1940'ların sonlarında, Joseph Stalin , bilimin itibarını sarsmak için kurucusu Gregor Johann Mendel'in Katolik bir Hıristiyan rahip olduğu gerçeğini kullanarak Sovyetler Birliği'nde Mendel genetiğini kaldırdı.
Başka bir deyişle Mendel genetiği , Rahip Mendel'in Tanrı'nın varlığını , yani teizmi teşvik eden Kilisenin bir ürünü olduğu gerekçesiyle ateist bir hükümet tarafından reddedildi.
[1] Atlas Information Services. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The story begins in the late 1940s when Stalin had "abolished" Mendelian genetics throughout the Soviet Union.”
[2]. History of Science Society, Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “The fact that Mendel was a priest has been similarly used to discredit his ideas
(1952) Eugenics: Galton and After. Duckworth. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Was not Mendel a priest ? If, as the reactionaries maintain, genetic processes are subject to the laws of chance ...”
[3]George Aiken Taylor (1972). The Presbyterian Journal, Volume 31. Southern Presbyterian Journal Co.. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “Mendel, of course, must be discredited, in Communist thought, because he was a product of the West and of the Church.”
(1945) The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, Volumes 23-27. Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy. Retrieved on 2007–10–18. “He trenchantly criticises Lysenko's vilification of the work of Mendel and Morgan as "fascist, bourgeois-capitalistic, and inspired by clerics" (that Mendel was a priest is taken as sufficient to discredit his experiments).”