Nikolai Koltsov, A requiem for a pioneer

Search the web for Nikolai Koltsov and you will not see so much. He and many other pioneers of science are buried under the vast amount of digital rubbish we have generated over the last decades.

Nowadays, it’s widely accepted that DNA’s are long strings of coded data transmitted vertically (and recently horizontally) between species. However, it was a revolutionary idea in 1927 when Nikolai Koltsov wrote about a giant hereditary molecule that is composed of two mirror strands that would replicate in a semi-conservative fashion using each strand as a template.

Koltsov was not an unknown scientist. He was a prominent biologist in the Soviet Union. Koltsov has founded Institute of Experimental Biology 1917, ten years before his official and public statements about inheritance, evolution and genetics.

Despite the fact that he was known as a leading scientist and even trustee of the communist party, still it was not easy to stand in front of Lamarckian soft-inheritance. Lamarckian idea about inheritance of acquired characteristics was accepted by communist party as a scientific viewpoint aligned with their ideology. That’s a repetitive behavioral pattern of ideologies that they support scientific theories which support their ideas better than the others, and the most supportive theory is not necessarily the closest to the reality.

At that time, genetics was considered as a bourgeois science and of course, ideas of Koltsov as a leading genetic scientist was labeled as a fascist propaganda!

Although military pressures have had a great contribution to the advancement of the technology, intervention of political leaders in science has been destructive most of the times. Technology helps politics to enhance its tools, but science has not short-term or mid-term results, so it’s mostly judged against political values and ideologies.

The communist party, motivated by Nikolai Lysenko (a leading Lamarckian), condemned findings of Koltsov and considered him as a person promoting fascistic nonsense ideas and defending racist ideology.

Nikolai Koltsov, somehow father of the modern genetics and a leading pioneer of biotechnology, died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1940. His wife committed suicide on the same day and years later, it was revealed that he was poisoned by Soviet Union police.

Modern genetics is one of our most valuable tools in widening our view of the world and helps us to move toward trans-humans. Therefore, Koltsov research shall be considered as one the first steps in the ladder of human transcendence, however, it seems humans themselves, do not welcome these efforts.

The surprising fact is that Koltsov, a scientist that his findings were supporting the idea of evolution, was killed by a follower of Lamarck, the other scientist who has a significant contribution to the development of the evolution!

Reading history (at least the recent history that is well documented) shows that the science has been the victim of the scientists itself. Public opinion is flexible and adapts itself to it’s short term benefits, and people, are not able to fight against science without the support of the other scientists. The ones who have a strong emotional bond with the old theories or have a strong affection for money and are ready to sacrifice science for anyone who signs their paycheck.