It is planned to reorganize the RAS Commission to Combat Pseudoscience, transferring its functions to the RAS Expert Council, but the head of the commission, academician Evgeny Aleksandrov, does not know what measures are planned to be taken. He told socialbites.ca about it.
“I spoke with the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Gennady Krasnikov, where I wrote down some of my thoughts on improving the work of the commission. He listened to me, said nothing about such a decision, and was learned by me two months after this decision was made. I can only focus on the speeches of Stepan Kalmykov, the chairman of the Expert Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who said that this does not mean the liquidation of the commission, but only its reorganization, ”Aleksandrov explained.
But as to how exactly the reorganization of the commission was planned, Alexandrov was not informed.
“Until now, no one has told me anything about it. I hope this is not a cancellation. Although of course the commission, the weapons, the energy, the treatment of people, etc. Of course, we constantly interfered with them,” he said.
According to Alexandrov, restructuring can be associated, among other things, with excessive demands on the evaluation of inventions and projects, which are far from always related to science.
“I think the presidential apparatus was overloaded with objections from all kinds of inventors, and he decided not to take this into account, but to hand it over to the Expert Council immediately. And the Expert Council will already use our commission. I believe this is another step towards ordering. At first, our commission enjoyed great freedom, especially freedom of communication with the press. A few years ago, a resolution was adopted that all our actions are already regulated by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, now there are more regulations. What it will cause is unknown. Practice will show,” he said.
The decision to restructure was taken in December 2022. According to Stepan Kalmykov, chairman of the Council of Experts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it is connected with the desire to reduce the number of various commissions and councils under the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.