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NATURE|Vol 454|31 July 2008 SUMMER BOOKS OPINION

edge and extension at the trailing edge. as T. rex’s crater of doom by proving it was with others, including my late professor, Derek Alvarez leads us to this hypothesis along a 300,000 years too old. Alvarez’s frequent refer- Ager, he has helped geologists to understand personal and scientific journey through many ences to the crater as the uncontested ‘smoking that uniformitarianism and gradualism are not scientific, historical and cultural byways. gun’ would otherwise, presumably, have been the same thing. On the timescale of a planet, The book reads like an extended field guide phrased more circumspectly. uniformity must also embrace rare, catastrophic and notebook — Alvarez mingles the story of Like Alvarez’s previous book, The Mountains events that may recur on timescales far beyond his involvement with Italian geologists with of St Francis is a first-person participant history. the duration of civilizations and even species. accounts of his travels, discoveries and what This genre carries dangers, not least the pitfall Whatever the truth behind his sometimes might be called an Italian history of the world, of overplaying the author’s centrality. Alvarez is overconfident side-statements about the end- in which various historical figures receive given to grand gesture, and sometimes allows Cretaceous extinction, meteorite impacts, the proper credit for thinking of things first. himself to come too close to writing what iridium , Chicxulub crater and science Many of them, such as the seventeenth-cen- Stephen Jay Gould dubbed “cardboard history”. history, the tectonic story running through this tury Danish geologist Nicolaus , need no For example, he avers that, by the 1930s, Alfred book is compelling and engagingly told. It also introduction to geological readers. But some ’s ideas on continental drift had been holds appeal for lay readers, perhaps less so Italian figures will be unfamiliar, such as the “mostly rejected”. True, Wegener’s fellow geo- than his previous book, but those who venture ‘father of Italian geology’ Giovanni Arduino, physicists rejected his hypothesis because they into the mountains of St Francis with Alvarez who gave us the now obsolete term ‘tertiary’ thought it was physically impossible. But, as sci- will not regret it. I would make it required back- in the eighteenth century. ence historian Naomi Oreskes has shown, it was ground reading for students of Earth science. It Alvarez obsesses a little about issues of pri- only in the United States — for a long time a bas- would certainly help counteract the occasional ority, recalling my feeling that his other book tion of old-fashioned continental fixism — that philistinism of those leading their field trips. ■ was uncomfortably full of praise for those col- geologists rejected drift en masse. Elsewhere Ted Nield is editor of Geoscientist magazine and laborators who had set their competing claims they remained more open-minded. author of Supercontinent. aside. Here, too, using many historical exam- Alvarez deserves his place in posterity. Along e-mail: [email protected] ples, Alvarez shows the reader how well scien- tists behave when science works. I particularly relished the moral he draws from how alpine thrust faults were correctly explained. These faults are flat planes along Stalin’s war on genetic science which huge masses of rock have travelled hori- zontally, often for hundreds of kilometres. After The Murder of : The Story the Lysenko affair with verve and pace. Prin- years of doubt, geologists finally accepted that of Stalin’s Persecution of One of the Great gle makes it clear how Vavilov’s patriotism, rocks could be pushed such large distances Scientists of the Twentieth Century dedication to science and determination to be — their acceptance of plate tectonics sapped all by Peter Pringle open-minded led to his downfall and death. controversy from the issue. Alvarez uses this to Simon and Schuster: 2008. 384 pp. $26 Vavilov was born in 1887 in into remind us of a phenomenon first identified by a comfortable, bourgeois family. In 1906 he astronomers Alan Lightman and Owen Gin- It is not surprising, given the parlous state entered the Petrovskaya Academy, gerich in 1992, whereby well-established ruling of Russia in the years following the Revolu- or Petrovska, one of many institutes established theories “develop a life of their own” and seem tion, that its political system put ideology and after the devastating of 1892. Russian to take forever to collapse under the weight of practical outcomes above all else, including agricultural practices lagged behind those conflicting evidence. scientific fact. This was most evident in agri- of other European countries and the United There is an irony here because the connec- culture, where it was imperative to produce States, and efforts to reform them were unsuc- tion that Alvarez and others made between the more food by whatever means. The conse- cessful. Vavilov undertook “to work for the iridium anomaly and the Chicxulub crater has quences were tragic for the Russian people and benefit of the poor, the enslaved class of my become just such a ruling theory in recent years, for Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, Russia’s greatest country, to raise their level of knowledge”. one that sceptical scientists have challenged at geneticist. Vavilov fell foul of Trofim Deniso- This pledge, Pringle explains, drove Vavilov their peril. One must conclude that the book was vich Lysenko who, through political manipu- throughout his life. already with the publishers last year when Gerta lation and intrigue, came to dominate Soviet After graduating, Vavilov spent a year Keller, a professor at Princeton University in .Peter Pringle’s compelling book, The researching with Robert Regel at the New Jersey, persuasively debunked Chicxulub Murder of Nikolai Vavilov, tells the story of Bureau of Applied in St Petersburg,

To Follow the Water: Exploring the Ocean to Brussels Versus the Beltway: Advocacy in the Discover Climate United States and the European Union by Dallas Murphy (Basic Books, $15.95, £9.99) by Christine Mahoney As well as covering the history of human (Georgetown Univ. Press, $29.95) expansion across the globe and the science of Political decisions made in Washington DC and oceanography, Murphy also gives first-hand Brussels have global effects, but US and European accounts of life on a research vessel. “Meticulously advocacy styles are often assumed to be culturally following the waters of the Gulf Stream into the different. This book challenges stereotypes, arguing blue beyond, Murphy’s book gets it right,” wrote that the context of issues and institutions is more Arnold Gordon (Nature 449, 407–408; 2007). important than differences between cultures. 577 OPINION SUMMER BOOKS NATURE|Vol 454|31 July 2008

before embarking on a two-year tour of somatic cells, and second by Mendel’s work. European laboratories. His stay with William Scientists rejected Lysenko’s claims, but by Bateson in Cambridge, UK, was the highlight. skilful manipulation of the political situa- Bateson was the leading proponent of Gregor tion throughout his career, Lysenko scaled Mendel’s work on inherited traits, rediscov- the Soviet scientific hierarchy. He was twice ered 10 years earlier, and wrote the first genet- awarded the Order of Lenin, and became ics textbook, Mendel’s Principles of , president of the Lenin Academy of Agricul- published in 1909. Bateson’s enthusiasm for tural Sciences of the USSR, a full member Mendelian genetics seems to have rubbed off: of the country’s Academy of Sciences and a Vavilov based his life’s work on Mendelian member of the Supreme Soviet. principles and their elaboration by, among The conflict between Lysenko and the others, fly geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan. ‘Mendelian–Morganists’ came to a head in 1936 Bateson had led an expedition to the Russian at a conference at the Lenin Academy. Despite Steppes in 1886 to examine the interactions of geneticists’ devastating scientific critique of environment and species variability. Pringle Lysenko’s claims, the government-controlled suggests that this may have inspired Vavilov press declared Lysenko the winner. Attacks to undertake similar expeditions to search for on Vavilov’s position increased and Lysenko crop varieties whose traits made them suit- collection of 250,000 seeds of cultivated plants consolidated his position. Senior scientists in able for particular environments, such as dry and their varieties was the most extensive in the the Soviet administration were among the vic- or cold regions. world. In 1930, he was appointed director of the tims of Stalin’s , when perhaps as On Vavilov’s return to Russia and the Petro- Institute of Genetics of the USSR Academy of many as one million anti-revolutionaries and vska, he was sent to investigate why soldiers Sciences in recognition of his position as the enemies of the people were executed over two on the Persian front were falling ill after eating country’s leading plant geneticist and his inter- years, including Muralov, president of the Lenin bread. Vavilov used the assignment to collect national reputation. Just six years later, Vavilov Academy. Lysenko took his place to become varieties of plants growing in the harsh climate was in disgrace. Vavilov’s boss. In October 1939, the Central of the Pamir mountains, in the hope that these His nemesis Lysenko was born in 1898 into Committee of the Communist Party of the hardy plants might be cultivated in northern a peasant family. Unusually for the time, he held another genetics conference. Russia to provide more food for the Soviet peo- attended a school of agriculture and horticul- This again ended in triumph for Lysenko. ple. Vavilov endured great hardship in travel- ture; clever and ambitious, he aspired to make Why were the reins of Soviet agriculture held ling to such remote regions, trips that would great contributions to Soviet science. His big by a charlatan whose policies were disastrous? As now be unthinkable without insulated jackets, break as an agricultural researcher came in Pringle makes clear, Lysenko prospered because mobile phones and satellite navigation. 1927, when the newspaper Pravda reported he promised rapid advances in agriculture that Vavilov returned from the Pamirs in 1916 to his work on changing the time of sprouting in were seized on by a Soviet government desp erate find Russia in political turmoil. In March 1917, seeds by exposing them to differing periods to feed thousands of citizens dying of starva- Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and by October, the of cold temperatures, known as . tion. Lysenko promised Stalin that new strains Bolsheviks had seized the reins of government, The reporter noted that Lysenko was working of wheat and other crops with desirable traits plunging the country into civil war. Neverthe- for the people, not carrying out research for its could be produced within 3 years, much quicker less, Vavilov’s career began auspiciously — he own sake by studying the “hairy legs of flies”. than the 12 years that Vavilov required. Perhaps took up a full professorship at the University Lysenko promoted himself as the discoverer as importantly, Lysenko’s views of genetics were of Saratov, a large city on the Volga river some of vernalization, although it had been known in sympathy with prevailing Marxist dogma. 700 kilometres southeast of Moscow. Vavilov since 1858, and trumpeted it as a solution to the Experts, by virtue of their education and role, mounted expeditions to , Ethiopia, Soviet Union’s chronic food shortages. were members of the bourgeoisie and regarded Eritrea, North and America and the Med- Lysenko claimed that plants could be ‘edu- with suspicion in Russia. There was a strong iterranean, seeking plants that might increase cated’ so that the changed germination time political movement to replace the intelligentsia agricultural productivity in Russia. He regarded became heritable after several generations of with elevated peasants and other members of this as an essential task after the disastrous col- vernalization. This was a variant of , the proletariat, even if they were untrained and lapse of Soviet agriculture that followed the or the inheritance of acquired characters, that ill-fitted to their new posts. Lysenko was one consolidation of land and labour known as col- had been discredited first by August Weis- such example. Vavilov, by contrast, was an edu- lectivization that began around 1929. Vavilov’s mann’s distinction between germ cells and cated, well-travelled businessman’s son who was

Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish A Guinea Pig’s History of Biology: The Plants Genetic Elements and Animals Who Taught Us the Facts of Life by Austin Burt and Robert Trivers by Jim Endersby (Arrow, £8.99) (Harvard Univ. Press, $24.95, £16.95) From Mendel’s peas to modern laboratories, The book examines how selfish genes thrive despite Endersby’s entertaining book explores the history of damaging their carrier. Burt and Trivers describe science through the plants and animals that provided how such genes spread through populations by answers or, often, more questions. Covering the distorting transmission on a molecular level and familiar ground of mice and fruitflies, the book also increasing their own replication, or by changing how highlights organisms that led scientists up the wrong an organism treats its kin. path, such as the zebra-like quagga. 578 NATURE|Vol 454|31 July 2008 SUMMER BOOKS OPINION

thought to be susceptible to foreign influences. And why did Vavilov not fight Lysenko ear- Betting on black holes lier and more aggressively? Pringle demon- strates that Vavilov was guided by his student The War: My Battle with Stephen applying to the formation pledge to help the Soviet people and that he Hawking to Make the World Safe for process of a black hole, he predicted that it must was committed to exploring all leads, how- Quantum Mechanics radiate heat. Because heat is a form of energy, ever improbable, that might increase food pro- by Leonard Susskind this radiance would have to be paid for by grad- duction. Vavilov encouraged many scientists, Little Brown: 2008. 416 pp. $27.99 ually reducing the hole’s mass, because energy including Lysenko, to test different approaches. and mass are equivalent in . In Naively, Vavilov did not expect that Lysenko time, the hole would evaporate away completely, would play by political rather than scientific The idea of a black hole in space produced by leaving behind just heat energy, mostly in the rules. At a 1948 session of the Lenin Academy, the collapse of a massive star dates back to the form of photons, with a few other particles such Stalin was so determined that Lysenko should 1930s, but it was only in the 1960s that astro- as neutrinos and electrons. triumph that he drafted Lysenko’s opening physicists began to understand the details. On an immense timescale, vastly longer than remarks himself, emphasizing the correctness Evidence now suggests that black holes do exist, the current age of the Universe, the black hole of Lamarckian thinking. A letter included in and are a key element of the great cosmic story. would convert the entire star into heat. Hawking the official report ended: “Glory to the great Yet some of their predicted properties remain concluded that the heat energy would look the Stalin … coryphaeus of progressive science!” puzzling and threaten cherished physical laws. same whatever the star was made of originally. Neither Vavilov nor his work featured in One long-running conflict concerns the Many physicists did not like this conclusion. this session. Following the 1939 conference, fate of the material that implodes to form a A principle of quantum mechanics is that infor- Lysenko had progressively dismantled Vavilov’s black hole. In his new book The Black Hole mation is never created or destroyed in a quan- institute, but Vavilov had remained free even War, theoretical physicist Leonard tum process. For example, if you throw an as criticism of him became ever more vitupera- Susskind of , encyclopaedia into a furnace, it might seem tive. Then, on 6 August 1940, while collecting California, describes that the information is irretrievably lost, plants in the , Vavilov was seized by how he sparred with turned into incoherent heat. Accord- the Soviet secret police and taken to Moscow. ing to quantum mechanics, however, Pringle’s account of Vavilov’s 11-month interro- of the University of the information is lost only gation is horrifying. In July 1941, Vavilov and Cambridge, UK, about this thorny issue. for practical purposes. two colleagues were tried and sentenced to Black holes earn their name because The infrared pho- death. Vavilov’s appeal to the Presidium of the their gravity is so strong they trap even tons emitted by the Supreme Soviet was turned down, but a per- light, appearing black from the out- embers still con- sonal plea to the head of the secret police led to side. According to Einstein’s gen- tain the original his sentence being commuted to life imprison- eral , the ball information, ment. His colleagues were shot. Vavilov died of matter that implodes to create but in a hope- of starvation on 26 January 1943 in a prison in the hole continues to shrink, lessly scrambled Saratov, the city where he had begun his illus- meeting an uncertain fate at the form that renders trious career 26 years before. centre and leaving behind it a it inaccessible to Even now, politics continues to trump good region of empty space. Because us. Leading par- science, as is evident from the delays in reduc- physicists believe nothing can go ticle physicists, led ing global carbon emissions. Pringle’s faster than light, no information mainly by Susskind readable account is a timely reminder that or material should escape the hole. and Gerard ‘t Hooft of public policies must be based on rational deci- Practically all the information about the University of Utrecht in sions drawn from the best data available. ■ the collapsed star would be lost from the the Netherlands, declared that Jan Witkowski is executive director of the Banbury outside Universe, making it impossible to tell the same would be true of black holes Center and professor in the Watson School whether the star was made of matter, antimatter — the information about the original star would of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor or cheese; once inside the hole, its external be enfolded in the emitted heat. It might be jum- Laboratory, 11724, USA. He is co-author physical properties would be the same. up, but it should all be there. of Recombinant DNA: Genes and Genomes. A twist arose in 1975 when Hawking argued Hawking begged to differ. I recall him going e-mail: [email protected] that black holes are not perfectly black. By through the argument during a conversation in

Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang The Beginner’s Guide to Winning The — Rewriting Cosmic History Nobel Prize: A Life in Science by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok by Peter Doherty (Columbia Univ. Press, £10.95) (Broadway, $14.95, £8.99) Doherty’s highly readable book describes how Two theoretical physicists challenge the widely to succeed in science and hopefully win that accepted Big Bang Theory. Turok and Steinhardt coveted prize. “For the aspiring young scientist, or explain how new developments in astronomy, a student considering a scientific career, Doherty cosmology and have led them to develop opens the vault to the world of science, explaining their own ‘Cyclical Universe’ theory to explain how it works and how to get on,” according to Peter cosmic origins. Parham’s review (Nature 443, 755–756; 2006).

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