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the similar action of selection upon 
different sources of variation. In these 
cases, the varieties are analogous, not 
homologous, and the Darwinian ex- 
planation must be preferred. He wrote 
in 1937: 
We underestimated the variability of the 
genes themselves. ... At the time we 
thought that the genes possessed by close 
species were identical; now we know that 
this is far from the case, that even very 
closely related species which have exter- 
nally similar traits are characterized by 
many different genes. By concentrating 
our attention on the variability itself, we 
gave insufficient attention to the role of 
selection. 
Still, Vavilov continued to cham- 
pion the importance and validity of 
his law, and he continued to advocate 
the analogy with chemistry in only 
slightly weakened form. 
Unfortunately, in the deepest sense, 
Vavilov had left himself open to Ly- 
senko’s polemical attack. The law of 
homologous series provided Lysenko 
with important ammunition, and Vav- 
ilov’s overextended chemical analogy 
deepened his troubles. Lysenko car- 
icatured Vavilov’s law in 1936 by pre- 
senting ridiculous examples involving 
species too distantly related to pre- 
sent parallel series in Vavilov’s system: 
“In nature we find apple trees with 
round fruit, hence there must or can 
be trees with round pears, cherries, 
grapes, etc.” 
Lysenko’s ideological attack was 
more vicious. He made two major 
charges involving both parts of that 
catchword for official Soviet philo- 
sophy — dialectical materialism. Vav- 
ilov’s law, he claimed, was undialec- 
tical because it located the source of 
organic change within the genetic sys- 
tems of organisms themselves and not 
in the interaction (or dialectic) be- 
tween organism and environment. Sec- 
ondly, Lysenko charged that the law 
of homologous series was “idealist” 
rather than materialist because it 
viewed the evolutionary history of a 
species as prefigured in the unrealized 
(and therefore nonmaterial) capacity 
of an inherited genetic system. 
Evolution, Lysenko charged, is al- 
most an illusion in Vavilov’s scheme. 
It represents a mere playing out of 
inherited potentials, not the develop- 
ment of anything new. It expresses 
the bourgeois penchant for stability 
by depicting apparent change as a su- 
perficial expression of underlying con- 
stancy. According to Vavilov’s law, 
Lysenko charged, 
New forms result not from the devel- 
opment of old forms, but from a reshuf- 
fling, a recombination of already existing 
hereditary corpuscles .... All the existing 
species existed in the past, only in less 
diverse forms; but every form was richer 
in potentialities, in its collection of genes. 
Madness often displays a perverse 
but cogent reason in its own terms; 
and we must admit that Lysenko did 
identify and exploit the true weak- 
nesses in Vavilov’s argument. Vavilov 
did underplay the creative role of en- 
vironment, and his chemical analogy 
did betray a belief in prefigured po- 
tentiality as the source of later, and 
in some sense illusory, change. But 
Lysenko, who was also both a char- 
latan and a cruel polemicist, was 
equally undialectical (despite his pro- 
testations to the contrary) in viewing 
plants as putty before a molding en- 
vironment. 
The Soviets killed Vavilov in the 
name of a phony Lamarckism. He be- 
came a legitimate martyr in the West, 
but his ideas did not flourish as a 
result. The law of homologous series, 
the organizing theme of his evolution- 
ary work, was ignored in the name 
of an overly strict Darwinism. Vav- 
ilov’s law did not directly contradict 
Darwinian principles, but its emphasis 
on constraints of inheritance and chan- 
neled variation fit poorly with the fa- 
vored Darwinian theme of random 
variation and the guidance of evolu- 
tionary change by natural selection. 
It was therefore neglected and rel- 
egated to the shelf of antiquated the- 
ories that had implicated variation it- 
self as a directing force in evolution. 
I have consulted all the founding doc- 
uments of the “modern synthesis,” the 
movement that established our present 
version of Darwinism between the late 
1930s and the 1950s. Only two men- 
tion Vavilov’s law of homologous se- 
ries, each in less than one paragraph. 
Yet I feel that in his imperfect way 
Vavilov had glimpsed something im- 
portant. In more modern terms, new 
species do not inherit an adult form 
from their ancestors. They receive a 
complex genetic system and a set of 
developmental pathways for translat- 
ing genetic products through embry- 
ology and later growth into adult or- 
ganisms. These pathways do constrain 
the expression of genetic variation; 
they do channel it along certain lines. 
Natural selection may choose any spot 
along the line, but it may not be able 
to move a species off the line — for 
selection can only act upon the vari- 
18 
