Nauka v Sibiri [Science in Siberia] N? 10 (2645) 7 March 2008
(accessed at http://www.nsc.ru/HBC/article.phtml?nid=453&id=17)
The 2 December 2007 elections to the RF State Duma went as expected, as public opinion surveys predicted. Nevertheless, only during the pre-election debates did something unexpected for the scientific community happen.
Gennadiy Semigin, leader of the Patriots of Russia Party has distinguished himself. He has declared that Russia can become the number 1 country in the world in the next few years with his party's help. This can be done by using the scientific potential of our country and sharply increasing investment in science. The party platform proposed creating five "world valleys" in Russia in practical implementation of scientific and technical "breakthrough". Well now, it seems tempting. Moreover, Mr. G. Semigin is not sitting on his hands. He has thought of everything: "Yes, we are setting as our goal Russia's breakthrough into world leadership on the basis of the development of high technology and science-intensive production. More than two years ago at our initiative a group of outstanding scientists was formed who work both in Russia and abroad. Today these scientists are on the threshold of scientific and technical discoveries which have no counterpart in the world".
It turns out that "back in 1999 Gennadiy Semigin and a special group of scientists began working on concentrating the very latest, promising scientific and technical projects, ideas, and discoveries. In 2005 the Patriots of Russia Party and the People's Government joined this process, realizing this work covertly".
Of course it is bad that such unique projects have been conducted "covertly". Yes, and it would not be bad for the names of the outstanding scientists to be publicized for greater confidence in the platform. But we'll read the platform further. "In the 21st century leading research in the field of torsion technologies, nanotechnologies, and many others have become the latest developments in the field of natural sciences…This is absolutely the latest word in the development of mankind which is able to lift its development to the highest level...Many of these technologies have no counterpart in the world and in a matter of years their use can make our country a world leader".
From the text of the Patriots of Russia party platform one can draw the conclusion that the authors of the platform have placed great hopes on torsion technologies. I would like to know what sort of "outstanding scientists" promised Mr. Semigin a breakthrough on the basis of torsion technologies? No longer "Academician" A. Akimov and Co., who "milked" the idea of torsion fields for the past 20 years? Scientists of the USSR Academy of Sciences found out about the "research" of the torsion scammers only in the spring of 1991 since, as with Mr. Semigin, the work was conducted "covertly". Fortunately for the swindlers these events occurred not long before the 1991 putsch and they managed to avoid criminal prosecution. And now the torsion fields which no one in science has observed are to help Russia make a technological breakthrough into a bright future.
Alas, Mr. Semigin is not original. In the 1990s M. D. Maley, Chairman of the Interdepartmental Commission on Defense Industry Scientific and Technical Issues of the RF Security Council, dreamed of a "scientific breakthrough". He planned to create a large research center for this purpose. At first glance, the basis arguments of M. D. Maley did not cause doubt: "Our mission is to correctly sift through the main avenues [of research] and orient the current and future leadership of the country with respect to Russia's launching position in this scientific and technical revolution". But now we will see what Mr. Maley specifically proposed: "A replacement of the concepts of quantum physics with neutron physics, and the vacuum as an empty space with the concept of a neutron field is imminent. We have several projects at the stage of development which defy common sense, are not described by a single equation, but the results are simply deadly, hair-raising. For example, a motor with a thrust of 500 kg operating on peculiar energy. According to well-known laws it ought not work at all". One has to draw back a bit and note that 10 years ago yet one more engine which violated the laws of nature with a total thrust of 28 grams appeared from V. Men'shikov, the Director of the Scientific Research Institute of Space Systems. He very much wanted to send it into space on an anniversary spacecraft in honor of the 50th anniversary of the space era. He was not successful.
I would like to know, where did he get a "motor" with a thrust of 500 kg, since 10 years have passed? This was the latest scam of A. Akimov on which M. Maley bit. It is A. Akimov who made an announcement in 1996 about a motor on a fundamentally new principle: "The first flying saucer is to be tested at NPO [Scientific Production Association] Ehergiya. Its principle of propulsion is entirely new - there is no use of reactive thrust. If testing is successful there is a real prospect of a revolution of all transportation (SIC, - Eh. K.) of automobiles, trains, etc. to a new principle, without the use of a internal combustion engine". This statement was made in 1996. Has anyone heard of "a revolution of all transportation" in the last 10 years? No one. What Akimov "broadcast" is a lie. The management of RKK "Ehnergiya" has said that it did not engage, is not engaging, and does not anticipate engaging in the development of "flying saucers" on the basis of torsion field generators.
Let's return to M. Maley. He intended to operate on a large scale. He planned to encompass a multitude of other [problems] besides physical and technical problems. Among the things that came into M. Maley's field of view is the fight against cancer. "Biochemist and doctor Sysoyeva has fought with the Ministry of Health for many years. She says that she can infect bacteria with cancer. By all accounts, the cancer is not treated. We do not want to end it forever…Sysoyeva says that the cancer process is radioactive and the cancer cells draw the energy out by cold fusion". It is clear from these statements that the level of the "scientists" collected under M. Maley's wing needs no further comment…
Not long before the collapse of the USSR a secret military unit, N? 10003, controlled by the KGB was formed in the Ministry of Defense. Its goals were noble: to modify certain technologies which might have given the USSR strategic superiority both in the military and civilian fields. Only most of the people were a strange collection: wizards, psychics, and "scientists" who have not been near science. Doctor of Technical Sciences O. Antonov, one of the participants of the work and later leader of "Aviakonversiya", carelessly noted: "They saw the salvation in the discovery of new ways to counter a potential enemy: a weapon based on undiscovered laws of physics…". It is as if Mr. Antonov did not recognize that he had betrayed the most terrible secret of this military unit.
Last year, N. Sham and B. Ratnikov, two general-majors who had begun [their] service in the KGB and had recently retired, gave a series of interviews where they recalled the projects that were performed in Military Unit 10003, in the High-Technology Research Center, the brainchild of N. Maley, and other "firms". As General Sham noted, "much of our research was not actually in the narrow understanding of the other bureaucrats". Among other things the general recalled "a generator of some radiation". Among other things the general mentioned "a generator of certain radiation". When modifying this generator "the USSR received an absolute and ecologically clean weapon compared with which nuclear warheads were Neanderthal clubs. However, academic science and the level of thinking of our leaders of that time turned out to be simply unable to understand and accept the operation of the generator". A correct comment, especially if one considers that the generator operated "on undiscovered laws of physics".
In his interviews General B. Ratnikov cited a number of additional frightening things. He would have "informed the population and the authorities of information that right now that the threat to the mass consciousness is greater than ever before. This is connected with the breakthroughs with new technologies…And, in addition, with the work of the RAN Commission on Pseudoscience. Academicians continue to insist that psychotronic weapons are charlatanism. According to my information, within 10 years a psychotronic weapon will become more terrible than an atomic or nuclear [weapon]. Therefore with its aid it is possible to rule the minds of millions and make them zombies". In order not to argue with the general about abstract psychotronic generators we will note that he quoted a certain secret document where it mentioned "some questions of remote-control medical and biological influence on troops and a population with special radiation". So this radiation "was developed" by torsion generators which exist only in the form of mockups.
Among the information provided by B. Ratnikov to "Komsomol'skaya Pravda" there is information that in field of research about thought communications between people (telepathy) the greatest success was achieved 1965-1968 in Novosibirsk in one of the institutes of Akademgorodok in. The research in telepathy was imposed on the leaders of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences by senior government officials and began in 1965. After three years the commission which inspected this work came to the conclusion that there was not one reliable instance indicating the existence of telepathic effects, none was observed, and this subject was closed.
They also tried to impose research in telepathy on the director of the G. I. Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk. He replied, "Let them mentally impress on me the need for the creation of such a laboratory and I will immediately create one". They didn't.
Among the great number of "projects" described by B. Ratnikov two seem the most exotic: an apparatus to "walk" through the brains of the government leaders of various countries in order to find out the innermost thoughts of foreign politicians, and a medical development, a capsule in which any substances are placed in the form of a tablet. The generator of the capsule was tuned to the bioenergetical characteristics of a specific person who might be sent the "idea" of a medicine, a narcotic, or poison.
Frankly speaking, such "developments", if they are not the fruit of the fantasies of a retired general, discredit the work of the special services.
But this is still not all. We will add yet one more line about the work of B. Ratnikov. In the mid-'90s obscurantism in the Kremlin corridors of power reached unprecedented dimensions. The main figure who welcomed and protected all manner of charlatans was General-Major G. G. Rogozin, the First Deputy Chief of RF Presidential Security. Together with General B. Ratnikov and the then little-known G. Grabovoy they drew up horoscopes for B. N. Yeltsin's immediate circle and prepared political predictions. We cite here an excerpt from a recent television interview with B. Ratnikov demonstrating the astrological knowledge of the general, strictly in the form as it went over the air: "When certain planets (there are dark planets, there are bright planets) and here when the dark planets, Uranus, Saturn, form a line then certain periods happen, a powerful influence is exerted on the Earth and this influence is characterized by the element of human reason becoming blunted and the instinctual element taking priority". Today both generals are retired and have gone into business. Where Grigoriy Grabovoy is, the readers know for themselves [Translator's note: under arrest; see the next paragraph]…
By the way, about Grabovoy. According to numerous statement, both from Grabovoy himself and his supporters, this person could foresee any event and even avert them. He confidently stated that he, Grigoriy Petrovich Grabovoy, would be the next President of Russia in 2008. Alas, the all-powerful seer lied just as he shamelessly lied to the mothers of Beslan, promising to revive their dead children.
But let's return to the generals. It would seem that their recollections cited above describe the deeds of long-ago days. Are they worth digging them up today? They are! Many strange things still happen today unbeknownst to the scientific community. Here is an example from the recent past mentioned in the first edition of the bulletin, "In Defense of Science". Not long before the summit held in St. Petersburg in 2006 then Deputy Secretary of the RF Security Council N. Spassky published an article "preparing for the G-8" ("Rossiyskaya Gazeta", 24 April 2006). In it the author "inventories" the state of energy and at the same time writes about "a coming breakthrough in energy". The author associated one of the fields of the "breakthrough" with "vacuum energy", in other words, with drawing energy from a vacuum. Science cannot do this. Moreover, it says that this is impossible. And if nevertheless government representatives let the cat out of the bag about "vacuum energy" then it means that there is a "black hole" unbeknownst to the scientific community through which budget resources for senseless projects are being pumped without hindrance (and illegally). The senseless secrecy allowing both ignorance and out-and-out swindling to be hidden helps a great deal. Several years ago three members of the Commission to Combat Pseudoscience (Academicians Ye. B. Aleksandrov, V. L. Ginzburg, and Eh. P. Kruglyakov) sent a letter to President V. V. Putin. In particular, it contained a suggestion about the need to introduce expert review of projects for which the government was allocated resources from the budget. Of course, since that time the ice has broken but, as we see, something is nevertheless happening "under the carpet".
Fortunately, our Commission has managed to become familiar with some projects and (we hope) save government money. For example, Mr. V. Mokiy, Director of the Institute of Transpersonal Technologies (it remained unclear to which ministry the Institute belonged), sent the Secretary of the Security Council a letter with a proposal ["] to make a major breakthrough in science based on a transdisciplinary system approach and means of solving complex, multi-factor problems of nature and society". Of course, traditional science cannot handle such an approach. But Mr. Mokiy's Institute has the appropriate specialists and is ready to taken upon itself the heavy burden of implementing a transdisciplinary approach in the interests of the government practically for free (in fact, perhaps this money, 125 million rubles over nine years is for "development of a draft concept of a new world order and government world view"?).
To begin, Mr. Mokiy had to radically replace fundamental physical concepts. Now space is "a form of the existence of potential" and time "a form of reforming potential". In the author's words, "the originality (of the system approach - Eh. K.) consists of the transdisciplinary concepts being described in the form of linguistic formulas and logical geometric models maximally approximating their essence to an unequivocal interpretation, also including their use in other disciplines". One would think that any honest official far from science would be filled with reverential trembling before the erudition of "Professor" V. Mokiy. And the further the you go the harder it gets: "The need to realize the potential at each point of the YeFA (common functional ensemble) dictates the natural predisposition of its space to quantization". From time to time this unconvincing jumble of words ends and then the fascinating prospects come into view before the gaze of the astonished official. The author promises "to identify and describe the connection and comprehensive influence of the overall (physical and chemical) condition of a territory on the status of engineering and transportation routes and services, the condition of buildings and structures, the state of public security, and the dynamics of the demographic situation".
For it to become clear to nonprofessionals the power to which the "science" of Mr. Mokiy has reached we note that in his words the collapse of the water park and market in Moscow in 2005-2006 was not caused by oversights of the designers and builders but because these structures were in the lower right zones of EhPF [natural physical fields].
But several years ago a project was floated in the Information Analysis Directorate of the Federation Council Staff somewhat similar to the preceding one: "A large-scale factor, a global threat to mankind". In particular, it stated that with the increase in the size of structures "mankind might provoke action before a completely unknown large-scale factor, a special phenomenon of the physical world. The essence of the large-scale factor is that with the increase in the size of any bodies their strength falls until zero is reached".
Consciously or not, the authors have substituted concepts. In reality, strength as a property of a solid body does not change with the dimensions of a body (at least in the field of macroscopic dimensions). It is another matter that a beam placed between two supports at the ends will break under its own weight starting at a certain length but here the formulas of the theory of elasticity operate and the breakage occurs completely predictably. Thus, alas, no new law of nature is being overlooked here.
Besides those hunting after budget resources an unforeseen number of swindlers have appeared in Russia who with the aid of unconscionable advertising try to palm off (and not without success) all sorts of "health cards" which "treat" various illnesses (even cardiovascular), amulets, and medallions of immortality. The most naive citizens can obtain a "matrix of health" which, according to the promises of the advertisement, attracts luck, wealth, and success to the wearer of the matrix, all for 987 rubles. The apotheosis of stupidity is the "magnet for money". As the advertisement of this miracle explains, money has a "specific information component". It has been extracted, amplified many times, and recorded on a crystal medium and placed in a special container in the form of a medallion. If such a medallion is worn on the chest then the information from it flows to the person's body and it, like a magnet, begins to draw money, wealth, and luck to itself. It is as if the reform of education is going in the necessary direction. In previous times any schoolchild who studied physics in school would have immediately explained that nothing of the sort was possible. Today he would hardly cope with a similar task: now a scanty knowledge of physics is clearly not enough to unmask the swindlers.
It is interesting that the "scientists" who created the "magnet for money" are also selling a "medallion to lose weight containing crystals of the medium of information of food substances. It acts on the satiety center of the brain and you lose weight without feeling hunger". Of course, both "instruments" have sanitary and epidemiologic certificates.
Many medicines are "processed" by torsion fields for greater persuasiveness. Here is a small example of an advertisement of the IMOVIN universal remedy: "As a result of the development of energy information therapy technology we can remove the defects of a biofield, relieve symptoms of disease, and remove the cause of the illness. The information therapy technology is based on the fundamental properties of torsion fields. The therapeutic effect of torsion fields is determined by their capability of influencing cells, organs, and systems of the organism but is primarily based on the ability of the brain to directly perceive therapeutic information transmitted by a torsion field. On the basis of the results of scientific developments and the use of the latest technologies the Novyy Kamelot [New Camelot] Company offers the highly effective BAD [biologically active supplement] IMOVIN with the given therapeutic energy information property".
Hordes of swindlers have seized on the treatment of diseases with the aid of ordinary water. But they just don't call it that! "Live" and "dead", "activated" and "structured", and finally "information" water is at your disposal. The majority of the swindlers "process" water with the aid of "original torsion generators". According to the assurances of the advertising, after such processing the water can treat hundreds of different diseases.
In the last two years a massive introduction of the idea of treating diseases (often incurable ones) with the aid of "information elixirs approved by the RF Ministry of Health and leading Russian clinics" has been taking place. Water elixirs are processed "on unique equipment through a multi-stage non-contact information recording of a matrix of the healthy cells of a human organism, a 'matrix of health'". In this case you don't need to be a genius to understand that there is a blatant swindle in front of you. Alas, the many years of drumming in pseudoscientific terminology ("the new science of eniology", "energy information exchange", and others) together with the liberal issue of patents for "instruments" permitting the creation of drugs treating even untreatable illnesses, is having an effect: the business of swindlers is flourishing and people who trusted the swindlers are dying, but for many years now the authorities have not been able to protect citizens from unconscionable advertising and the thriving healers…
Of course, sometimes justice triumphs. Recently the sanitary and epidemiologic certificates for all sorts of "information elixirs" were recalled, beginning with the "Information Ophthalmologic Elixir" and ending with the "Information Anti-Cancer Elixir". It is forbidden to sell 23(!) varieties of elixirs! But the people participating in the publication of unconscionable advertisements and the issue of permits for sale, and those who issue, to put it politely, dubious patents, have not suffered. The authors of the "information" scam have also been left unpunished. A bill [called] "Combating the Advertisement of Goods and Activity Harming the Health of Citizens" has long been sitting in the State Duma. No movement is discernible. By the way, a couple of years ago the Mexican Congress adopted an amendment to a health law. According to this amendment swindlers who make products allegedly having "magic" properties and dealing in them can be imprisoned for up to eight years. Evidently prison is a much more effective means than symbolic fines. We often talk about the health of the nation. If these are not empty words, is the government unable to clamp down on this vermin? And why does the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences put up with the predominance of swindlers in medicine?
And now let us change the subject. Last summer there was a sensational report in the mass media that "in July in the Khibiny Mountains scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences had found a mineral never found anywhere else which absorbs radiation and which has never been described anywhere…As of today this mineral has not been registered and there is no corresponding element in the Periodic Table. According to preliminary information it has the property of capturing radioactive elements". Children with a 5th or 6th grade education might totally take this information at face value. But how adults can believe the discovery of a new element which is not in the Periodic Table, and what is more which has, we'll frankly say, a magical property - this is impossible to understand. "As the researchers explained, one kilogram of the recently discovered mineral can neutralize more than a half-kilogram of any radioactive substance or, for example, the radioactive waste which is formed in nuclear reactors which have outlived their usefulness".
So an element unknown to science engages in a chemical reaction with any known radioactive substance and the radioactivity disappears! There is no sense in commenting on this absurdity. But two things are surprising: first, the information about this "discovery" appeared in a portal of the Russian Academy of Sciences (it is true, it soon disappeared) and, second, the Kola Science Center of the RAN, an official of which the mass media referred to, did not react to this "discovery" in any fashion.
Not long before New Year's A. V. Yablokov, a Corresponding Member of the RAN, appeared on A. Karaulov's program, "Moment Istiny [Moment of Truth]". The topic was atomic energy. The fact that Aleksey Vladimirovich had a quite negative attitude toward this form of energy is well known. Of course, everyone can express their point of view about a given problem, only correctness in statements ought to be observed. Unfortunately this did not happen on this program. Television viewers discovered a terrible secret about which nuclear physicists have been silent: during the operation of a nuclear reactor radioactive xenon is produced which goes into the atmosphere and then into the ionosphere where important changes occur because of it, leading to quite significant consequences. It was also noted that a person takes two atoms of radioactive xenon into their lungs with each breath!
To begin with we note that no one has ever made any secret associated with the production of the radioactive gases xenon and krypton. One can read about this in a multitude of handbooks on nuclear physics, in encyclopedias, etc.
There was no mention on the program of Carbon C14 which is also radioactive and has been in the atmosphere since time immemorial. And although its half-life is considerably more than xenon (5700 years against several hours), an organism takes in about 2 x 1011 atoms of radioactive carbon with each breath! As a result, for each act of the decay of xenon there occur about 200,000 decays of carbon atoms. We note that the radiation damage produced in an organism for one act of xenon and carbon decay is about the same.
What follows from the above? Only that breathing in radioactive xenon plays absolutely no role. What's more, it’s the same with Carbon C14. We add to the above that the human body is 18% carbon. This means that in a 75-kilogram person about 7,000 Carbon C14 atoms decay every second. So in fact the xenon scare turns out not to be not at all terrible, either for people or for the ionosphere. Aleksey Vladimirovich, you need to be more accurate!
Much clamor has been devoted to the "Letter of the 10 Academicians" to President V. V. Putin. The fact that their discussion continues to this day speaks of the fact that the problems raised in the letter worry the citizens of our country. The main concern of the authors of the letter was associated with "the ever-growing clericalization of Russian society" and with "the Church's active penetration into all spheres of public life". In the course of the heated discussions after publication of the letter its authors mentioned the meeting of the Public Chamber at which Vyacheslav Glazychev raised practically the same issues as the authors of the letter completely independently, talking about "the rapid intrusion of the Church into all government matters", for which he was rewarded with the condescending comment of Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department of External Relations, "The statements of Mr. Glazychev are a rudiment of the ideology of political pensioners". Church hierarchs of the ROC also spoke about the statements from the "Letter of the Academicians" in about the same tone. The truth is that not one fact from this letter was refuted. The statement of a correspondent from magazine Spiegel who interviewed A. I. Solzhenitsyn was left completely unanswered. The correspondent expressed the following thought: "It seems to me that it (the ROC - Eh. K.) is again turning into the state church it was a century ago" (Izvestiya, 24 July 2007).
If you listen to the ROC hierarchs there is no clericalization in the country and the course "Principles of Orthodox Culture" (OPK), the mandatory introduction of which into all Russian schools the World Russian National Assembly has insisted on, is a purely culture studies course, theology is a purely scientific discipline, it does not understand why has not been entered into the VAK [Higher Certification Commission] register, science and religion are the same, and so forth and so on. Is this really in fact so? Alas, it is not. There is much cunning in the responses of ROC representatives. Everyone knows that according to the Constitution Russia is a secular country where the Church is separate from the state and the Law of Freedom of Conscience says, "Officials of bodies of government authority, other government bodies, and local government and also servicemen do not have the right to use their official position to form a particular attitude toward religion". Do television broadcasts of worship services in the presence of the highest leadership of the country conform to the law? Does the blessing of military equipment by Orthodox priests before the eyes of the military leadership not violate the law? It is as if all this is not written into our laws.
How often they have tried to suggest to the public that the Principles of Orthodox culture is a purely culture studies course. But for some reason ROC representatives pass by in silence a certain statement by Patriarch Aleksiy II from a circular distributed to all dioceses (it was quoted in the "Letter of the Ten"). For it is clear from this document that the goal of the ROC is in fact the introduction of religion into the schools. Yes, and Metropolitan Kirill does not conceal that the goal of teaching OPK in the schools is the instillation of a "religious motivation" in people. Another Metropolitan, Kliment, is already complaining about biology textbooks: "The textbook are still old and Darwinism dominates in them". But what should there be in the textbooks? The divine creation of the Earth? It appears to be that if there were a favorable (for the ROC) decision of the problem of introducing OPK in the schools then the question of changing the content of textbooks would soon seriously arise (we note that a textbook completely excluding evolutionary theory has already been written and is waiting for its proper moment). And children will have to study creationism…Of course, it is possible that it will be avoided but is the statement of Metropolitan Kliment Church interference in a matter of science?
Not long ago the Church won another victory with the support of the authorities. Amendments were made to laws allowing spiritual educational institutions to receive the right to government accreditation with the issue of government-style diplomas. Nevertheless it has become difficult to understand, is the Church is separate from the state or not?
At a meeting of the Council on Nationality Issues in Belgorod V. V. Putin was asked about the obligatory introduction of the Principles of Orthodox Culture into the schools. The President noted that besides the appeal of the World Russian Congress with this demand there are other appeals from representatives of the intelligentsia who are concerned that our country will cease to be secular. "It is written in the Constitution that the Church is separate from the state. If we all decide to act otherwise then it is necessary to change the Constitution. I am not sure that this needs to be dealt with right now". Although the President did not directly answer the question it nevertheless became clear that he is against the mandatory introduction of OPK in the schools. Somewhat later at a meeting with the senior clergy in the Kremlin he more definitely noted that religious subjects can be studied only on a voluntary basis.
The author of these lines has had occasion to be present at a recording of a certain show on television Channel 1. Sitting next to me, Yuriy Gornyy, the master of psychological experiments, addressed a question to the audience: "Who knows Mikhail Prokhorov?" A forest of hands went up. And in fact who could not know the "hero" of Courchevel [Translator's note: this Prokhorov is a rich businessman accusing in France of pimping]? "But now raise your hands if you know Aleksandr Prokhorov". Not one person in the audience of over 100 could be found who knew the greatest scientist of modern times, Nobel Prize Laureate Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Prokhorov, the creator of lasers. Of course, the questions which proved to be "tactless" were cut out…
Not long ago I was able to familiarize myself with the 2007 "ratings of eliteness". There are 142 names on it. Politicians, big businessmen, actors, singers, athletes, designers, and musicians are represented on the list. Scientists are represented by Nobel Laureate Zh. I. Alferov, who ended up next to Ksyusha Sobchak in the ratings. One more scientist, Academician Ye. M. Primakov, made the list, not as a representative of science but as President of the RF Trade and Industrial Chamber. What does all this mean? Well, nothing especially. Simply that with the silent connivance of the authorities our mass media is more comfortable raising the coming generation in complete isolation from critical thinking. The cynical phrase, "the hoi polloi lap it up" has become current. It is implied that "lap it up" is that they are preparing food for the people from the mass media. Albert Einstein once said, "It ought to be shameful for someone who uses the miracles of science embodied in a common radio to value them as little as a cow values the miracles of botany which it chews".
It is if we have already reached a similar understanding of the role of science in social development. The way to the Middle Ages is open…
Ehduard Kruglyakov
Translated by Gary Goldberg