Russian scientist sacked from by top institute after controversial claims

A prominent geneticist in Russia was sacked after his remarks regarding the human lifetime caused a stir in the nation. After asserting that humans once lived for 900 years but that our current shorter lifespan is a result of our ancestors’ crimes, Dr. Alexander Kudryavtsev was fired from his position as director of the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics at the Russian Academy of Science. These remarks were reportedly delivered by him during the Third International Scientific and Theological Conference ‘God – Man – World’ last year, according to media reports. At the Minsk conference, the sixty-year-old scientist stated that humans had existed for around nine hundred years prior to the Biblical Flood and that “original, ancestral, and personal sins” were the cause of genetic illnesses that reduced life expectancy. According to the Russian news website Meduza, he also asserted that children “up to the seventh generation are responsible for the sins of their fathers.” He said that the genetic disorders that damage modern man are a result of mutations brought about by sin. “I wanted to emphasise the harmful influence of so-called bad habits - what theologians call sin. They also affect the genome. ‌If a mutation occurs in your body, in your gametes, it will be passed on to your offspring, and nothing can be done about it. ‌The conclusion is simple: if you want to have healthy offspring, don’t develop bad habits, don’t fall into sin,” Kudryavtsev said. He stated that while many scientists who reject religion may attribute genetic degradation to radiation or pollution, he thinks that “original sin is the cause of such destruction, aggravated by ancestral sin, and personal sin as well.” ‘‘I would like to state that I voiced my personal point of view. ‌It is in no way the position of the Russian Academy of Sciences, nor the position of the Church. ‌All this does not affect the work of the Institute of Genetics in any way,’’ he told the media. He went to adding that genetic mutations ‘caused by sin’ could affect up to seven generations. The Russian government did not provide a detailed explanation for his termination. The head of the Russian church’s commission on family matters, Fyodor Lukyanov, asserted that the dismissal was “for religious beliefs and statements,” according to convictions that “violate the ethics of the scientific community”.