Titanic Worms

By Visvamrtra dasa

Surprisingly, the man who discovered the sunken wreckage of the
Titanic declares a different discovery to be his greatest claim to
fame. Bob Ballard says his most significant ocean-floor-finding is
not the legendary passenger ship, but instead massive tube worms
that silently inhabit the bottom of the sea.

Ballard, it turns out, accidently uncovered these six-foot long
worms while leading an expedition off the coast of the Galapagos
Islands of Charles Darwin fame. The huge worms dwell 8,000 feet
below the surface of the ocean, where they live in total darkness,
thriving by a process called chemosynthesis, or deriving life
energy from chemicals. Whereas plants synthesize sunlight to
produce energy (photosynthesis), in a previously unknown process
these worms draw their life-sustaining energy directly from the
earth. Discovering these worms and their means of surviving at
these depths has rocked the boats of biology and chemistry, and
required standard textbooks to be revised to encompass these
findings.

Beyond a basic interest in the discovery, I found the interview
with Ballard to be an excellent confirmation of Srila Prabhupada’s
Vedic teachings. One definition of knowledge is “acquaintance with
truth or fact”. Real knowledge must explain the nature of things
as they are, rather than simply speculate on how they might be. It
never fails to amaze me how so much information is presented as
fact, when it is in reality an “authority’s” guesswork. It is an
observation made via imperfect senses and then speculated on via
limited intelligence—but nevertheless it is presented as “fact”
and “truth”.

Information based on imperfect sources will always need revision,
because only perfect knowledge is free from defects. But one can
never have perfect knowledge from imperfect sources.
The ancient Vedas offer inquisitive minds a source of eternal,
unchanging knowledge. Discoveries such as Ballard’s are
anticipated by the student of the Vedas, because the Vedas explain
that life exists everywhere. The the living force (atma) is
present everywhere, and the physical body is manifested from the
five elements, namely, earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Since
these elements are available everywhere, the atma can draw upon
them to form a physical body anywhere in the universe. As such,
the Vedas describe how there are 8,400,000 different species of
life, which are the number of various combinations of these
elements. Some of these species have bodies suitable for living in
environments that scientists would not conceive as possible,
because they are limited by the idea that matter can produce life
only in very limited circumstances. But Ballard’s tube Worms are a
shining example of how life can exist anywhere, because life
creates the body, rather than the body creating life.

The more I witness the follies of the modern scientist the more my
faith grows in Srila Prabhupada and the Vedas. I prefer to accept
knowledge from a person of impeccable character who has
demonstrated his realization of the Absolute Truth, rather than
rely on “highly educated” sources who are constantly revising
their knowledge claims and who are so flawed in character. When it
comes to reliable information, i prefer to have “cash-in-hand” as
opposed to the meaningless “post-dated check”.