Interfax-Religion has a dramatic headline:
Russian scientists certain of the existence of God
The existence of God has been proved by scientific methods, Academician Anatoly Akimov, director of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics, has stated.
‘There is God, and we can see the manifestations of His will. This is the opinion of many scientists; they not only believe in the Creator but rely on certain knowledge’, he said in an interview published by the Moskovsky komsomolets daily on Friday.
…’if man had appeared on the Earth as a result of evolution, then, considering the frequency of mutations and the speed of biochemical processes, more time would have been required to develop man from elementary cells then the age of the Universe itself’.
Besides, he continued, calculations have been made to show that the number of quantum elements in the observed Universe cannot be fewer than 10155 and it cannot but possess a superintellect.
…Academician Akimov was baptized at the age of 55.
Funnily, however, Interfax prefers not to dwell on Akimov’s dubious background as the purveyor of bizarre “torsion field” pseudo-science. This website has the allegations (dead link removed):
According to the Commission [Against Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research, established by the Russian Academy of Sciences], in late 1980’s, a group of charlatans posing as serious physicists organized a large-scale “torsion fields” fraud and spent millions of roubles from the state budget; and now the swindlers are attempting to repeat the fraud in other countries. The main figure in the Soviet fraud was a Anatoly Akimov, who claimed to have discovered a so-called torsion field and claimed to have invented what he called “torsion technologies”. Under the pretense of developing his “torsion technologies”, Akimov’s “Center for Nontraditional Technologies” contrived to spend about 500 million roubles of state money until, in 1991, this fraudulent activity became known to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a scandal broke out. The USSR Academy of Sciences conducted an in-depth investigation; it was established that millions of roubles had been spent for “torsion fields research” without any scientific examination. Akimov’s Center was closed, Akimov was fired. But very soon A.E. Akimov organized a small private enterprise with a sonorous name “The International Institute for Theoretical and Applied Physics” and this “Institute” published quite a number of pseudoscientific papers about nonexistent “torsion technologies” largely based on a so-called “Theory of the Physical Vacuum” created by a Gennady Shipov.
Further allegations are preserved by Skeptik:
Leading Russian physicists, including experts in torsion, have repeatedly emphasized that the so-called “Theory of the physical vacuum” (AKA the Theory of Torsion Fields developed by G.I.Shipov, a colleague of A.E.Akimov’s) contradicts known experiments, contains errors in calculations, and many of its equations are totally incorrect. Those errors make the entire “theory” just a heap of useless erroneous formulae.
Despite the fact that G.I.Shipov had been repeatedly told about the errors in his equations, A.E.Akimov and G.I.Shipov continue to advertise his book “The Theory of Physical Vacuum”…and continue to deceive foreign businessmen which do not understand the mathematics in that book and therefore cannot see the absurdity of Shipov’s claims.
…The scientific degrees used in Russia differ very much from those used in Europe and America. Roughly speaking (to simplify the complex system of Russian scientific degrees), there are two main scientific degrees in Russia: kandidat nauk and doktor nauk, the latter being higher than the former. A.E.Akimov and G.I.Shipov do not have any of these degrees.
Another website quotes Akimov on the theoretical basis for his claims:
Dr. A. Akimov, former director of the Soviet Centre for Non-Traditional Technologies, disclosed that Russian research had discovered a new class of physical fields and particles. They had also elucidated the effects these fields and particles exerted on living and non-living organisms and inanimate objects. New names such as ‘spinor’, ‘torsionnic’ and ‘microleptonnic’ were used to define these new classes of physical fields. Scientists in the West, who have little appreciation of the remarkable advances made by the Soviets, called them ‘scalar’ fields.
This discovery could supposedly be used as a mind control weapon; further background can be culled from other obscure and poorly-written websites, such as this one:
On September 27 [1991] appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda another article where parts of the government project for the development of those weapons were published:
“remote medicobiological influence on troops and population by means of torsional radiation, remote psychophysical influence on troops and population by torsional radiation”…For the realization of those projects the center Vent was established by the State Council for Science and Technology. The center was financed by the Ministry of Defense and according to its director A. Akimov the funding, coming also from Military-Industrial Commission at the Ministerial Cabinet of the USSR and KGB, amounted to half a billion of the Soviet rubles.
…On November 11, 1992 another Russian daily, Pravda, printed an article on this subject where the director of the Center Vent, A. Akimov, told that “as a result of experimental work there is at the hands everything necessary to produce the factory samples” and that “torsional fields… are capable to relay information with no barriers to stop them”.
I suppose we ought to be grateful to Akimov for doing his bit to waste the resources of the Soviet Union. However, with the Communist regime gone and the Orthodox Church in the ascendant, Akimov clearly has his eye on finding new sources of support – and Intelligent Design might be just the ticket.
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Richard, you have not commented on your August 29, 2006, entry aout the ancient Arctic petroglyphs for several days, and some important new information has now come to light from Archeologist Daniel Gendron of the Avataq Cultural Institute. Since you have based your own suspicions on the spin that was put on his interview by a CanWest journalist, you might want to re-evaluate your own thoughts on this, and the wisdom of publishing rumours based on the bias of a journalist rather than on what you thought that the archeologist was saying, and which journalist Randy Boswell was distorting to line up with his own bias.
Randy Boswell likes to do history stories, and make them news. Mr. Gendron writes, “It is unfortunate that Mr. Boswell has taken upon himself to make the news instead of reporting it.”
Boswell made a revealing comment in his bio with reference to his writing about history, and people who have passed on, “And dead people can’t claim they’ve been misquoted!”
Unfortunately for him, Daniel Gendron is not dead, but is very much alive, and has really exposed him as fraudulent and misleading on this one. It is really unfortunate that you went for the story as well.
In your efforts to make “religious” people look scary, you are doing yourself a disservice in passing on this kind of innuendo without checking out your story sufficiently.
For the full letter by Archeologist Daniel Gendron, read the Nunatsiaq News, and page 13 of the September 29, 2006 issue, under the headline, “CanWest reporter distorted Qajartalik petroglyph story.”
Daniel Gendron writes, “I do apologize to the entire Nunavik population for this, and especially to the Kangirsujuammiut.”
Richard?
Thank you for bringing this important letter to my attention, I have now discussed it. Of course I reject your notion that I am motivated by a desire “to make “religious” people look scary” – for someone complaining about misrepresentation, you seem more than ready to dish out unwarrented accusations of malice yourself. Perhaps a look at Matthew 7:3 might be apporopriate?
Richard, thank you for your corrective, and for your apology. Both are accepted with appreciation, and I respect your motives. I apologize for my statement, “In your efforts to make ‘religious’ people look scary, you are doing yourself a disservice in passing on this kind of innuendo.” I know that you did not say as much directly in your blog of August 29, 2006, entitled, “Neo-Pentecostal Revival Suspected for Destruction of Ancient Arctic Art.” I was was actually referring to how some of your readers took that blog and commented on it, comments to which I saw no correction from you. For example, Darcy Steele wrote on September 2, 2006, “I find the spread of the evangelical here in Nunavut troubling and disturbing. Pretty scary stuff.” Some of the other comments indicated that your blog was read as useful research. For example, BD wrote, in the first comment on that blog, “Thank you Richard — your research is excellent and useful.” Bruce Wilson wrote, “This defacement of the Canadian art petroglyph art is an expression that might be likened to the Roman practice of the ‘damnatio memoriae’ — the erasure of the past through the erasure of historical record and thus memory — which is the most absolute of political impulses.” Another wrote, “The first response of indigenous peoploe to the arrival of Christian missionaries should be: Eat ’em if you got ’em. The New World Taliban indeed.” It is comments like these that lower the level of any discussion in a search for the truth when one is writing about a people that one does not know. So I guess with comments like these, I was concerned that your article has elicited this kind of response without any correction from you (up until now). Have a good day, Richard, and I appreciate that you are somebody one can have an honest discussion with. You have integrity, and I respect you for that.
Hallo,
may be my recent book on the philosophy of the subquantum Megaverse and God may be of interest in this context. Akimov’s and many other researchers’ ideas are integrated in this new metaphysics, which sees “God” in many different (if all) loci of the megaverse: Walter A. Koch (Professor Emeritus Ruhr University Bochum Germany) “Tractatus Logo-Philosophicus – On the Subquantum Foundations of the World”. Norderstedt: BOD – Books on Demand IBN978-3-8391-5522-6.
Best wishes, W.K.