The director of a renowned genetics institute in Russia has been removed from their position by the country’s science and higher education ministry. This decision comes after the director caused controversy by claiming that ancient humans had longer lifespans and that the shorter lifespans of modern humans are a result of their ancestors’ wrongdoing. According to state news agency RIA-Novosti, the dismissal was announced on Thursday.

The report did not provide an explanation for the termination of Alexander Kudryavtsev, but the Russian Orthodox Church, which holds significant influence, labeled it as religious discrimination.

In 2023, Kudryavtsev, the leader of the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics at the Russian Academy of Science, gave a talk at a conference where he claimed that before the Biblical Flood, people had lifespans of around 900 years. He also suggested that genetic diseases and shortened lifespans were a result of “original, ancestral, and personal sins.”

According to the Russian news website Meduza, he also stated that offspring are accountable for their forefathers’ transgressions up to the seventh generation.

According to RIA-Novosti, Fyodor Lukyanov, who leads the Russian church’s family issues commission, stated that Kudryavtsev’s termination goes against the scientific community’s ethical standards as it is based on his religious beliefs and corresponding statements.

Lukyanov stated that we have experienced the Soviet era where genetics was dismissed as a false science. During the rule of Josef Stalin, traditional genetics was oppressed in support of Trofim Lysenko’s beliefs, which claimed that acquired traits could be passed down to future generations.

Source: wral.com