Colossal Hoax and Cash Cow

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Science

Working to build a living organism from scratch, scientists heading up genome research projects across America, in Canada and around the world are getting big bucks to fund their labs. Federal, and state governments, private foundations and venture capitalists are pumping phenomenal sums of money into genome research for various applications. Recently reported in the news since last December 2005:

42.6 million dollars from Bill and Melinda Gates

24.5 million dollars from the Moore Foundation

13 million dollars from venture capitalists

570,000 dollars from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

500 million dollar facility at Janelia Farm Rearch Campus by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

and just today it is reported that Iowa State University genetic research scientists have received a grant of 600,000 dollars from the National Science Foundation together with a 650,000 dollar grant from Iowa State University for the purchase of a super computer to enable them to decipher the genomes of corn.

No doubt much more money than this is being channeled into genome research. X Prizes is offering from 5 million to 20 million dollar prizes for outstanding scientific breakthroughs in the field. Untold amounts are being invested by the petrochemical-pharmaceutical mammoths. But what are people—taxpayers and corporate shareholders—getting for their money?

Every now and then reports surface of exciting new developments in putting together the building blocks of organisms, but this has been going on for 30 years or more. Lately The Scientist ran a story ("Is This Life?" by JACK LUCENTINI, January 2006) that begins with a description of "ersatz sacs" resembling cell membranes floating "in a watery mixture in Jack Szostak's laboratory at Harvard Medical School", "pulsing with that fetid, yet undeniable quality that has eluded definition for generations - life." The very next sentence? "But these orbs aren't alive." What a teaser. There's more. Wading through 1-1/2 pages more of thick scientific jargon describing progress so far in different research facilities in USA, the reader runs smack into:

For now, these inventions exist mainly as computer simulations; real-life testing is only just beginning. Rasmussen says ... "We're trying to understand why and how matter can self-organize? and become living. What is it in nature that enables it to do that? That's the deep question here."

Actually, the real question is whether these scientists are unwitting parties to what has got to be the most colossal hoax perpetrated on mankind or deliberate conspirators all out to milk the giant cash cows and etch their names onto the Nobel Peace Prize and the pages of prestigious journals by every unscrupulous device, as we saw recently in the case of the Korean stem cell debacle. There is no question at all that they cannot produce life. The scientists have been promising since forever that one day they will zap life into a synthetic form pieced together from scratch in their laboratories, but it's every bit fiction today as in the time of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Word Jugglery and World Crisis

Srila Prabhupada: It is said in the Vedas, yasmin vijnate sarvam evam vijnatam bhavati (Mundaka Upanishad 1.3): "If one knows the Absolute Truth, then all other things become known." I am not a Ph.D., yet I can challenge the scientists. Why? Because I know Krishna, the Absolute Truth. Yasmin sthito na duhkhena gurunapi vichalyate: "If one is situated in Krishna consciousness, then even in the greatest calamities he will not be disturbed." (Bhagavad-gita 6.22) Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.5.22) declares, avichyuto 'rithah kavibhir nirupito yad uttamashloka-gunanuvarnanam: "Great personalities have decided that Krishna consciousness is the perfection of life." This kind of knowledge is required. Not that we do some research, come up with a theory, and after fifteen years say, "No, no, it is not right—it is another thing." That is not science; that is child's play.

Dr. Singh: That is how they discover things—by research.

Srila Prabhupada: And what is the cost of the research? It is a scientific method for drawing money from others, that's all. In other words, it is cheating. Scientists juggle words like plutonium, photons, hydrogen and oxygen, but what good will people get from this? When people hear this jugglery of words, what can they say? One scientist explains something to some extent, and then another rascal comes along and explains it again, but differently, with different words. And all the time the phenomenon has remained the same. What advancement has been made? They have simply produced volumes of books. Now there is a petrol problem. Scientists have created it. If the petrol supply dwindles away, what will these rascal scientists do? They are powerless to do anything about it. ( Life Comes From Life, The Fourth Morning Walk, April 29, 1973 "Word Jugglery and World Crisis")

Srila Prabhupada: The material elements are not creative! Only the soul is creative. Life cannot be created from matter, and matter cannot create itself. You, a living entity, can mix hydrogen and oxygen to create water. But matter itself has no creative potency. If you place a bottle of hydrogen near a bottle of oxygen, will they automatically combine, without your help?

Dr. Singh: No. They must be mixed.

Srila Prabhupada: Of course. Oxygen and hydrogen are Krishna's inferior energy, but when you, the superior energy, mix them, then they can become water.

The Remote Cause and the Immediate Cause

Srila Prabhupada: Inferior energy has no power unless superior energy is involved. This sea [indicating the Pacific Ocean] is calm and quiet. But when the superior force, air, pushes it, it manifests high waves. The ocean has no power to move without the superior force of the air. Similarly, there is another force superior to the air, and another and another, until ultimately we arrive at Krishna. This is real research. Krishna controls nature just as an engineer controls a train. The engineer controls the locomotive, which pulls one car, and that car in turn pulls another, which pulls another, and so the whole train is moving. Similarly, with the creation, Krishna gives the first push, and then, by means of successive pushes, the entire cosmic manifestation comes into being and is maintained. This is explained in Bhagavad-gita (9.10). Mayadhyakshena prakritih suyate sacharacharam: "This material nature is working under My direction and is producing all moving and unmoving beings." And in the Fourteenth Chapter [Bhagavad-gita 14.4] Krishna says:

sarva-yonishu kaunteya
murtayah sambhavanti yah
tasam brahma mahad yonir
aham bija-pradah pita

"All species of life are made possible by birth in this material nature, O son of Kunti, and I am the seed-giving father."

For example, if we sow a banyan seed, a huge tree eventually comes up and, along with it, millions of new seeds. Each of these seeds can in turn produce another tree with millions of new seeds, and so on. This is how Krishna, the original seed-giving father, is the primary cause of everything we see.

Unfortunately, the scientists observe only the immediate cause; they cannot perceive the remote cause. Krishna is described in the Vedas as sarva-karana-karanam [Brahma-samhita 5.1], the cause of all causes. If one understands the cause of all causes, then he understands everything. Yasmin vijnate sarvam evam vijnatam bhavati (Mundaka Upanishad 1.3): "If one knows the original cause, the subordinate causes are automatically known." Although the scientists are searching after the original cause, when the Vedas, perfect knowledge, declare the original cause to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the scientists won't accept it. They keep to their partial, imperfect knowledge. This is their disease.

The Cosmic Machine

Srila Prabhupada: Scientists do not know that there are two types of energy—inferior and superior— although they are actually working with these two energies every day. Material energy can never work independently; it must first come in contact with spiritual energy. So how can people accept that the entire cosmic manifestation, which is nothing but matter, has come about automatically? A competent machine does not work unless a man who knows how to work it pushes a button. A Cadillac is a nice car, but if it has no driver, what is the use of it? So the material universe is also a machine.

People are amazed at seeing a big machine with many, many parts, but an intelligent person knows that however wonderful a machine may be, it does not work unless an operator comes and pushes the proper button. Therefore, who is more important—the operator or the machine? So we are concerned not with the material machine—this cosmic manifestation—but with its operator, Krishna. Now you may say, "Well, how do I know that He is the operator?" Krishna says, mayadhyakshena prakritih suyate sacharacharam: [ Bhagavad-gita 9.10] "Under My direction the whole cosmic manifestation is working." If you say, "No, Krishna is not the operator behind the cosmos," then you have to accept another operator, and you must present him. But this you cannot do. Therefore, in the absence of your proof, you should accept mine. (Life Comes From Life, The Fourth Morning Walk, April 29, 1973 "Sankhya Philosophy and Modern Science")