[raddles]

They are likely referring to Lysenkoism. This was the USSR's alternative to natural selection, partially because they believed natural selection was not compatible with Marxism. (There were other justifications, but this is the one relevant to the parent comment)

"Some Marxists, however, perceived a fissure between Marxism and Darwinism. Specifically, the issue is that while the "struggle for survival" in Marxism applies to a social class as a whole (the class struggle), the struggle for survival in Darwinism is decided by individual random mutations. This was deemed a liberal doctrine, against the Marxist framework of "immutable laws of history" and the spirit of collectivism."

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

[ants_everywhere]

Yeah Lysenkoism is what I was referring to about flat out denying genetics. But a softer version of genetics denialism has been a running theme historically.

Marxists are committed to a sort of historical determinism that requires social conditions to be more important than biology in a way that's not scientifically defensible. That's why they were the first to research classical conditioning, why they continue to support pseudoscience like linguistic determinism, why they've experimented so much with "brain washing" (e.g. trying to program prisoners of war through propaganda) etc.

Some of this stuff (like conditioning) has turned out to be useful. Some of it (like Lysenkoism) turned out to be tragically catastrophic. But all of it is an attempt to make science subservient to political needs.

[inkyoto]

Lysenko was widely discredited and ridiculed in the late 1960's following the demise of his main proteges (Stalin and later Khrushchev).

The widespread damage Lysenko had brought about upon the Soviet genetics was widely acknowledged and openly discussed in the Soviet Union at the time. What on Earth is this bloviation all about?

[ants_everywhere]

Did you consider reading either of my comments or did you just feel the immediate need to reply in an insulting manner without contributing anything?

[inkyoto]

I can't speak for the others, but I read entire threads before engaging in a discourse. In this particular instance, the thread[0] started out as a flagrant misrepresentation of the facts, loaded with inciting terms to bait the esteemed reader into an emotional explosion. Since there was no meaningful discourse to be had, only a factual correction was appropriate. The choice to get insulted is entirely discretionary.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43007980