Zhores A. Medvedev died last month at his home in London, where he had lived for decades. He had turned 93 the day before. Who was Zhores Medvedev and why was he important?
According to Wikipedia,
Zhores Medvedev and his twin brother Roy were born on 14 November 1925 in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR. In December 1950, Zhores was awarded a PhD degree for his research into sexual processes in plants. He became a Junior Research Scientist in the Agrochemistry and Biochemistry Department at Timiryazev Academy and he was promoted to Senior Research Scientist in 1954 and remained at the academy until 1963. Beginning in 1952, Medvedev had focused his attention on the problems of aging, concentrating on the turnover of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1961, he published the first paper suggesting that aging is the result of an accumulation of errors in the synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids.
His scientific achievements, which were not insignificant, paled alongside the attempts he made to have the world understand the truth or lack thereof of Soviet science.
Lysenkoism was rampant in the Soviet Union during his early years as a scientist. Lysenkoism was named after Trofim Lysenko who served as the director of the Soviet Union‘s Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
The pseudo-scientific ideas of Lysenkoism assumed the heritability of acquired characteristics (Lamarckism). Proponents falsely claimed to have discovered, among many other things, that rye could transform into wheat and wheat into barley, that weeds could spontaneously transmute into food grains, and that “natural cooperation” was observed in nature as opposed to “natural selection”.
Joseph Stalin supported Lysenko. More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were fired or even sent to prison, and numerous scientists were executed as part of a campaign instigated by Lysenko to suppress his scientific opponents.
The term lysenkoism has come to mean attacking the legitimacy of science itself, usually for political reasons. It is the rejection of the universality of scientific truth, and the purposeful defamation of the scientific method to the level of politics.
Medvedev stood up against Lysenko. He helped to discredit the doctrines of Lysenko. He also let the world know about the shocking levels of suppression against those who would not toe the line that Lysenko laid out. He himself was committed to a mental institution in an attempt to re-educate him about Soviet scientific ideas.
Eventually he was stripped of his citizenship and left the Soviet Union. This did not stop him from publishing papers and reporting on “fake science.”
He is important to us as a reminder that the politicalization of science hurts us all. Do we need a Medvedev? Here in this country the most glaring example of such politicalization is the global warming scam. While we may not institutionalize scientists here for disagreeing with the idea of global warming, check and see how many grants were given to those who did disagree.
Scientists who disagreed were ridiculed and denigrated as out of touch. They were characterized as unfeeling and willing to put the entire human race at risk by opposing government policies to “control global warming.” President Obama lifted a play out of Stalin’s playbook when he declared the issue settled.
Of course, he said this during the so-called “pause” in warming which started in 1998. He said this while no climate model based on CO2 warming was able to produce results that were even in the same ballpark as the observed facts. He said this while glaciers in the Himalayas were growing.
The scientific method demands an adherence to the idea that if the observed data does not match the theory than the theory needs re-working. It is not the other way around. During the last two decades several scandals have erupted where climate data was modified to make it fit the theory.
In one case data was re-imagined to make it appear that temperatures have been rising steadily throughout the last century. This ignored the fact that the 1930’s were unusually warm. It also ignored the fact that at one point in the 70’s that “global cooling” was all the rage.
In another case tide gauge readings were dropped from the data when they did not fit the theory, when they showed a negative sea level rise. There were several other climate scandals.
As Al Gore would say, there is “an inconvenient truth” here. That truth is that global warming was scam to allow greater government control over everything we do. The MSM seems to be quietly moving away from blind support of this scam. Perhaps the fact, not widely reported, that during the last two years the average temperature for the planet has actually declined by almost 0.6 C had something to do with that. It is the largest such decline on record.
Is another Ice Age imminent? I do not think so. However, scientific studies are showing a gradual cooling of the planet on a millennial basis. Perhaps, we need more CO2 in the atmosphere not less. Perhaps Al Gore can make another movie in support of this by showing the results of an Ice Age.