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Back in the 1970’s, there was a USSR scientist who had weird biological theories that really hindered work done in that country by real biologists..

You’re thinking of Trofim Lysenko who wasn’t a trained scientist, but his ‘theories’ seemed to fit in with Communist dogma - so he attracted the approval of Stalin. Lysenko got his ideas from a Russian form of Lamarckism known as Michurianism. Essentially it was the old falsehood that said such nonsense as the children of a giraffe have longer necks because their parents stretched to reach leaves on trees.

Lysenko came to prominence in 1948 when he declared Mendelist evolution to be reactionary, decadant and its proponents to be enemies of the Soviets. Other scientists knew what that meant and on whose behalf he was speaking (Uncle Joe) and quickly fell behind the Party line. He and his theories basically held sway in the Eastern Bloc until 1965 when Kruschev had Lysenko denounced and returned the Soviet Union to the orthodox view of evolution.

But of course Lysenko’s theories were in sway during the pivotal discoveries of DNA and how it affected genetics. So the Soviet Union fell behind at a vital moment and never recovered.

It’s an extreme form of the current situation in the US, where any old nonsense can be promoted by politicians to keep their vested interests (be they oil, lead or Christian fundamentalism) happy. Sadly the same is starting to happen over here in the UK, where our non-scientific Prime Minister refuses to condemn schools that teach creationism over evolution.

And in the middle, you’ve got the unfortunates who try to operate the machine. While both sides are having a go at them.

I expect the United States will become one big retirement villa in a matter of years.