Attacks on the Academy – Moskovskaya Pravda

What I feared happened. The new North American virus that hit the Russian electoral system has also spread to elections at the Academy of Sciences. The virus acts without noise and dust, that is, latently. It does not affect the voting, but the shadow phase of the election preparations, which is not covered by either the law or the attention of the media.

It can be said that the election of the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences ended on September 19, when the current president of the Academy, Alexander Sergeyev, announced at the general meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences his intention to withdraw his candidacy in the upcoming elections.

How sadly comrade scientists joked after being forced to leave in the Soviet past, “at the boss’s own request.”

Who is now our boss, is unclear. According to MK, Academician-Secretary of the Physical Sciences Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ivan Shcherbakov notified forty colleagues by e-mail that Sergeev would announce his decision at the opening of the general meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Monday.

The academicians saw off their still senior colleague with a standing ovation.

It is difficult to understand what was more in these applause – respect or relief.

The election of the president of the Academy is scheduled for the next day, September 20, at a general meeting. Since 2017, a simple majority is sufficient for this. The President of Russia approves the elected head of the Academy. There must be at least two candidates in agreement with the government.

The government did not take a sin on the soul and agreed on three, rejecting the fourth Robert Nigmatulin.

We dismiss the question of whether the government has a soul as uncoordinated.

Two out of three contenders remained – General Director of the Research Institute of Molecular Electronics Gennady Krasnikov and Director of the Institute of Thermal Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Markovich.

When a destructive reform was being prepared with the merger of three academies into one, the traditional discrediting campaign before the destructive action took place in the media. The academies were charged with property fraud. After the merger-acquisition, the research institutes with all their property left the Academy.

Then there was a tough discussion about who should form the academic policy in the country – the Academy itself or the one who maintains it, that is, the government. True, there is no structure necessary for this in the system of executive power in free Russia. Sergeev only dreamed of the revival of the State Committee for Science and Technology Policy.

Deputies of the seventh convocation Vyacheslav Nikonov and Gennady Onishchenko defended a reasonable format to the displeasure of academicians. Both of their posts in the eighth Duma lost.

And in the Academy, a shadow struggle for scientific periodicals and the property complex has already unfolded.

Alexander Sergeev has served as President of the Russian Academy of Sciences since September 27, 2017. He became in fact the first sane head of the post-Soviet Academy. In Soviet times, they were. Sergeev’s position was extremely reasonable. He tried to establish a system of scientific periodicals under the auspices of the Academy. And at the same time he was a staunch opponent of the return of the Academy of Management of its property. Sergeev believed that the Federal Property Management Agency is quite coping with this.

A notable achievement of Alexander Sergeev was the holding of a series of scientific councils of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the site of the Rossiya Segodnya MIA. It was a real revolution, science returned to the leading news agency of the country at Zubovskaya, and very serious at that.

First, they discussed covid, then its consequences, and at the end, they started presenting domestic import-substituting technologies in medicine.

Atypically for modern science, the discussed facts and arguments, data and fantasies under the guise of data had neither a given result nor signs of bias.

Thanks to Sergeyev’s reasonable approaches, in parallel, a lot of interesting things were revealed both about viruses and bacteria, and about the organization of science both in Russia and abroad by the hegemon who rules global science. We published information on scientific advice.

Sergeev promised me that the scientific councils of the Russian Academy of Sciences would definitely continue. For some reason I didn’t believe it…

Sergeev and I did not agree on only one thing. He argued that we do not have discoveries in genetics, similar to the periodic table in chemistry and the atomic bomb in physics. I said: “Mr. President, you are wrong.”

And then something amazing happened – Sergeev was grateful to me for the objections and sadly said that the grave of one of the first Russian geneticists Sergei Chetverikov could not be found.

It became clear that the president of the Academy was not free. And not only in decisions, but also in a public position.

For the purposes of this material, sad in fact, the outcome of our dispute is hardly important. But I’ll still point it out. The periodic table in genetics corresponds to the law of homologous series of hereditary variability of Nikolai Vavilov. This discovery required much more effort. To explain it to students, it is necessary to overcome the fundamental illiteracy in evolutionary genetics and synergetics.

As for the atomic bomb, it is no longer needed. Social engineering, also known as genetic engineering in populi, can do absolutely everything and much more than nuclear energy, both for explosive destruction and for creation.

The United States is especially reliable in the first option. And the second one, except for Russia, is practically not owned by anyone. All of Russia’s partners in the creation of the United States were either destroyed at the level of statehood, or bent over to reduce sovereignty without the cost of a coup d’état.

I have written so much about all this that I am ashamed to repeat myself.

Russia has not escaped this scourge either. The situation at the elections of the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a typical example of this in a series of numerous similar events in schools, universities, individual faculties and scientific institutes One of the last victims of centrifugal selection fell the stronghold of the national scientific classification VINITI.

The Academy acted with VINITI in the same way as they have now acted with the Academy itself.

Sympathy for Sergeyev is so great that literally for a day he became a media person more significant than he was for the whole term.

According to a TASS source, Sergeev made the decision to withdraw his candidacy literally within the last two days.

It follows from this alignment that it was not Sergeev himself who made the decision, and it is quite possible that the final verdict became known to him from the media. They’ve been digging for it for a long time.

In particular, RBC broadcast criticism of Sergeyev for being a somewhat opportunistic president, being very cautious and in favor of interaction with the authorities.

The last accusation is the most lethal, but not in my perception. How else? One Academician Sakharov spoke out against the authorities, and he turned out to be wrong. However, this is my opinion. Perhaps now something similar will arise in the academic environment in the order of repetition of what was passed before the collapse of the Union.

On the day of the announcement of the strange decision of Alexander Sergeev, the media give different expressions of his position on the ideological aspects of scientific activity.

According to RBC, Sergeev confirmed that he adheres to a consensus with the authorities, without which it will not be possible to develop science in the country. Because science is mainly supported from the state budget.

“When we do not reach agreement on how this science is organized, further protest movements or insults do not lead to anything good. I stayed in this position and will continue to offer it, it leads to a normal result, ”Sergeev replied. (Quoted by RBC)

“It is normal to express a civil position, moreover, unfortunately, now many people do not speak out, but rather keep silent. But do not substitute the RAS – this is not a public organization, the academy is a state organization, a state function, ”Sergeev said. (Quoted by RBC)

According to RBC, in early September, against the background of cases of criminal prosecution of scientists, the academician proposed the formation of a permanent analytical body to interact with law enforcement agencies.

I cannot fail to note the obvious signs of naivete in the words with which Alexander Mikhailovich formulates his position. It is even strange that such a person could become the President of the Academy. However, in Russia it happens

Passions are seething inside the Academy, as it does not happen even around and inside the Duma. It is difficult to understand outside its borders, the Academy is playing an ever smaller role in the organization of science. The exception was personally Alexander Sergeev, he was a respected and reliable guide for finding common sense in the midst of suicidal madness.

Lev MOSKOVKIN.