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.

  • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I do when they are making unsubstantiated claims about “truth” in their field of study. If a geneticist claims that people lived longer because of peer review evidence shows their genetic makeup up allows for it would be one thing. But to make that claim when he should know better means he can’t be trusted and is already abusing his position

    • NOSin@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Soooooo, you’re saying every religious scientists make those kind of claims ? Because what you answered to wasn’t about that anymore.

      • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I don’t remember saying “every” in my post. I do recall being specific on the conditions when it is a problem.

        • NOSin@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          And yet, what you answered wasn’t about that case, thanks for your contribution.