MOSCOW, February 21 (RIA Novosti) – A satirical prize for top achievements in pseudoscience has been established in Russia, its creators said Thursday.
The Obscurantist prize accepts nominations from the public until April 14, according to its website. No date is set for the first award ceremony.
“We’ve long been outraged by various anti-scientific TV shows and articles full of outrageous nonsense and messing with people’s heads,” organizing committee head Irina Levontina told RIA Novosti.
“This flood has increased greatly in recent times. … We realized that the scientific community must try to counteract it.”
Levontina is a linguist who works at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Russia’s academic community has long voiced concerns about the rise of pseudoscience since the demise of the Soviet Union, which sent the educational system into decline.
The Russian Academy of Science has its own unofficial commission against pseudoscience, which has repeatedly attacked ufology, astrology and numerous “inventors” bidding for state support of questionable technological projects.
Obscurantist’s organizers include Mikhail Gelfand, a bioinformatics expert active in Dissernet, a grassroots community that checks the academic dissertations of Russian officials for plagiarism. Dissernet has accused dozens of senior public figures of plagiarism, which most have denied.
The alternative medical industry and so-called occult services in Russia were estimated in 2010 to have an annual turnover of $2 billion and to be responsible for 800,000 jobs.
