 92 from pneumonia.

>The Soviet Union actually funded her work for forty years.

lysenko was shit too

>Woman """""Scientist""""""
FTFY

>female intellectuals

I don't see what makes this such a stand-out case compared to all the other crazy shit scientists believed at the beginning of the 20th century.

What's the point of this? Soviets had some great scientists. Russia always has despite being a nation of overall drunkards and retards.

It's a stand out case because she was funded for over 40 years

That doesn't really make it a stand-out case.

but how else would you create a narrative, silly?

>be big government entity
>fund a fraudulent scientists that fabricated experiments to make your government look like its doing cool important stuff while that scientist thrives on a dogmatic hierarchy in the government that disregards merit because she was funded for 40 years on bullshit claims that nobody even bothered to double check

when will you realize that centralized government is retarded


[spoiler]u commie fuck[/spoiler]

>People believed a bunch of strange things around that time
>FUCK YOU COMMIE

*facebook thumbs up emoticon*

The fact that this scientists was funded for so long through the government is what is shocking. I've heard about other shit like this, but its put to the side rather quickly since theories can disproved it (especially if it is an exceptionally stupid theory like this case) or disregarded for another theory. But when you have the government backing these scientists and funding these scientists. And rewarding these scientists. It is much harder for other peers to question someone who has a falsely elevated sense of prestige, Unlike in other government where research isn't dictated purely through the government. This case is also a microcosm for government corruption since she fabricated her findings without any over site, and those who reviewed her research confirmed it because they also wanted to move up on the government hierarchy to ultimately benefit their own self interests. It is an exceptional case op brings up. And don't let ur butthurt commie feelings get in the way of how retarded bommuninsm is

I like how you forget to mentions fields, where centralized govt was more effective:
Space exploration, where USSR decentralized its space program between multiple design bureaus, which led to competition up to refusal of cooperation, while USA created a dedicated administration, NASA, to enforce a centralized program without letting each company to create their own space programs. Guess who reached the Moon first?
Nuclear technologies, where centralized effort of USSR allowed them to pump as much resources as possible and catch up with US and advance further (first purely civilian nuclear electric plant was made in USSR).

In short: expensive science is better centralized. Yes, USSR was flawed, but as a Russian working in physics research institite I'd prefer it over modern Russia any time — modern Russia is a cheap oil and gas whore, that doesn't need science, while USSR promoted science and invested in progressive technologies.

>where USSR decentralized its space program between multiple design bureaus

Well I don't know much about that but what I do know is that when you have branches in the government competing for resources within the government those branches of government will look after their own needs and not the needs of those who they are publicly serving. And as these branches of government compete for more and more resources and budgets they would ultimately become more dysfunctional there's also a lack of accountability that goes on but anyways...I suppose in your case these branches do not really serve the public, and from my knowledge the only space program in america in the 60's was nasa. I would argue over the fact that the USSR did kill afew cosmonauts in its attempts to send people to space but this conflicts on my feelings of things being too regulated

>fields where centralized govt was more effective
At best, the free market handles it better.
At worst, millions of people are miseducated, radicalized, slaughtered, etc etc

>(((rejected genetics)))

>At best, the free market handles it better.
Read again my NASA example. It did better when elements of free market were taken away in order to unite the space program into one controlled by state.
>At worst, millions of people are miseducated, radicalized, slaughtered, etc etc
If that's true, which is not the case, how are political purges relevant to the role of government in science? There are some exceptions of scientists being purged, but those are no more than exceptions of one single dictator Stalin, who, objectively, was shit. What you do is resort to MUH PURGES meme, which died with Stalin in 1953.

The death of pre-Gagarin cosmonauts is a myth, since the Soviet space program is thoroughly documented and removing some names of cosmonauts would be impossible.
In reality, to test the vocal communications of the spaceship, there were tape players connected to the radio system, which broadcasted pre-recorded messages from the name of the "cosmonaut Ivan Ivanovich", which was the name of the test mannequin, placed in a seat, as center of gravity is a sensitive matter for controlling spaceship automatically (torque leverage would be different, it's middle school physics). That little joke of Soviet test crew, which could've used just tones or something like that, combined with a Swedish radio hobbyist intercepting that broadcast led to the whole conspiracy plot of evil USSR trying to cover up the death of its cosmonauts. Which didn't account that cosmonaut fatalities in the future (Soyuz-1 with Komarov and Soyuz-11 with Vokov, Patsaev and I forgot the name of the third cosmonaut, I think it was Dobrovolsky or Dobronravov) were given more honour in their burial than most of political figures of that time.

>Vokov
Of course I meant Volkov

"Social democratic" gee, wonder where we have heard that before, it's totally not communism, Bernie

Probably I should make a space exploration history thread when I get back from work

Of course you don't, because you're probably a Commie.

The worst thing that the scientific establishment believe at that time was scientific racism, which although is bad and was wrong, it's not nearly as retarded as believing you can create 40 ft diameter tomatoes.

I think you're the communist honestly.

This is straight out of a capitalist propaganda pamphlet talking about the ideal instead of concrete reality.

Whats the reality Then

stay classy, /pol/