this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 9 months ago (35 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 9 months ago (6 children)

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/

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (58 children)

Humans are fantastic at compartmentalization

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (13 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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!

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's embarrassing that he even got that far.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

Some people go bonkers later in life

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Nepotism also comes with future immunity in oligarchies though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

maybe he was banned from academia in soviet times for being a religious nutjob, and then he shown that "political discrimination get into any position free" card and they let him in no questions asked

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago

wow, that headline is a whole journey

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

It's like a fetish for them. They want to be oppressed so bad.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This story could also title "East European State under Western duress had to fire Christian top scientist with life-prolonging ideas" /s

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago

Am I on Lemmy, or the SCP wiki?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (12 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 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

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Phantom time conspiracies are my favorite kind of dumbass conspiracies.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

A rare time I agree with Russia.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

How long until this guy finds his way to Florida?

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