It has become quite common to complain nowadays that, given the overall concern for marginalized groups and the claim that social justice should be of interest to anyone, ideology rules science. Some go even as far as comparing the current research system with Lysenkoism, a flawed approach to plant genetics promoted by Soviet and Chinese authorities.
Such as the case with an April 27 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, “The ‘hurtful’ idea of scientific merit”, by scientists Jerry Coyne and Anna Krylov. Institutions and journals, they asserted, have forgotten “scientific merit” and replaced it with ideology, fearing that the so-called “wokists” are supported by governments and official agencies in the same way that Trofim Lysenko’s false theory of the inheritance of acquired characters was enforced by Stalin. If true, this is terrible news, since in USSR the ideological supremacy of Lysenkoism led to many executions and exiles.
