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.
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.
Might even make the problem even worse. People who are sick and know they are being prayed for show slightly worse outcomes. The theory is that they are less inclined to follow doctor advice since they think the problem will be solved for them. Maybe drivers would be more inclined to take more risks.