«Science in Siberia» N? 3 (2588) 18 January 2007

I admit that I read Professor B. M. Chikov's article, "Everything is not so simple with pseudoscience", with bafflement, so I didn't understand whether he is "for" or against" it. On the one hand, Chikov agrees that it is not good when the charlatans that hang around science empty the pockets of our fellow citizens and at times, the state treasury. On the other hand, "the Russian government and Russian science lost too many victims in the fight against genetics, cybernetics, and bourgeois philosophy, and scientific and ideological inquisitors caused too much harm for this issue to be considered simple". But the issue actually is simple.

For some reason the author has forgotten the Lysenkoism with which our science struggled. As regards the hackneyed cliche of the fight against genetics and cybernetics then i's need to be dotted and t's crossed. In the first place, the decision to destroy genetics was made at the very highest level. Of course, scientists implemented this destruction. It can't be helped that there are also villains in science. Few know that there was also a decision being prepared to destroy physics. I. V. Kurchatov saved the situation when he visited L. P. Beria and explained to him that an atomic bomb could not be built without the Theory of Relativity and quantum mechanics. The anxious L. P. Beria, who oversaw this program, immediately reported I. V. Kurchatov's visit to I. V. Stalin and the action which had already been prepared was cancelled. Thus physics was saved. As regards cybernetics, no decisions were made about it at all and, unlike genetics work on cybernetics was conducted freely. No cyberneticists were imprisoned or even driven away. How did cybernetics earn the label of a reactionary (or bourgeois) pseudoscience? We owe this to a small but influential (at the highest level) group of Soviet philosophers. Mathematicians, physicists, and biologists were not part of this outrage. One might add that never in any democratic country with highly-developed science was there the destruction that was wrought on our genetics, which has still not recovered. On the other hand only "Aryan" physics was supported in Nazi Germany. Other kinds were persecuted. So it is proper to discuss not the harm of the struggle against pseudoscience but the harm of totalitarianism.

Science Was Raised From the Cradle
I mention the following point of B. M. Chikov: "How many theories supported by the leading scientific academies turned out to be wrong?" Of course there were many mistakes when science was in diapers, when the principles of science were just being laid, but there were also many discoveries. Only we hardly need appeal to the Middle Ages today. At the time (and even considerably earlier) many people clearly understood the enormous difference between astronomy and astrology. At the beginning of the 12th century the Byzantine Princess Anna Komnina called the latter a pseudoscience. There were many statements even earlier about the absurdity of astrology. I have often written about this.

I would like to correct an incorrect statement by B. M. Chikov. Astronomy never created horoscopes. Astrology engaged in this. And the statement that Kepler was fascinated by astrology is also untrue. I will cite a statement by J. Kepler himself which clarified the heart of the matter. "Astrology is a thing on which one ought not waste time, but people in their folly think that a mathematician ought to engage in it".

As regards the alchemy of the Middle Ages no one calls it a pseudoscience. It was, rather, a naive science which brought Mankind much benefit. Those alchemists who today promise to get a mountain of gold from cheap materials can and need to be called pseudoscientists. And this is why. Modern science is not much like the youthful science in which B. M. Chikov is trying to categorize it. Science today has become much more complex than, let's say, at the end of the 19th century. There are no amateurs in it today. Science has become completely professional. And this is one more important circumstance which not everyone understands.

One often has to hear of revolutionaries in physics who have completely destroyed old classical physics. There has been nothing like that. When Einstein's Theory of Relativity appeared it only clarified the classical mechanics of Newton in the area of high speeds close to the speed of light. It turned out that in the world of high speeds Newton's mechanics are wrong. The relativistic mechanics of Einstein are correct both at high and low speeds. It should be stressed that today one can confidently use the formulas of classical mechanics for the overwhelming majority of engineering calculations. But one cannot use classical mechanics when developing accelerators for high-energy physics; the Theory of Relativity needs to be used. The people who use small instruments to determine the precise coordinates of an object on the ground via satellite do not even suspect that Einstein's General of Theory of Relativity is being used. Newton's mechanics also becomes irrelevant at very small scales. And this is also nothing strange. Quantum physics now govern in the area of small dimensions but the formulas of classical mechanics result from its formulas when moving to large dimensions.

Important consequences follow from what has been said. The foundation of the edifice of science and its first stories have been built. Existing theory has been confirmed by numerous experiments. Therefore there are and cannot be discoveries which would tear down the edifice of science to its foundations (pseudoscience often violates this). No perpetual motion machine can be created, although they appear in the mass media with enviable regularity. Of course, there will be new discoveries, among which there might be very unexpected ones but, alas, they are limited by a certain framework.

The "Fifth Force"
I will try to explain my thinking. Today four fundamental forces are known in physics - electromagnetic, strong, weak, and gravitational. The possibility of the existence of a fifth fundamental force, or "fifth force", associated with the torsion ("torsion" is English for "kruchenie") of a space has long been discussed. This does not violate the laws of nature. It is true that if a "fifth force" appears departures from the laws of classical mechanics will arise. For example, bodies with different masses will have different accelerations! As studies have shown, even if a "fifth force" actually exists it is absolutely impossible to detect the difference in accelerations today. Moreover, its existence has not yet been observed in a single conceivable experiment with the accuracy achievable today in physics experiments. But pseudoscience uses the effects of the "fifth force" in every way. Pseudoscientists had "constructed" an enormous number of torsion generators and are creating real miracles with its aid: they treat [people], prospect for oil, draw energy from a vacuum, improve the ecology, etc. It is clear from what has been said that the entire history of the use of torsion fields is a typical pseudoscience. Science states that it cannot detect these fields, much less create them, but the swindlers have received and are receiving colossal dividends, from our pockets, by the way.

Judging from the following remark B. M. Chikov is rather speaking on behalf of pseudoscience than against it: "But how many truth-tellers [pravdoruby] have been and are being scared away from important scientific fields by the boogeyman of pseudoscience". And more: "Dogmatic prohibitions on what now seems to be pseudoscience (even if it actually turns out to be a spurious field) are not always effective".

Somehow I don't understand these abstractions. If B. M. Chikov has even one instance he should have immediately mentioned it. Only, I am afraid, there is nothing to mention. The impression is created that Boris Markovich does not have a clear idea of the creative process of obtaining a new scientific result. In conditions when the government has distanced itself from science and when it is not burdened by ideology, the recognition of a scientific result (or its rejection) is determined by only one judge - the world scientific community. By no means does recognition of the effect of "dogmatic control" serve as the criterion of correctness but [rather] its reproducibility in the repeated experiments of other experimenters. Hence I cannot say anything about a mythical "dogmatic control of science" representing the "captain's bridge of pseudoscience". B. M. Chikov somehow is harboring a grudge but what it is and against whom it is hard to understand.

What Some Textbooks Teach
I ought to say that among some scientists there is the opinion that pseudoscience ought not be combated, that science is a self-regulating system, that criticism is peculiar to scientists, that science does not need any outside criticism, and that any falsification cannot remain unnoticed by the scientific community and will sooner or later be exposed. This point of view seems convincing if one does not try and take in what is happening in our country.

Let's get down to cases. Let's begin with textbooks. There are many textbooks and training aids in the course "Concept of Modern Natural Science" which mold the scientific philosophy of young people. Future young scientists will fulfill their requirements in "The History and Philosophy of Science" on the basis of this course. Here are excerpts from the training aid for social science and economic specialties of higher educational institutions about the newest discoveries of science: "Scientists think that information about each object, about animate and inanimate objects, exists at all points of the Universe simultaneously (!?)". One more "pearl": "The information field contains information about everything in the Universe and is capable of creating life and directing its development…". "The most suitable model to explain psychophysical phenomena, acquiring information from the inaccessible past and prediction of the future, is the holographic model". The above was quoted from a training aid published in Rostov-on-Don.

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Moscow State University the Department of Philosophy published four training aids for all undergraduate and graduate students. All these books simply teem with stupid mistakes, inaccuracies, and antiscientific statements. "The biosphere is an absorber and emitter (!) of cosmic rays". "Mountains and volcanoes are produced for a reason, for their destruction". In the process the energy accumulated (from destruction - Eh. K.) goes into the interior of the lithosphere". The abundance of quasi-scientific terms, which are quiet unscientific, is striking: "evolutionary trajectory", "precise electromagnetic parts of the geophysical balance of the Earth", "the electromagnetic organization of the planet", and "the energy of its condition". It is clear that the people who wrote the textbooks do not know the sciences of which they write.

The most terrible thing is that they are thrusting their medieval world view on young people. Here is one of the absurd "pearls": "The future will influence a current process". The authors devoted much attention to torsion fields. They spoke of them as something that was well-known and had existed for a long time. "The surprising physical properties of a torsion field allow it to be viewed as a universal information network…If a person acts as a controller of senses then his brain takes on the function of a professor…This mechanism can be used to explain the phenomenon of intuition and the phenomena of extrasensory perception". I understand that the latter quote can cause some feeling of deep satisfaction among some people: finally prescience, retrovision, and telepathy obtain a scientific basis. Don't fool yourselves. They don't.

Somehow Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences V. P. Kaznacheyev said that at 73 degrees 4 minutes north latitude the time vector changes sign (!?) and accordingly there it is possible to see the past and the future. If the successful Novosibirsk-Philadelphia telepathic communications session is added to this then I do not understand why such phenomenal discoveries have not yet won the Nobel Prize. At worst, it might get the $1 million James Randi Prize which is guaranteed to anyone who can demonstrate even one paranormal phenomenon (somewhat earlier, before the establishment of this fund, J. Randi demonstrated the complete failure of dowsers who had organized a big International competition in Italy). The fund has existed for 15 years but no one has won the prize.

In order to end this departure from the topic I want to cite a statement by R. Jahn, an American researcher of psychophysical phenomena. "For the time being a careful examination of the yield which has been coaxed out of this pool after long attempts has allowed us to select literally individual reliable cases, albeit so incomprehensible and fragile, that in the strict criteria of reliability which apply to them they can in no way be considered completely convincing".

But let us return to textbooks. A training aid [entitled] "Physics and the Technology of Torsion Radiation. Torsion Technologies" was published in 2000 at I.I. Polzunov Altay State Technical University. Altay University Professor P. I. Gos'kov appeared as a co-author of the training aid along with A. Ye. Akimov and G. I. Shipov. The situation is quite abnormal: there are no torsion fields but there is a textbook on torsion technologies. Today Mr. Gos'kov is chief of the Department of Information Technologies of this university. Among his latest "achievements" are the measurement of "energy information radiation", the detection of "bioenergy", "charging" of water with the aid of electromagnetic waves, ultrasound, an ordinary book, and…hand motions. Torsion technologies are completely suitable for such research. True, a question arises: is such activity compatible with educating students?

Docent V. S. Balyberdin works as a modest instructor of the strength of materials in a branch of Moscow Industrial University (in the city of Kineshma). He is the author of a book, "Secrets of the Origin of the Universe". It is used as a training aid in courses in Religion and Religion and Society which are required courses in this higher educational institution.

Mr. Balyberdin's work is called a popular science publication but in reality it has no relation to either science or a scientific world view. The book is an example of blatant pseudoscience and, I would add, an aggressive mockery of science. Practically all the pseudoscientists which have come to the attention of the Commission to Combat Pseudoscience are frequently mentioned in the book. Absorption of the "ideas" of this opus is dangerous to student minds. Here are excerpts which describe the general mystical orientation of the book. "A case is known where a poltergeist could 'move' a mattress from a hermetically sealed room through a concrete floor to the basement without causing damage in the process". "This woman could be moved only by a sentient narrow-field structure, that is, some being of a parallel world. The fact that she does not remember anything points to her consciousness being momentarily turned off. But the fact that no one saw her flying through the air indicates that a narrow-field structure was inserted into her body which rendered the woman invisible".

One need not be surprised that in 2001 the Russian Federation Ministry of Education approved the publication of a training aid by G. Grabovoy [entitled] "A Unified System of Knowledge". But the apotheosis of obscurantism ought to be considered the publication of G. A. Syretsky's textbook "Informatics. A Basic Course", Vol. 1, approved by the Ministry of Education and Science in 2005 as a textbook for a number of higher technical educational institutions of the country. In order for it to be understood what kind of "scientific" world view this book instills in young people we need to quote the author of this "masterpiece": "Facts accumulated in recent years, among which are the quantum teleportation of the states of photons, the results of the astrophysical experiment of N. A. Kozyrev, the influence of consciousness on the operation of a physical generator of random numbers (the first patent for such a device has already been issued), the biolocation of sources of water, the phenomenon of levitation (loss of weight), and psychokinesis (contact or non-contact containment of suspended objects) cannot be explained by physicists from the point of view of existing theories. Therefore they force a reinterpretation of the understanding of the structure of the real world and, possibly in connection with this, a reexamination of the physical picture of the world which existed in the 20th century and the creation of such a model of the universe which would promote a substantial expansion of the boundaries of the knowledge of reality, the accompanying appearance of new technologies, and the more efficient practical exploitation of nature for the needs of mankind". I think that's enough. I am not willing to judge from which sources Mr. Syretsky picked up this information about science's powerlessness to respond to nonexistent phenomena and I do not want to comment on this nonsense. However, I would like to discuss the patent on the generator of random numbers influenced by consciousness.

In Soviet times an inventor's certificate for an invention (patents were not issued then in the USSR) was a unique mark of quality. It is hard to imagine that an inventor's certificate would be given for any device which contradicted science. Today striking changes have occurred. Absurd patents are issued. A couple of times I have seen in recent detective serials how in difficult cases the investigator turned to clairvoyants who determined from photographs whether a person was alive or dead. Alas, this is not just a device of the author. There is a patent, N? 2157091 "Establishment of the Fact of Death of a Missing Person from an Article Which Previously Belonged to Him". Evidently such a patent ought to greatly simplify the problems of the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Emergency Situations in searching for missing people and investigating murders.

I want to conclude the subject of textbooks with a statement: our education is steadily running wild, completely out of the control of ministries which often change their names (the Ministry of Enlightenment, Education, Education and science) and the rules of the game, and they simply cannot keep track of higher educational institutions. And at this time higher educational institutions are on their own.

The "X-Ray Girl" and Her Comrades-in-Arms
Completely nonsensical research in "bioresonance information modulators" was recently conducted at Voronezh State Medical Academy, allowing the nonexistent human "biofield" to be corrected. A center of introscopy has been created at Voronezh State University. Don't think that Voronezh has been singled out for some reason. There are many higher educational institutions today with quite dubious "research". Voronezh is mentioned in connection with the fact that it followed in the wake of the clamor raised in the mass media about the X-ray girl, Natal'ya Demkina, who "sees" the internal organs of any person and so the introscopy center was created there. A little later a large number of "introspectors" [vnutrividyashchiye] appeared. There was even a competition held in Moscow. An introscopy center was created there, too, in order to study this phenomenon. Alas, there is nothing to study. At his own initiative Yuriy Gornyy, a famous master of psychological experiments, gathered 400 (!) psychics in Moscow in order to demonstrate the trickery in a simple experiment. A "patient" was placed behind a screen and the psychic had to make a diagnosis. Not one psychic could accomplish the task. But extraordinary things happened: a mannequin dressed in a general's uniform was diagnosed as having gynecological diseases…The details of this competition were recorded on video. However, not one television channel has shown the psychics' failure.

I think that readers also do not know the results of the investigation of the phenomenon of Natal'ya Demkina by members of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. R. Hyman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, and R. Wiseman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in England, a former professional trickster of the highest order, together with journalist E. Skolnick invited N. Demkina and her mother and agent to the US to be tested. The test conditions were stipulated in advance. N. Demkina was given seven people to diagnose, one of whom was absolutely healthy and six who had internal defects easily visible on X-rays (an artificial hip, part of a lung missing, a hole in the skull covered with a plate, etc.). The conditions of the experiment were extremely favorable to N. Demkina. Before the start of the experiment she was given charts with a description of all the defects of those being tested. She failed this very simple task and the experiment was halted. Of course, our mass media did not write a word more about this than it could, continuing the deception. It is namely thanks to a lack of principle that a "Center of Special Human Diagnostics" could open in Moscow. The Center's brochure says: "The phenomenon of Natal'ya Demkina has been recognized in Russia and abroad. Many films and television programs have been made. Numerous tests have been run which confirm this phenomenon". The following remark from the same advertising brochure, generally speaking, has a criminal connotation. "Now you can avoid tiring trips to various laboratories and diagnostic centers in search for the reasons for your illness. Arriving at Natal'ya's waiting room one can get the most accurate information about the condition of one's body and recommendations for non-drug treatment". Getting "the most accurate information" from well-concealed swindlers and their treatment recommendations means putting the lives of many sick people in danger. I don't know whether such a thing is allowed in a civilized market economy but, as we see, it is completely possible here.

We have already mentioned Russian patents. And a terrible danger threatens sick people from this direction. See what stupid patents related to medicine our Rospatent issues.

Patent N? 2983239 "Symptomatic treatment of illnesses with the aid of a twig of aspen during the new moon to restore the integrity of the energy membrane of the human organism".

Patent N? 2139107 "The conversion of geopathogenic zones into favorable ones over an extensive territory by the use of minerals with a positive field".

Patent N? 2140796 "An energy influence device with the aid of patterns on a surface generating torsion fields".

If the appearance of the first two patents could be explained by the ignorance of the applicants (true, it is completely unexplainable how such patents passed expert examination) then the latter patent could perhaps be classed as criminal medicine. Russia has literally been inundated with all possible "devices" to protect its lucky owners from "environmental factors (biological and physical)". A plastic card or narrow film stick-on with a representation of a two-dimensional geometric pattern (a circle, triangle, or the figure eight) saves the owners from damaging radiation, and even "cures". See how the above film is extolled by the swindlers in a scientific-sounding way: "the invention is classed as a device to protect a biological object from the collective influence of the radiation of electrons, neutrinos, muons, heavy leptons, etc." It is hard not to believe an advertisement with such an abundance of real scientific terms. And all the same I am compelled to warn credulous fellow citizens: such a film, however scientific it sounds, will give you absolutely no protection. The purchase of such worthless junk is money thrown away for nothing.

A few words about volumetric figures among which pyramids are in the lead. Mr. A. Golod, an enthusiast of pyramid-building, declared: "One swallow of water which was in a pyramid for a couple of hours is complete protection from oncology! [SIC]". If a healer of this sort unburdened by a medical education begins to treat cancers with the aid of any of the latest panaceas he needs to realize that in everyone's eyes he is committing slow murder. Actor Viktor Avilov died not long ago in Novosibirsk. Local healer G. Markov "treated" him with the aid of a "neutrino generator"…Every day an advertisement reports newer and newer handymen treating cancer. Alas, the state is too busy to prosecute swindlers.

But let's return to pyramids. What haven't they written about them! Pyramid psychosis is one reliable means of removing money from the population. However, they are also trying to take money from the budget. Mr. Golod turned to the Security Council. A rapturous article was published in Vechernyaya Moskva as artillery preparation with an enormous number of stories about pyramids, ending with an angry shout by the journalist: "The question is reasonable, isn't it time for the State to get busy with pyramids?" I don't know about the State but Gazprom is investing in this.

They promise us the cleansing and improvement of the water in the rivers with the aid of pyramids which are fed from space. Businesses are flourishing which are associated with the sale of table models of pyramids and rocks which have become therapeutic after being in a pyramid. Forget about many diseases if you buy the rocks or a pyramid,. At least, they promise you this. They make fools of all the buyers but they give pensioners a discount: 75% off the cost.

Mr. Golod buried rocks along the Garden Ring, declaring that there would be no more flu epidemic in Moscow. Of course, there were epidemics and very large ones, too. The rocks didn't help. A little while after this story Russia became a laughing stock in the eyes of civilized mankind: they sent rocks "irradiated" in a pyramid to the [International] Space Station! After this scandalous story V. P. Nikitsky, Deputy General Designer of RKK [Space and Missile Complex] Energiya was removed from his position.

I would say that many of the facts mentioned above are related to a specialized pseudoscience called "eniology". The abbreviation enio- breaks down to "energy information exchange". "Eniology" deals with such "problems" as telepathy, telekinesis, biolocation, clairvoyance, UFOlogy, astrology, and many others. One of the numerous public academies headed by [former] KGB General-Lieutenant F. Khantseverov and called the International Academy of Energy Information Sciences (MAEhIN or MAIN), represents the interests of eniologists quite aggressively, as is evident from its name. This is the academy that organized a unique exhibit in the State Duma shown on national television where the highlight of the program was a couch psychic who treated 80 diseases, including frigidity in women and impotence in men…This is the academy which tried to push a law through the State Duma [entitled] "Protecting the Energy Information Welfare of the Population". In an explanatory note which appeared in the State Duma in 1998 it spoke of something which was done about "the use of the phenomena of energy information exchange in economic and other activity relating to the category of high technologies…" The prediction of emergency situations was mentioned among 15 such "technologies". Here "Academician" G. Grabovoy arrived at just the right time. And recently V. Inyushin, a "scientist" from Kazakhstan, appeared who with the aid of "bioplasma" - roots and seeds of plants in pots - predicts an earthquake…with payment for his work from the Russian budget. There is no information about successful predictions but this swindler is getting money promptly.

One more "high technology" is associated with search work during rescue operations. One has to recall the embarrassing decision of the Ministry of Emergency Situations to organize a laboratory of psychics and the demonstration of the senselessness of their activity! For two weeks 127(!) psychics told rescuers where to look for a passenger plane which had crashed near Khabarovsk in December 1995 until one of the clear-thinking members of the State Commission demanded an analysis of the readings of the air defense system, after which the remains of the aircraft were found in a few hours! One can also recall the role of psychics in searching for people after the earthquake in Neftegorsk when [Minister] S. Shoygu himself was forced to admit that "they had only brought chaos to the rescuers' work".

Investigative work, geological exploration, and a number of others were mentioned among other "high technologies". If involving psychics and astrologers in investigations can be classed as a manifestation of ignorance then prospecting for minerals with the aid of microlepton or torsion fields is fraud, which is impossible without the participation of officials and the accompanying embezzlement of budgetary resources. My latest book cites examples of the expenditure of budget resources for oil prospecting in a number of regions of the country with the aid of generators of the aforementioned nonexistent fields. But the most dangerous thing is the penetration of so-called bioenergyinformation methods into medicine. Fortunately, it was possible to wreck the law of the supporters of eniology. Accordingly, their dreams about the recognition of this "practical science movement" by government agencies, the introduction of "corresponding specialties in the classification systems of the Ministries of Labor and Science and the Higher Certification Commission", and the creation of special federal programs collapsed. But the eniologists have not put down their weapons. They are working quite energetically, more precisely, brazenly and shamelessly.

Who today has not heard of the wonder drug Imovin? For those who do not know, I inform [you] that "IMOVIN is a bioenergyinformation therapy, a promising new method of alternative medicine using the influence of a torsion field on individual cells and the entire organism of a person as a whole in order to restore their natural activity". That is what he writes about himself: Doctor of Medical Sciences, Academician of the MAEhN [International Academy of Energy Information Sciences] and Academy of the Princes Shcherbatov (London)".

I know about 200 such "academies" but I am hearing about the Academy of the Princes Shcherbatov for the first time. A swindler knows very well that up to now people have retained a respect for science. This is why he presents himself twice in the guise of an academician and a doctor. Now people will believe without any doubt that before them is "the creator of an energy information apparatus to diagnose and treat a whole range of diseases based on the therapeutic effect of torsion fields. President of the YUVENTA Center of Energy Information Therapy", the developer of original torsion generators" (the patent number is cited, although not all the numbers are given. Of course, I can believe that patents for phony generators were actually issued to this swindler, like to many others). But let's continue. This same "scientist" is the developer of "Imovin BAD [biologically active supplement] media which have treated thousands of patients in Russia and abroad. The effectiveness of the method has been confirmed by clinical tests in many clinics of official medicine". I doubt very much that such tests were in fact conducted. Not one clinic is mentioned but they ought to be cited. There would be more trust. However, a sick person has already been hypnotized by the magical properties of Imovin. Now one can get it with their bare hands. "Outstanding results in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, diseases of the endocrine system, bronchial asthma, allergies, chemical and radiation damage, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, eczema, infantile cerebral paralysis, depressive conditions, mastopathy, myomas, and others have been confirmed". Here is one more leaflet on the same subject. "As a result of the development of the technology of energy information therapy we can remove biological field defects, eliminate symptoms of disease, and remove the cause of the illness".

Here I am forced to interrupt the narrative about Imovin and mention that several years ago it became known to us that the authorities in St. Petersburg had begun to issue licenses for the correction of biofields. A group of scientists which included our Nobel laureates Zh. I. Alferov and V. L. Ginzburg addressed an open letter to Vice Governor V. A. Kagan, who headed the Committee on Medicine, with a suggestion that the licenses issued to healers be withdrawn inasmuch as the biofield does not exist. Judging from everything the issue of the licenses is a very profitable business. In any event, the heroic efforts of our enthusiastic colleagues from St. Petersburg were crowned with success only two years later when the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice admitted that the issue of licenses was illegal and demanded that they be withdrawn. By that time the healer-correctors of biofields had bred like cockroaches. In two years their numbers had multiplied 15 times!

But let's return to Imovin. "The technology of energy information therapy is based on the fundamental properties of torsion fields. The therapeutic effect of torsion fields is determined by their ability to influence the cells, organs, and systems of an organism, but is primarily based on the brain's ability to directly perceive therapeutic information sent by the torsion field".

If torsion fields exist in nature and had all the properties which are ascribed to them by numerous swindlers these fields would be beyond price. Here's what they're capable of with ordinary water: "A single pulse of a torsion generator can destroy all the negatives 'recorded' on the molecular structure of water (in scientific language such a process is called disintegration of the electromagnetic smog), but another, longer-lasting influence is to record positive information on it".

Water Is Not At Fault
Poor water! All sorts of adventurers eager to line their pockets through the stupidity of their fellow citizens have thought up everything possible about it. It is sad that the Rossiya television channel has taken part in deceiving the people. On Sunday evening, 9 April 2006, it showed a film "The Great Secret of Water" for the first time and then repeated it several times. The film was very expensive inasmuch as the shoots were made in places around the world which are not easy to reach. But the majority of the commentary which was heard in the film's 90 minutes cannot be called anything but a mockery of science. Who needed the creation of such a film? The very same "scientists" whom we have been discussing. It is not excluded that the film was made from money taken by deceiving old people. However, I think that it was done without budgetary assistance.

After the film was shown many journalists immediately gave it a quite negative rating. I am not talking about scientists. The film stirred up the scientific community. It is true that there are people who realized that you don't earn much in science so you can get more money from fraud. There are few such hypocrites in science. But they are gathered together in that film.

The exception is Nobel laureate Kurt Wuthrich, who told me that the Russian television people filmed his story about water in the US for an entire hour. Then they included three insignificant episodes of 20 seconds each in the film. The masters of fraud were not very interested in his story. It was important for them to include an important respected scientist in this slander.

Not so long ago it became known that the file had received three (!) Russian television prizes «TEhFI». The masters of television affairs thereby have convincingly demonstrated that the main thing for them is to entertain the public at any price. But the organizers of the prize-winning farce are indifferent to the fact that science is shamelessly trampled in the process and that medieval ideas are being thrust on the people.

Today the advertisement of eyedrops which "are produced from pure drinking water through special multi-stage electroinformational processing on unique equipment with the use of the latest achievements of Russian science" is shamelessly paraded throughout the country. "The ingredient: pure sterilized water on which the information matrix of healthy cells, the matrix of health, has been recorded". Of course, the "processing" is performed with the aid of the unique torsion generators which only Russia has (in the words of the swindler who is at the source of the torsion scam, here we lead the world by 15 years!), but the drops in which the "matrix of health has been imprinted" can correct a cataract in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of thousands of people were fleeced in this shameless fraud. In my opinion, this can qualify as fraud on an especially large scale. True, judging from how much time the procuracy took on the case of G. Grabovoy, the swindlers have nothing to worry about for the next few years.

Before we move on to the next subject, I would like to present two more "masterpieces" of energy information medicine. "The human body is essentially a wave packet of different intensities, different frequencies, and different degrees of density". And more: "A frequency modulation is directed to specific chakras by a specialist. The patient needs to 'break through' blocked channels with his own energy". How, Boris Markovich, is it necessary to protect such "science" or ought it be destroyed with all permissible means so that Russia does not finally sink into the middle ages?

A Perpetual Motion Machine for Sale
Almost daily large and small companies appear in Russia's expanse which successfully sell perpetual motion machines producing free energy with the aid of vortex thermal generators. This generator's device is quite simple: water is passed through a closed loop. Water is forced to spin at a right angle to the direction of rotation of the loop with the aid of special helix. As Mr. A. Akimov, a classic of torsion "sciences" states, energy is transmitted from a physical vacuum to the water through the torsion field. As a result you take 1 kilowatt from the electrical network but you get 1.5 kilowatts in the form of thermal energy. Well, there are those who brazenly say 5 kilowatts, that is, an efficiency of 500%. People who have such apparatuses can be convinced that the device actually heats to a high temperature and is able to heat a space. There is nothing surprising in this: there is friction between the water and the glass. What is surprising is something else that people can be so easily deceived. If the efficiency reaches 500% part of the heat can be turned into electrical energy. Therefore the apparatus ought to supply itself, but for some reason it is powered from an electrical network. No one is offering standalone thermal generators. Why? Because when such an apparatus falls into the hands of competent experts its measured efficiency is 83-85%. Alas, miracles don't happen. But pseudoscience again and again rushes into areas, heaping abuse on "backward orthodox science" when the opportunity presents itself.

Here's a fresh inflated sensation for you. "For the first time in the world electromagnetic converters of electrical energy have been created and tested which produce electrical energy of varying frequencies and voltages, and at the same time requiring no fuel. The output of electrical power stations produced this year will be from 50 kilowatts to 10 megawatts and in 2007 the output of electrical power stations will be from 1 kilowatt to 100 gigawatts". Although the information is given in the name of one AKOYL-Energiya concern which reports that "the technologies have been patented", and that "the production of electrical power stations is starting in various cities of Russia, in the countries of the European Union, and in other countries of the world", all the same a feeling of flippancy arises. Obviously the inventors do not see the difference between outputs of 1 kilowatt and 100 gigawatts. So the electric power station output of 100 gigawatts promised us is comparable to the output of all of the electric power stations of Russia produced in several decades.

The concern also did not ignore vortex thermal generators, which "in connection with eighth generation (!) modernization will operate with an efficiency of no less than 300%". The concern is also offering "new medical technologies able to treat practically all diseases, including cancer, AIDS, diabetes mellitus, all gynecological diseases, and many others". I cannot fail to mention one more very great breakthrough by the concern. "High-temperature superconductivity has been achieved in metals which has an operating range from -50o C to 3300o C". I would not start to spend time on all this nonsense except for one thing. There was a Goszakaz-2006 exhibition in Moscow in March 2006. The concern took part in this exhibition. Here is the result: "After the conclusion of the exhibition we received an award for our technologies and several government orders for our products". Let the reader think about what this was: the ignorance of experts or corruption.

Several years ago one of the high-ranking officials of the RF Security Council turned to the Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Atomic Energy, and the Russian Academy of Sciences with a request to issue a finding about the advisability of organizing a targeted federal program directed at developing methods of obtaining gold and rare-earth elements from elements of the periodic table of little value on the basis of the "discovery" of L. Urutskoyev. This was really about modern alchemy. Many scientists were drawn into researching the discovery. As a result, all three organizations made sharply negative statements and refused to support the program. Less than a year later a new question came from the Security Council. It contained a demand to submit a joint coordinated opinion from the three organizations about the very same program. This demand seemed quite absurd: if each of the three organizations had submitted its negative opinion to the Security Council then what, will the collective opinion change [its] sign under pressure from an official?

On 24 April 2006 the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by N. Spassky, Deputy Chairman of the RF Security Council (now no longer in office), "Preparing for the [G-]'8'". The author suggested "taking stock of some initial positions" before the summit meeting. Among other things he wrote about "the coming breakthrough in energy (controlled thermonuclear synthesis, hydrogen and vacuum energy)". A bad suspicion arose that either people unburdened by contemporary learning or swindlers were advising senior officials of the Security Council. Up to that time energy had been "extracted" from a vacuum by journalists from the worst sort of publications of the yellow press, by fraudulent businesses trading in apparatuses producing thermal energy "extracted from a vacuum" with an efficiency of several hundred percent, and the small enterprise of unsinkable swindler Mr. A. Akimov with the sonorous name, "International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics". There were still no statements about vacuum energy at the government level…Now about hydrogen energy. The term is quite unfortunate. Unlike coal, oil, and natural gas there is practically no free hydrogen in nature. Energy first has to be spent to obtain it. When hydrogen is burned only as much energy is yielded as was spent when it was obtained. So hydrogen energy (unlike coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear) is able to solve ecological and many other important problems (for example, the creation of compact long-lasting sources of electrical current), but it can never become the basic one for world industry.

As regards thermonuclear synthesis then it really ought to be viewed as the basic energy of the future but never regarded as an immediate breakthrough technology of the next few years. Thermonuclear power stations will begin to make a perceptible contribution to energy in 40-50 years. it is very strange that fast-breeder neutron reactions did not appear in the list of breakthrough energy technologies. The supply of Uraniaum-235 is quite limited. On the other hand, uranium-238 is 150 times more common in natural uranium than uranium-235. Much uranium-238 has already been mined and stored in tailings. So who has been advising high-ranking officials? We cannot find this out. True, we know one "expert". Several years ago "academician" Grigoriy Petrovich Grabovoy was carrying on in the Security Council, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and even in the Presidential staff. It is good that today he lives and works in another place. This gives at least some hope.

People, Be Vigilant!
The sad list of the victorious procession of pseudoscience throughout our country can continue endlessly. There are a great many cases of its semi- and simply criminal activity. But I think those cases cited in this article are sufficient. I hope that I have dispelled some of Boris Markovich Chikov's fears about pseudoscience and its fate. Pseudoscience today is an aggressive, well-organized force. If it is not rebuffed it can cause a great deal of damage in partnership with a corrupt bureaucracy. It seems to me that the words of Julius Fucik, "People, be vigilant!", are as relevant today as they were over 60 years ago.

Ehduard Kruglyakov

Translated by Gary Goldberg