Talk:Ivan Michurin (biologist)

Lamarck or Darwin?

The sentences "Michurin's theory of influence of the environment on the heredity was a variant of Lamarckism" and "in the Soviet Union he was portrayed as the only true follower of Darwinism" rather contradict each other, don't they? Chrisahn (talk) 16:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

No, they don't. Indeed, his theory was a variant of Lamarckism. But he don't think about evolution, he only did selection work (and so, in a simplistic way, he was Lamarckist, not Mendelist. Really he doubt Mendel genetics because some results of his experiments couldn't be explained by means of contemporary genetics, but he also regard early Lysenkoism as purely erroneous theory.) His real thoughts on Darwin's works are unknown.

Michurin died in 1935. Lysenko used his name as a brand of top-level agricultural scientist to support his "theory" (which was also Lamarckian but the name of Lamarck wasn't applied to it) but he and his followers also used the brand-name of Darwinism. Of course, Darwinism was heavily scissored (to the level of "apes are ancestors of humans", etc.). So, Michurin, as he was portrayed as a founder of Lysenko school, "should" also support ideas of other "progressive" scientists (e.g. Darwin). This juggling with names and ideas was common in Stalin times.92.39.161.221 (talk) 19:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

fruits became scarce in the 1960s

I don't see any criticism in this article, in contrast to the German article on Michurin. There, his work is linked to the deficit in fruits in the 1960 as an example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.88.114 (talk) 14:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair, pages 40-49 have abundant material on Michurin, which seems to be more accurate than the present article. עדירל (talk) 00:10, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

"Practitioner of selection"

What exactly is this supposed to mean? Selective breeding? --Chronodm (talk) 23:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Lysenkoism

The closing line of the article is "A pseudo-scientist Lysenko have claimed later to be the successor of the Michurin's school, but these two are unrelated.", but this article is in the Lysenkoists section and Michurin is marked as a "Lysenkoist"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.77.10.244 (talk) 19:43, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Re: bias

Both omissions of the near-universal rejection of his unorthodox theories, emphasising his accolades and distancing him from Lysenko shield the fact that he was a highly-controversial proponent of bad biology. Significant edits needed to ameliorate. JJLiu112 (talk) 07:12, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Britannica & Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography offer more balanced interpretations that show the good and bad of Michurin. JJLiu112 (talk) 07:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC)