“His primary liberty,” Baker said of scientists, “is freedom of inquiry. Without that he is as you would be if a dictator could control even your imaginations. When scientific autonomy is lost,” said Baker, “a fantastic situation develops; for even with the best will in the world, the political bosses cannot distinguish between the genuine investigator on the one hand and the bluffer and self-advertiser on the other.” And scientific autonomy had been lost. Baker declared that Trofim Lysenko, the director of the Institute of Genetics at the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Science, “provides a
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