Soviet Science Quotes

“hypothetical genes are endowed with miraculous properties. The main property of a gene is to act as an ‘unmoved mover’ ...”
― James Fyfe, Lysenko Is Right

“genes are an image of the ruling class as it sees itself.”
― James Fyfe, Lysenko Is Right

“There is a very close parallel between the idea of genes in biology and the political idea of an élite, a ‘chosen’ ruling class.”
― James Fyfe, Lysenko Is Right

“Dialectical Materialism teaches us that life originated on earth as a result of the process of development of matter. Nature should be considered not as a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but as a state of continuous movement and change. All phenomena should be studied from the standpoint of their continuous renewal and development, their arising and dying away.”
― Olga Borisovna Lepeshinskaya, The Origin of Cells

“Foreign biochemists who adhere to metaphysical idealist concepts, ascribe to mythical immutable genes the role of governing metabolic processes which, properly speaking, constitute the characteristic feature of life. Soviet biology has counterposed to these idealist concepts, a real, scientifically consistent materialist explanation of vital processes based on concrete experimental data. Let me cite as an example only one tendency in these investigations, namely, the study of the primary role played in all these complex manifestations of life by special substances called enzymes. Along with vitamins and hormones they constitute the group of compounds which direct all the changes lying at the basis of metabolism in the living organism. Enzymes are the real keys to life. All component substances of the organism—phosphorous compounds, fats, carbon-hydrates, etc. — would be inactive if they were not influenced by enzymes. Without the digestive enzymes, starch would be converted into sugar not in ten minutes, as it is in our body, but in scores of months. Without respiratory enzymes, the organism would be doomed to death from asphyxiation even in an atmosphere of pure oxygen.”
― Oleg Pisarzhevsky, New paths of Soviet science: Notes on latest research of Soviet scientists