424
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Russia’s science and higher education ministry has dismissed the head of a prestigious genetics institute who sparked controversy by contending that humans once lived for centuries and that the shorter lives of modern humans are due to their ancestors’ sins, state news agency RIA-Novosti said Thursday.

Although the report did not give a reason for the firing of Alexander Kudryavtsev, the influential Russian Orthodox Church called it religious discrimination.

Kudryavtsev, who headed the Russian Academy of Science’s Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, made a presentation at a conference in 2023 in which he said people had lived for some 900 years prior to the era of the Biblical Flood and that “original, ancestral and personal sins” caused genetic diseases that shortened lifespans.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] JCreazy@midwest.social 79 points 7 months ago

It's always confused me how someone that believes in a religion can be a scientist. They directly contradict each other. It just makes it sound like people are in denial.

[-] Haagel@lemmings.world 62 points 7 months ago

With all due respect, my friend, you're assuming a false dillema. The majority of academic scientists are religious, reflective of the general population's religious affiliation.

Of course there are a minority of highly vocal outliers on both sides of the spectrum who profit from the discord, real or imagined.

https://sciencereligiondialogue.org/resources/what-do-scientists-believe-religion-among-scientists-and-implications-for-public-perceptions/

[-] blackbelt352@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

There's a few Neil DeGrasse Tyson clips I remember seeing around about various scientific and religious interactions.

Like he calls nonsense on the BCE/CE vs BC/AD change because scientists, and really most of scociety, operates on the Gregorian Calendar which was created by the Catholic Church under Pope Gregory XIII and is the most accurate calendar we've ever made to account for leap years. Why deny the creators of a fantastic calendar their due respect just because they were religious in a time when everyone was religious?

And in a different he also talked about the Baghdad House of Wisdom and how throughout the Middle Ages of Europe, Baghdad was a center of intellectual thought and culture, until the Fundamentalists got into power and declared manipulating numbers was witchcraft, and ended up being a huge brain drain in Baghdad for centuries.

[-] Moghul@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

NDT is a massive blowhard. I'm not religious but I got turned off by his weird interview with God thing.

[-] Haagel@lemmings.world 10 points 7 months ago

He's one of the profiteers, in my opinion.

[-] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago

His point about the change to BCE/CE is the actual nonsense. His point is that we should keep religious terminology being used in science? Out of respect for the creators? When have we ever done that? Science is secular and should be a secular pursuit. Every biologist and anthropologist shouldn’t have to reference Christ just to date their samples even if the calendar is the same. I respect NDT for his work but his awful takes like this hurt what he says often.

[-] danl@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Planet names, days of the week, months, which year is zero - even that we have 7 days in the week - All of these are direct religious references that we’re fine with.

[-] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

Months are actually numbers and politics. For instance, August is named for Augustus Caesar and December basically means 'tenth month.'

[-] danl@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

January is named for Janus, February for a religious feast, March for Mars and June for Juno (Jupiter’s wife). April may also be a goddess Apru but the connection is still not agreed upon.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago

Humans are fantastic at compartmentalization

load more comments (58 replies)
[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 22 points 7 months ago

You can be all sorts of religious and be a scientist.

But the moment you start to claim anything from one of the popular holy books is literally true, you become a massive hypocrite.

But there is no disconnect between deism and science.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] blackbelt352@lemmy.world 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

To an extent it depends how that religion interacts with science. There's quite a few major foundational discoveries that came from priests and ordained clergy from the Catholic Church: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scientists

Within the Catholic Church there are a few orders of clergy dedicated to scientific discovery, especially the Jesuits.

Granted a lot of them conducted science under the broad philosophy of better understanding the universe God created, but if the end result eventually improves the lives of people, I don't see how that's an inherently bad thing.

If we wanted to be a bit more accurate to the hustoru of the real world, religious fundamentalism is opposed to science.

[-] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago
[-] SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 months ago

The problem is that some people like this guy are clearly not compartimentalizing at all.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] FrostKing@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Its definitely not true that science and religion have to contradict each other. Take Christianity—you can easily believe in scientific methods to discover the way the world works, while believing that 'God' is the Creator of those things.

load more comments (13 replies)
[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Cognitive Dissonance. I was raised very devout and I did it for years. It doesn't confuse me, it evokes pity. I get to see people making the same fucking mistake I made and it hurts.

I made that mistake, no one else has to. Rip the band-aid off!

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (30 replies)
[-] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 41 points 7 months ago

It's embarrassing that he even got that far.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] doctorcrimson@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago

Mixed feelings, on one hand it's good he is out, on the other hand it is shameful they let him get to such an incredibly high level of authority and left him there for so long.

[-] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 22 points 7 months ago

Some people go bonkers later in life

[-] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

How did that numpty ever end up in the Academy of Science in the first place?

[-] rustyfish@lemmy.world 43 points 7 months ago

Well it’s Russia so I’m gonna guess it was nepotism.

[-] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

Nepotism also comes with future immunity in oligarchies though.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] braxy29@lemmy.world 31 points 7 months ago

wow, that headline is a whole journey

[-] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 7 months ago

Christians will cite this as an example of them being persecuted. Guaranteed.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 33 points 7 months ago

It's already there in the summary of the article. They're calling it religious discrimination.

[-] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 7 months ago

I guess I should have added "around the world." I was going to say "in the US," but then I remembered some of my religious family in other countries who would definitely say this, too.

[-] rustyfish@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

It’s the church. They call it religious discrimination when they aren’t allowed to discriminate others. Or murder. Point is they cry and get super hard when they can play the victim.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago

Am I on Lemmy, or the SCP wiki?

[-] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 7 months ago
[-] APassenger@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That's quite literally in the Bible. People are stated as having extraordinary lifespans (e. g., Methuselah).

Then there was a flood after which people saw a rainbow for the first time ever. Gods promise not to flood us again.

The implication seems to be that the earth was in a firmament bubble and the bubble burst, sending down water. Then we had direct sun and not the filtered kind that He* created us for.

No longer in our best element, we die earlier.

I'm not saying the above is true, I'm saying I've heard this for decades now and it checks out against biblical description.

[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago

And this is why, while you can have smart Christians, you really can't have smart biblical literalist.

load more comments (11 replies)
[-] Psythik@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

So you mean to tell me that you're weren't raised by hardcore Christians who drilled this "fact" down your throat well into adulthood? And that it's our fault for being sinners so we can't live 969 years anymore?

You're lucky son of a bitch, you know that, right?

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 7 points 7 months ago

Listen. It's not that hard. A flood happens and now we have nearly 1/10th the lifespan.

DONT YOU GET IT?!

/s

[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)
[-] shadmere@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Phantom time conspiracies are my favorite kind of dumbass conspiracies.

[-] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

In the 80s and 90s people were so confused they believed in all kinds of scams. Charged water before the TV, gave money to financial pyramids, believed their kids dead in Afgan and Chechnya could be brought to life for a little donation, even japanese death cult Ayum Sinrikyo was filmed staying with Brejhnev and USSR got more of his followers than Japan itself. Some of these ceased to exist but some are still there, including that idiot, Dugin and others. One of the top programs on the TV in the 10s was an initially sceptical challenge show of self-named witches, mages, extrasensorically gifted people, that run for many seasons, and with time charlatans themselves started to use it as a kind of promotion to their services kek.

From all of them, at least Fomenko is too absurd to most and genuinely funny in how he intertwines random historical events and his own marasm. But all of them should go to court to be honest. Their success is just a symptom of bigger problems, but they further enable people's idiotism and live in luxury extorting them.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] xc2215x@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

A rare time I agree with Russia.

[-] badbytes@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Saw recent Russian plan to solve road accidents, by having Russian Orthodox priest spread holy water on roads to bless them. This story seems inline.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] prowess2956@kbin.social 6 points 7 months ago

How long until this guy finds his way to Florida?

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
424 points (96.7% liked)

World News

38563 readers
2572 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS