Russian Academy of Sciences waking up to False Science

There are some important recent developments for Russian skeptics and humanists. The Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences devoted its regular meeting on May 27, 2003, to the problem of false science and charlatanism.

By the end, it had supported all proposals to fight pseudoscience and promised to bolster the Academy's Committee Against False Science and Falsification of Scientific Data, established in 1998. More than fifty elite members of the Presidium, a major scientific institution, attended this event.

The key speaker was Edward Kruglyakov, vice-director of the Institute for Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk) and chair of the Committee for Struggle against False Science. His report, "False Science: How It Threatens Science and Society" was impressive and filled with many shocking facts and statistics. [See his article "Why Is Pseudoscience Dangerous?" and three other reports on Science and Pseudoscience in Russia, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, July/August 2002.]

According to Kruglyakov, hundreds of domestic medical "apparatus" came on the Russian market promising help for up to 350 different diseases. Many are based on so-called quantum medicine. One series of devices claims to catch radiation from diseased cells and return it to them in the "opposite phase," leading to recovery of the patient. Some devices claim to treat people by directing radiation of the healthy cells to the sick ones. Some devices generate electromagnetic or gravitational energy to affect a cure; others do not even need electric power.

As a rule all these "medical devices" have licenses from the Ministry of Healthcare or the Chief Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation. The most sensational among them is the so-called neutrino generator for treating cancer patients. An immoral inventor of this worthless "masterpiece" claims that he can produce neutrinos in a process of passing acoustic waves through a vacuum. But it is a well known fact that acoustic waves cannot go through a vacuum. Technically it is also extremely difficult to even detect neutrinos.

One of the newest "discoveries" is the hologramic patch, a "flat torsion generator," as a protector against harmful radiation of cell telephones, microwaves, TV sets, and so on. A fury of resistance meets anybody who appeals to the courts to take away the licenses from these charlatans. All attempts by activists of Russian Humanist Society and its magazine Zdravyj Smysl (Common Sense) to revoke the licenses of these "biofield correctors" were stopped by the office of General Procurator.

Pseudoscience in Russia has become a well-organized power, polluting all levels of the state institutions. The areas where tricksters are most active are the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Extreme (Extraordinary) Situations, and State Duma (Russian Parliament). Speaking on the national TV channel RTR, the Minister of Extreme Situations, Sergey Shoigu, said his Ministry uses extrasensory data and astrological predictions. A military unit, #10003 of the Ministry of Defense, has a laboratory that for many years conducted parapsychological experiments and works with psychics, sorcerers, etc. The publishing house of the Ministry of Education, "Prosveschenie" (Enlightenment), published a guide for students titled Stories About Astrology. There are numerous brochures written by astrologers directly for students and pupils. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is also involved in using mystical practices in criminal investigations.

The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by ESP promoters. It was a general, G. Rogozin, who predicted a nuclear war in August 1999 and a self-proclaimed Ph.D. in physics and math, G. Grabovoi, who claims to have the ability to decrease the power of a nuclear explosion during underground testing. His claims were debunked by special experts and he was called a liar. Nevertheless even today he is a lecturer for the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations and adviser to the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

Absurdities with astrology reached a peak when "military astrologer" A. Buzinov invented a way to determine the birthdays of tanks, aircraft, warships, and so on. On the basis of astrological calculations he claims to predict technical catastrophes in military forces. It is common now for Orthodox priests to baptize and sanctify warships, submarines, missiles, and tanks. It is easy to imagine what can happen when they will say how to build and use the weaponry or how to launch the rockets. There is also evidence of involvement of ESP proponents in the Federal Service of Security (former KGB) to prevent terrorism in Russia.

Some of the most extraordinary stories are about so-called spin or (later) torsion fields. The leaders of this fraud, A. Akimov and G. Shipov, fifteen years ago got 500 millions rubles from the state budget for experiments with a new kind of miracle energy related to the torsion field. In 1992-1995 they got financing from the Ministry of Science, and in 1996-1997 the Ministry of Defense financed this shady enterprise. The secret of the survival for such fraudulent programs is simple. It is corruption, which has become one of the worst aspects of today's Russian society.