Russia fires genetics institute head who claimed humans once lived for 900 years
apnews.com
A Russian state news agency says Russia's science and higher education ministry has dismissed the head of a prestigious genetics institute who sparked controversy by contending that humans once lived for centuries and that the shorter lives of modern humans are due to their ancestors’ sins.

Russia’s science and higher education ministry has dismissed the head of a prestigious genetics institute who sparked controversy by contending that humans once lived for centuries and that the shorter lives of modern humans are due to their ancestors’ sins, state news agency RIA-Novosti said Thursday.

Although the report did not give a reason for the firing of Alexander Kudryavtsev, the influential Russian Orthodox Church called it religious discrimination.

Kudryavtsev, who headed the Russian Academy of Science’s Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, made a presentation at a conference in 2023 in which he said people had lived for some 900 years prior to the era of the Biblical Flood and that “original, ancestral and personal sins” caused genetic diseases that shortened lifespans.

  • APassenger@lemmy.worldEnglish
    312·
    10 months ago

    That’s quite literally in the Bible. People are stated as having extraordinary lifespans (e. g., Methuselah).

    Then there was a flood after which people saw a rainbow for the first time ever. Gods promise not to flood us again.

    The implication seems to be that the earth was in a firmament bubble and the bubble burst, sending down water. Then we had direct sun and not the filtered kind that He* created us for.

    No longer in our best element, we die earlier.

    I’m not saying the above is true, I’m saying I’ve heard this for decades now and it checks out against biblical description.