CAZUS Medinsky

Is it worth it to take away the degree from Medinsky (especially against the background of information that the dissertation was not defended), Valery Panyushkin and Ekaterina Barabash argue

Ekaterina Barabash Photo: From Personal Archive

Ekaterina Barabash :

- A strange, unpleasant situation. On the one hand, I do not want to be on the side of those who protect “their” with an administrative resource at the ready - and protect, who doubted. On the other hand, the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission noted “the absence of a scientific degree of basic professional skills of a historian from the applicant,” and simply put, he recognized the dissertation of the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky unscientific. There is no reason not to believe the expert advice. But there is a third party - common sense and justice. For example, I am immensely appreciated by everything that Dissernet does, and I want to believe that all the candidates and doctors convicted in plagiarism will sooner or later lose degrees. But in the case of Medinsky, we are not talking about plagiarism - we are talking about the unscientific, which is honestly formulated by the applicant himself, who admitted that in his dissertation he stood "to the position of the interests of his country." And this is a completely different turn. Indeed, in the process of protection, plagiarism is not visible - it, as a rule, is opened later. And unscientific - it is usually on the surface. It turns out that we must first talk about the unprofessionalism of the dissertation council, which "missed" Medinsky to the doctor of sciences, and then - the professionalism of the Higher Attestation Commission, the Ministry of Education and Science, which issued the doctor's diploma. Who is ready to do this? It seems to me that the hype raised around this topic is enough. So far, enough. Let Medinsky go to the doctors - not science will suffer from this, but the reputation of the country's scientific community. And rightly if it allows himself such doctors of science.

Valery Panyushkin Photo: From Personal Archive

Valery Panyushkin :

- It seems to me that you cannot ignore the difference between the book and the dissertation. The book can be written in any nonsense. The book, despite the nonsense, can capture the minds of millions of people. Mine Kampf, for example, was such a book. And when the moth passes, you can laugh at the whole people who believed in the nonsense, you can lament, you can shrug your shoulders bewildered, you can ask that so for the obsession did the nonsense of the popular one. But this approach is justified only in relation to the book.

With regard to the dissertation - not justified. The dissertation does not set himself the goal of becoming popular. The dissertation sets himself the goal of taking at least one small step towards truth. This is what the scientific consciousness differs from the mass that scientific consciousness presents: truth exists, one can strive for truth, and science has the instruments of striving for truth.

In this sense, what Medinsky did in his dissertation is a thousand times worse than he made in his books. Plagiarism is less dangerous. If it turns out suddenly that Newton’s laws were not discovered by Newton, and Archimedes' law is not Archimedes, of course, we will have to outweigh portraits of famous scientists into school audiences, but the body, immersed in the liquid, will continue to behave the way the Archimedes, and the mass will correlate with the speed, as it revenged under Newton. Truth will not suffer from the fact that its opener will not be Archimedes, but Pupkin ...

If Medinsky stole someone else's good dissertation, it would be half a bastard. It would be a “disserter” to deal with him and would be chopped that it was ashamed, they say, to steal. But Medinsky did not sin against the scientific community, but against the truth. He introduced into scientific everyday life an inaccurate translation of the document, fled sources, set the “interests of the country” above the interests of truth. This inaccurate translation, these harnessed sources must be brought out as soon as possible from scientific everyday life so that the new researcher, trying to approach the truth, does not pour on the agricultural of the Medine new mistakes.

Of course, all kinds of dissertation and expert advice of the Higher Attestation Commission - shame and shame that they allowed Medinsky to introduce nonsense into scientific everyday life. But you can not leave the nonsense as it is, to edifying descendants. It is necessary to fix the nonsense as quickly as possible. For because the Achinea now has the status of a protected doctoral dissertation, the truth suffers.

because Akhineya now has the status of a defended doctoral dissertation, the truth is suffering

The only trouble is that our modern Facebook users consciousness suggests that there is no truth, but there are many different opinions, and as if these opinions are equal and wins the one that is in trend. Not really. Science cannot exist without the presumption of the existence of truth. It cannot but postulate that for the desire for truth there are correct methods and suitable tools. And if someone climbed into the territory of truth through incorrect methods and curved tools, then it is necessary to expel him from there as quickly as possible. Not for the sake of shame, but for the sake of truth. Let him publish a book stuffed with any nonsense, and a dissertation is impossible.

Ekaterina Barabash:

- Your arguments are absolutely understandable and absolutely close to me. Who would argue - Medinsky is trying to discredit the scientific community and does it quite successfully. Not science - community, I note. Moreover, it is impossible to discredit the truth. But imagine that you defended a doctoral dissertation. Let it be the same story for clarity. And now you defended the dissertation, you were approved by the Higher Attestation Commission and the Ministry of Education and Science, you live a doctor of science. Several years pass, the trend is changing, and maybe even power. Your dissertation floats into the light of God and is declared unscientific. You never know for what reasons - they can be different - from ideological to clan. And most likely - your dissertation will be announced to the anti -scientist, and go to the spare. Moreover, not in mathematics, the dissertation, where you prove that 2 × 2 = 4, and then a dissertation council catches you on deceit and refutes the mathematical accuracy. History is a dull discipline. The historian may be precise, history - no. Therefore, any decision regarding your past works will be given to voluntarism and Bolshevism. In this case, I see a dangerous precedent in this case, although, if we talk specifically about its work, which can be found in the public domain, even its scientific inferiority is understandable.

Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky at the opening of the Alleys of the Rulers in Petroevi Lane. Busts of 33 leaders of the country from ancient times to the Provisional Government Photo: Artem Geodaken/TASS have been established in the sculptural park of the Alleys of rulers.

In case of non -compliance with one hundred percent criteria, plagiarisms, violation of the regulation of protection, can be deprived of a degree. But achieving a solution on the basis of unscientificity - even like proven by worthy scientists, members of the expert council - means to stand in the same position as Medinsky as a historian stands: we will throw out from history that we do not need. The dissertation of our Minister of Culture is a kind of monument to our false times. That is why I am against the instantive overthrow of monuments and instant renaming. The story should "settle down". But Medinsky will still get its line in encyclopedias as a pseudo -historical.

The dissertation of our Minister of Culture is a kind of monument to our false times

Valery Panyushkin :

- Can I speak as a historian by education? So I was engaged in medievalism. My topic was based on sixteen sources, sixteen lists of the same evidence, the original of which was lost. The eighth list was introduced into world scientific use, which probably contained many errors of the scribe. All scientists of the world used this list, because it was published, and the rest of the lists were stored in unusual archives. My task was to introduce a list closest to the primary source into world scientific use. In the hope that in this list of errors of the scribe is the minimum number.

Imagine that as a result of a worldwide disaster, all libraries of the world will burn out, all sources will disappear, but only one dissertation of Medinsky will remain. Three thousand years later, the historian of the future (a green alien with suction cups instead of ears) the only source of knowledge about us will have a dissertation of Medinsky. From the point of view of love for truth, it would be better if he had only the possibility of a spectral analysis of stones. Spectral analysis would promote him to comprehend the truth at least a step. Whereas the dissertation of Medinsky would lead in the opposite direction from the truth.

I continue to insist that plagiarism is a much less sin than anti -scientific. Plagiarism, of course, deterses the role of a true discoverer, but at least retains humanity access to truth. Anti -scientific methods lead to the truth. If we consider it value.

The Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky considers documents from the Romanov family archive, transferred by the State Museum-Reserve (GMZ) "Tsarskoye Selo" and exhibited in the exposition "Russia in the Great War" Photo: Sergey Nikolaev/TASS

Let the monuments stand. Historical speculations let them be published in the form of popular books. But under the heading “science”, let only what is made by scientific methods in libraries. And even if the “interests of the country” are not mixed with scientific work, which, perhaps, will no longer be when the scientist of the future (with green suction cups instead of ears) will take Manuscript to the tentacles.

Ekaterina Barabash :

- OK. Then I will speak as a philologist and as a bore. As a philologist, I recall a huge number of dissertations in the late 70s and early 80s, one way or another based on the Brezhnev trilogy: “Small land”, “Renaissance” and “virgin lands”. Well, let's say, “The moral feat of the Soviet people in the novel by Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev“ Little Earth ”.” The unscrupulous conjunctures were in excellently defended and now go to scientists, all in degrees. It is unlikely that it makes sense to insist on the unsuccessfulness of those “research”. Let's conduct large -scale cleaning? Search for these works and select diplomas of candidates and doctors of science from their authors? This is I already acting like a bore. And as a bore I am for systematicity. Medinsky is the only copy of its kind? A rare type of adapter-wake-up? I doubt. I would also understand the tough decision to go to the end in the case of its dissertation, if it were a purposeful action to deprive the scientific degrees of all deceivers who wrote useful crap. But we want to limit ourselves to one Medinsky, right? Why? I am not a supporter and large -scale “cleaning”, if not a supporter of any Bolshevik actions, but at least they had a system, and Medinsky would have no reason to talk about the political background of the matter.

Save

The material uses links to publications of social networks Instagram and Facebook, as well as their names are mentioned. These web resources belong to Meta Platforms Inc. - It is recognized in Russia as an extremist organization and is prohibited.

Dissertation of Medinsky science