(Eponymously named for the Russian horticulturist I.V. Michurin, 1855-1935)

Discredited school of thought within genetics, according to which the characteristics of plant hybrids were explained as the result of the acquisition of acquired, environmentally-determined hereditary traits.

Michurin developed more than 300 different sorts of trees and berries - supposedly through direct alteration or manipulation of their environment. The "results" were unequivocally accepted and approved by the Soviet regime.

Even after Michurin's death in 1935, the Michurinist school continued to (negatively) affect Russian research into genetics and heredity, in the person of Trofim Lysenko (who further developed Michurinism into Lysenkoism).

The Soviet endorsement of Michurinism may seem odd, but it may not initially have seemed as far-fetched as it does today. Nor was Michurin the first to walk down this false path - Michurinism builds upon an existing tradition in theoretical genetics, Lamarckism, named for Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.