(June 21, 2015 at 6:18 pm)Alex K Wrote: Secular Elf
Ooh that's right down my alley. But seriously, most ppl I ask speculate that some soviet scientists have tried it
IIRC, during late 1920s and 1930s some soviet societists expressed interest in exploring possible benefits of such interbreeding, without such expressions of interest meeting any immediate official disapprobation. Given the atmosphere in the Soviet Union at the time, things don't get expressed without serious consequences unless they conform to certain official view.
In the late 1930s these expressions were suppressed. Perhaps the official view changed.
Be it as it may, from 1930s through the 1950s, soviet official doctrine supported a contra-scientific view of genetics espoused by a few cranks and outright frauds who were feted at the Kremlin. The works of these cranks set soviet biological science back by decades. The damage was so great the Soviet Union was never able to catch up to the west in the field after these crank fell from favor.
