I just started The Three-Body Problem and have really been enjoying so far. That being said, the first chapter takes place during a struggle session at a university, where a professor is accused of reactionary thought by teaching Einstein’s theory of relativity and the Big Bang Theory by his own accord in an intro physics class.

Is there any historical truth to this sort of backlash, and if so, why? I’m no physicist, but I don’t understand how ToR/BBT contradict dialectical materialism.

  • @Shrike502
    15•1 year ago

    That’s a misconception. It was actually something we discussed with our group, one of the first topics we had actually.

    USSR was not against genetics in general, in fact it has pioneered some of the research. The issue was with biological determinism - the notion (that was peddled by genetists themselves at times) that the sum of one’s genes determine everything. That what you have in your DNA is exactly what you will be. That, rather obviously, goes against dialectic materialism, and as it turned out - against reality of life (who would have thought). However, the idea of “USSR was against genetics” got cemented.