Blog Post #2: The Botanist Who Defied Stalin

Whilst reading this article that discussed the life and contributions of botanist Nikolai Vavilov, I had several reactions. Vavilov and his team prioritized science at a time in their country where science merged with politics. Their views of science and botany were not in alignment with the politics taking over their country which lead to Vavilov himself being jailed. Furthermore, his team was left to protect the scientific contributions and seed repository. The repository was under attack from opposing political figures and starving citizens. 

This article really challenged some of my views of scientific ethics. Vavilov and his team pledged their commitment to science over politics. This is similar to the challenges that scientists faced in other totalitarian regimes at the time. However, I find challenging that in a country where millions were starving, even several of the members themselves, they placed the upkeep seed repository above the well-being of the public. While I understand that they had a long-term view of the importance and use of the seeds, I personally struggle with the idea that as a scientist you hold your commitment to future science and knowledge over human life. This was a complex situation and I do not believe that the scientists acted in bad faith, but this prompted me to further consider what I would do in such a situation. Should scientists be committed to the pursuit of knowledge above all else or should the public and human life be prioritized?

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 23, 2021 at 11:30 AM

    Great question!!!! I have this debate very often with one of my friends. She studies aerospace and I mostly study public health. She believes that learning about outer space, how to get to other planets, how to create a world that humans can inhabit off this plant, is crucial. She believes that continuing the human race is of the utmost importance, and that means we need to explore space and be able to get off-planet when earth becomes inhabitable. I, however, think it is absolutely ridiculous to spend billions and billions of dollars of space exploration, for basically "fun", when there are so many dire and preventable needs on our planet. With the amount of money spent on space exploration, we could eradicate multiple diseases. We could lift entire countries worth of people out of poverty. So, like you said, "Should scientists be committed to the pursuit of knowledge above all else or should the public and human life be prioritized?"

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  2. rf2021September 27, 2021 at 7:41 AM

    I had a similar reaction when reading about how the VIR scientists chose to preserve all those seeds even when they were starving. I think that human life should be prioritized over science. But even if one thinks that science should be prioritized, what those scientists did does not make sense to me. If none of the scientists had survived, would there be anyone who knew about the seed repository, its value, and how to maintain it? There would not be anyone there to continue the scientific work, and choosing the seeds over their own lives would have been for nothing. Ideally, the two go hand-in-hand, and science helps protect human lives, but unfortunately that is not always the case.

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  3. John Q. PublicSeptember 27, 2021 at 5:53 PM

    There is a saying from generations of farmers: Never eat your seed corn.
    It "is a metaphor for consuming the means of future production for the purpose of present gain."
    https://lifeasahuman.com/2018/current-affairs/social-issues/eating-seed-corn/
    It is a recurring ethical dilemma.

    If you read a whole book on Vavilov, or the gulag, or women of the Gulag, what you also realize is that some systems are so corrupt that any effort to stop them from completely collapsing is about as productive as rearranging deck chairs on the sinking Titanic. No one got to that point lightly. In that darkness and hopelessness and insanity, it gives people a sense of purpose to imagine a sane future where their work and truth was valued.

    What of my heroines recently is Eugenia Ginzburg. She famously wrote Journey Into the Whirlwind (1967). Of her childhood with Stalinism she wrote “I don’t want to sound pretentious...but I must say in all honesty that, had I been ordered to die for the Party . . . I would have obeyed without the slightest hesitation.” After 18 years of brutal torture, solitary confinement and witnessing the corrupt system that destroyed even its most strident supporters, she felt deep guilt for ever supporting it. She wrote “eighteen years of hell on earth are not enough for a fault like mine.”

    Folks living in and through that sort of insanity have a different perspective.

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