title: Vedāntic view of life: Reply to Gustavo Caetano-Anollés.
abstract: The author would like to thank Professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés from Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois for his interest in his work. We may sometimes observe that there is a noticeable difference between the anecdote people narrate about the implications of a scientific paper and the real conclusion of the paper. Prof. Gustavo Caetano-Anollés's response(1) is an ideal example of the same, where he has tried to make great hay about the implications of the article "Life and consciousness - The Vedāntic view."(2) The Vedāntic view subscribes neither to the views of 'Creationist Movement'/'Intelligent Design', nor it supports some splendid anti-science proposal. Vedāntic view refutes the dominant reductionistic view of life in modern biology by proposing a viable alternative concept of 'Organic Whole' and thus serves a scientific critique to the nescience (avidyā) that is practiced on the name of science.
authors.affiliation: Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute, Electronic City , Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Bhakti Niskama
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2039-3249
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Shanta
keywords: Darwinism; cell sentience; consciousness; creationism; intelligent design; machine; mind; organism; origin of Life; teleology