Science was one of Srila Prabhupada’s favorite topics. I can hardly recall a single day without His Divine Grace making some comment about the cheating of material scientists and their headlong rush into ignorance.

From Chanakya Pandit das, Russia:

April 12 2008 Q1:Almost every day I see in Prabhupada’s books not simply a critics, but a machine gun burst directed at the so-called “scientists”.

Answer:

Yes, Srila Prabhupada held the material scientists responsible for misleading the whole world by propagating false theories of evolution etc. as ‘truth.’ He wasn’t against science per se, he was against the atheistic use of it to attack religion and spirituality.

Q2:

I would like to understand where from Shrila Prabhupada received this information about people engaged in science. I get an impression that this information came from his disciples, and they in their turn received it from mass media and had no direct contact with the sources of information. Is that a correct statement? Can you please confirm or disagree?

Ans:

He got a lot of his information from his scientist disciples like Svarupa Damodar, Sadaputa, Madhava etc. These men were all holding Ph.D degrees in biology, maths etc. so they knew very well from the inside what the theories were and how they were being used.

Q3:

Is the basis of critics of science the fact that they have sex, eat meat, drink wine and gamble? Why is there so little critics of businessmen, enterpreneurs and shudras – they are as well engaged in the same activities, if not more (drugs, prostitutes, casinos, murders of competitors etc.).

Ans:

The scientists especially mislead the world in education about matter being supreme. Sudras, vaisyas etc. are simply using the world but the so-called scientists are taking the position of brahmanas, setting themselves up as the most knowledgable persons, when their habits are of low class persons and do not reflect the culture of real thinkers and purified, realized men. Therefore Srila Prabhupada singled them out above others. Otherwise, Srila Prabhupada was also very critical of the fallen condition of society in general.

I can give many quotes, but here’s one I particularly like because it sums up the role the scientists play in arresting the natural evelvation of the soul:

[TD 3] July 3, 1976 – Washington, D.C. – conversation with BI scientists: 

Then he described how the soul qualifies itself for a particular type of body by its association with the modes of nature. If it comes to the human form it then has the chance, by association with goodness, to become a brahmana, and then a Vaisnava. “When you become Vaisnava, tad visnoh paramam padam sada pasyanti, you are hankering after Visnu. Then your life is success. And to keep them dull-brained, that is the greatest disservice. They have got the capacity to become a brahmana, and they are keeping him just like a dull-brained mountain and tree. That we want to stop this. It is suicidal, suicidal to the human society.
“The modern civilization, most harmful civilization. Denying the facility. One has got the capacity to become a brahmana, and they are denying the facility, to keep him to remain like hogs and dogs. Vedic civilization forbids: nayam deho deha-bhajam nrloke/ kastan kaman arhate vid-bhujam ye. If you have created a civilization like the hogs who are working day and night hard to find out some stool, and as soon as he eats some stool, his sex power is agitated, and he doesn’t care whether mother, sister or daughter. That is hog’s life, hog civilization, work day and night, and have sex. And next life become a dull-headed tree, a dull-headed stone, mountain, or dull-headed elephant. Who knows the laws of creation? How one becomes elephant? How one becomes hog? How one becomes a demigod? Do the scientists know it? Then? Where is the knowledge? The knowledge is, ‘Wait for million years, then you’ll see life.’ Just see.”
 

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