Editing Trofim Lysenko (section)

===Inheritance of acquired traits===
{{main|Lamarckism}}
Fundamental disagreements between Mendelian geneticists and Lysenko concerned the possibility of inheritance of traits that arise during the individual development of organisms, for example, under the influence of environmental factors or during grafting (vegetative hybridization). The idea that such characteristics cannot be inherited is associated with a distorted understanding of the principle formulated by August Weismann, according to which somatic cells cannot transmit information to germ cells. In fact, Weismann admitted the possibility of environmental influence on the substance of heredity.{{sfn|Graham|2016|p=20}}

Lysenko himself, at the August 1948 VASKhNIL session, argued the following regarding the inheritance of acquired characteristics:<ref name="washniil"/>
{{blockquote|Thus, the position about the possibility of inheritance of acquired deviations - this is the largest acquisition in the history of biological science, the foundation of which was laid by [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck|Lamarck]] and organically mastered later in the teachings of Darwin - was thrown overboard by the Mendelian-Morganists.}}