Battles to defend science

This issue of TrV-Nauka is dedicated to the memory of Academician Eduard Kruglyakov (October 22, 1934 - November 6, 2012), a consistent fighter against pseudoscience and bureaucratic arbitrariness when making decisions on projects based on the achievements of fundamental and applied science, Chairman of the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research research of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He did this “social work” of his seriously. He published the newsletter “In Defense of Science,” wrote journalistic articles and books, and sued Viktor Petrik. The latter was by no means a joke: Petrik brought huge claims against the academicians, and at first there was a feeling that the court was on the side of Petrik, who was supported by the “second person in the state” and had serious material resources. Petrik lost, but pseudoscience continues to thrive.

When pseudoscience finds support from the state and is fueled by our money, when it gets the word on the central television channels, when it engages in direct fraud, advertising and imposing “quantum biofield correctors” on the not very literate sections of the population, then the time comes to raise its voice. Who can do this and be heard? First of all, these are scientists of high status. Those of them who really tried to fight back against pseudoscience can be counted on one hand. We just lost one of these people. Sometimes academic physicists collectively take actions against pseudoscience. One such action brought down Lysenko, another brought down Petrik. And now a new action initiated by the Bureau of the Division of Physical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences - however, not against pseudoscience, but against the expansion of clericalism into the territory of science (we are talking about the opening of the Department of Theology at MEPhI) - in any case, this is a defense of common sense and the scientific worldview (see. page 16).

It happens that reversing the movement plays into the hands of the authorities, especially the authorities who are generally incompetent. The passage of time is irreversible, but as a result of such efforts, so many caricatured half-educated characters with their decrees and laws of cosmic stupidity appear on the surface that time slows down. Over the past year, this phenomenon has taken on grotesque forms.

As the same Eduard Pavlovich Kruglyakov wrote (see page 8), “the issue of mandatory professional examination of projects has been repeatedly raised, at least in the last ten years, but no decisions have been made. Meanwhile, high-ranking officials still make questionable decisions from time to time solely to the best of their understanding.”

The protests of scientists and teachers who actively opposed the approval of the federal state educational standard and against the introduction of religious courses into schools have not yet been taken into account (another action of this kind took place on November 10 on Revolution Square). In this environment, it has become common to treat both education and scientific titles as a commodity at bargain prices, distributed among one’s own people. It is enough to show a bossy desire - and now you are no worse than any real doctor of science and can look down on everyone.

It seems that these people seriously consider the most important “intellectual skill” to be the ability to curry favor with their superiors. This position was actually voiced by former activist of the Nashi and Seliger movements, and now United Russia member and member of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, Ilya Kostunov, who said that “the dumbest deputy is smarter than the average citizen of the Russian Federation.” The odious politician's party comrades reprimanded him and forced him to apologize, but it is unlikely that they essentially disagree with him. It’s even sadder that representatives of the so-called “systemic opposition” in the Duma probably agree with Kostunov, not only voting “for”, but also proposing laws such as “On the protection of children from information harmful to their health and development,” which, according to the lawmakers, by blacklisting sites without any trial, the Internet should be rid of pedophilia, drug advertising and suicide propaganda, and at the same time not encroach on publicity. Here, A Just Russia deputies Elena Mizulina and Ilya Ponomarev were noted for their Manilovism. Despite the protests of the professional community (Wikipedia stopped working for the whole day, Yandex put an end to its slogan “Everything will be found”, Livejournal suggested creating a petition, etc.) the law was almost unanimously adopted and quite predictably led to incidents with blocking and censorship of a number of popular resources (completely self-regulating and not requiring outside intervention).

The bitter irony is that the merits of just one of the affected resources, Lurkmore.to, in the matter of ironically educating young people about the problems of the same fricism and numerous petriks (who they are, how they distinguished themselves and how they should be treated) are simply incomparable with the efforts of everyone a deputy corps capable of, with its unprofessional activities, only causing consternation among specialists and not in the slightest way damaging the activities of countless garbage sites that are not subject to regulation. However, as a result of the blocking attempt, tens of thousands more people became acquainted with the Lurkmorye encyclopedia.

It seems incredible that completely reasonable people (albeit not brilliant, but not much stupider than the “average Russian”) make decisions that would disgrace the simplest amoeba. A system built on bells like “what do you want” turns out to be terribly primitive. Any mediocre clerk, who by chance finds himself at the top of power, begins to seriously believe in his own chosenness by God, charisma, and infallibility. His mistakes have a painful impact on all of us, but the country is large, and it can still pay for everything for a long time - the main thing is to have a single talent - the skill of strengthening the power of one’s own corporation. If people with any level of intelligence are asked to vote as they should, without communicating with their own kind, without any dependence on them, then the result will not be a think tank, but an archiprimitive switch, a switch that does not require the participation of human intelligence at all. Then you don’t need to spend so much money on this “expertise”; you just need to short-circuit the necessary wires.

Boris Stern , Maxim Borisov

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