Karandhara: It's just an axiom, that if any part of the knowledge is perfect, then the whole knowledge is perfect. If you have any part of the truth, you have to have the whole truth in the highest sense. So if their theory is at all correct, and any of the premises are solid, then why it doesn't conclude itself by its own logical deduction? Why it would always have to allude to something missing, some missing factor?
Prabhupāda: Jīva jātiṣu. The Padma Purāṇa says jīva jātiṣu, so different species of life. And they give: from this, this; from this, this; from this, this. Then, just like it is said that from bird's life the beast's life comes. Now the beasts, this category is of three millions types of beasts.
Śyāmasundara: Just like they find evidence of large bird, pterodactyl, which has beastlike properties. It has legs also, and they say from that kind of bird evolved a more beastlike, like you say, beasts.
Prabhupāda: Just like we say that kṛmayo rudra-saṅkhyakāḥ pakṣiṇāṁ daśa-lakṣaṇam. From the insect life the bird's life developed. That we see practically. One have becomes flies, butterflies. In the grass, worm becomes a butterfly. That is, there is evidence.
Śyāmasundara: But at that time were there only insects existing?
Prabhupāda: No. Everything was existing.
Karandhara: That's not evolution of the species, it's evolution of the soul through the existing species.
Prabhupāda: Transmigration from one body to another. The bodies are already existing.
Śyāmasundara: For instance, they say that during the Ice Age, when there were..., the earth became very cold, and there were great ice formations in Europe and America, that this animal they call the mammoth-it's an elephantlike animal but it had long, very long hair for warmth-suddenly this species appears. Does it mean that that body existed always somewhere else, but it just suddenly appeared in order...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Śyāmasundara: ...to live here in that environment?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Karandhara: What if it is indeed a different species? What do they qualify as a difference in species? I mean, like one man has lots of hair on his body and one man doesn't. That doesn't make him a different species necessarily.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. But in this case, elephants always lived in tropical. They were living in hot climates, and suddenly they had to adapt to the cold.
Prabhupāda: No. Again, just like we have got experience with the change of season, different animals are also produced, with the change of season. But it is not that they are coming new. They are already existing.
Śyāmasundara: They're appearing.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Karandhara: Appearing and disappearing according to the seasons.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like this Los Angeles City, there is a havoc of flood from the ocean and all men die. That does not mean extinct; the men are there somewhere else. You cannot say that human species is now extinct, because your study is limited.
Śyāmasundara: Supposing one man is particularly adapted, and he is smart, intelligent, and he survives when everything else is killed...
Prabhupāda: That he may survive, that we don't disagree.
Śyāmasundara: But he would say that that man passes on his superior traits to his children, and it's another species.
Prabhupāda: No. He survives, but many other men like him, they are existing somewhere. He may survive of this catastrophe, but that does not mean that other men are all extinct. You cannot say that. In these circumstances this man may survive or may not survive, but man is existing somewhere else.