Under the aegis of such men, it was impossible to push the debate into specialist territory, or even ask hard factual questions. All the geneticists could do was argue for the ‘practicality’ of their own research, while their opponents the Lysenkoites barracked them for studying a useless fly, Drosophila, while they, the Lysenkoites, busied themselves with tomatoes, potatoes and other useful plants and animals.