Scientists Bridle at Lecture Plan
for Dalai Lama
By BENEDICT CAREY, New
York Times, October 19, 2005
The Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet who is revered
as a spiritual teacher, is at the center of a scientific
controversy.
New York, USA -- He has been an enthusiastic
collaborator in research on whether the intense meditation practiced
by Buddhist monks can train the brain to generate compassion and
positive thoughts. Next month in Washington, the Dalai Lama is
scheduled to speak about the research at the annual meeting of the
Society for Neuroscience.
<<
Mel Evans/Associated Press
The Dalai Lama has helped researchers study meditation.
But 544 brain researchers have signed a petition urging the society
to cancel the lecture, because, according to the petition, "it will
highlight a subject with largely unsubstantiated claims and compromised
scientific rigor and objectivity."
Defenders of the Dalai Lama's appearance say that the motivation of
many protesters is political, because many are Chinese or of Chinese
descent. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after the Chinese crushed a
Tibetan bid for independence.
But many scientists who signed the petition say they did so because
they believe that the field of neuroscience risks losing credibility if
it ventures too recklessly into spiritual matters.
"As the public face of neuroscience, we have a responsibility to at
least see that research is replicated before it is promoted and
highlighted," said Dr. Nancy Hayes, a neurobiologist at the Robert Wood
Johnson Medical School in New Jersey who objects to the Dalai Lama's
speaking. "If we don't do that, we may as well be the Flat Earth
Society."
In the past decade, scientists and journalists have increasingly
taken interest in meditation and "mindfulness," a related state of
focused inner awareness, topics once left to weekend mystics and
religious retreats. The Dalai Lama has been working with a small number
of researchers to study how the practice of Buddhist contemplation
affects moods and promotes a sense of peace and compassion.
In one widely reported 2003 study, Dr. Richard Davidson of the
University of Wisconsin-Madison led a team of researchers that found
that 25 employees of a biotechnology company showed increased levels of
neural activity in the left anterior temporal region of their brains
after taking a course in meditation. The region is active during
sensations of happiness and positive emotion, the researchers reported.
In a 2004 experiment supported by the Mind and Life Institute, a
nonprofit organization that the Dalai Lama helped establish, and also
involving Dr. Davidson, investigators tracked brain waves in eight
Tibetan monks as they meditated in a state of "unconditional
loving-kindness and compassion."
Using an electronic scanner, the researchers found that the monks
were producing a very strong pattern of gamma waves, a synchronized
oscillation of brain cells that is associated with concentration and
emotional control. A group of 10 college students who were learning to
meditate produced a much weaker gamma signal.
Taken together, the studies suggest that "human qualities like
compassion and altruism may in some sense be regarded as skills which
can be improved through mental training," said Dr. Davidson, who is
director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University
of Wisconsin.
Yet the neuroscientists who have signed the petition say that there
are several problems with this research. First, they say, Dr. Davidson
and some of his colleagues meditate themselves, and they have
collaborated with the Dalai Lama for years. Dr. Davidson said he had
helped persuade the spiritual leader to accept the society's invitation
to speak, and was with him when he received the request.
The critics also point out that there are flaws in the 2004
experiment that the researchers have acknowledged: The monks being
studied were 12 to 45 years older than the students, and age could have
accounted for some of the differences. The students, as beginners, may
have been anxious or simply not skilled enough to find a meditative
state in the time allotted, which would alter their brain wave patterns.
And there was no way to know if the monks were adept at generating high
gamma wave activity before they ever started meditating.
"This paper has not tested the idea whether meditation promotes
compassion or any kind of positive emotion," Dr. Yi Rao, a
neuroscientist at Northwestern University who helped draft the petition
and was one of the sharpest critics, said in an e-mail message.
"Nonetheless, advocates of Buddhism and meditation have confused the
public with the claim that this idea has received scientific proof," Dr.
Rao said. "If one reads the published scientific literature, it is not
difficult to see that this claim is far from being proven. It will not
hurt if the public also realizes that some researchers are declared
believers playing dual roles as advocates and researchers."
In a telephone interview, Dr. Davidson said that the critics'
assertions were overblown, given that the field of study was in its
infancy and the studies so far had been exploratory.
"I wouldn't consider myself a Buddhist or a card-carrying zealot at
all," Dr. Davidson said. "My first commitment is as a scientist to
uncover the truth about all this."
He said it was "ridiculous" to suggest that neuroscientists should
shy away from topics just because they were difficult to study.
Many of his colleagues agree.
"This research is a first pass on a new topic, and you just can't do
perfect science the first time through," said Dr. Robert Wyman, a
neurobiologist at Yale. "You get curious about something and you mess
around. That's what science is in the beginning, you mess around."
Fair enough, say some scientists who have signed the petition, but
neuroscientists must be extra careful with such subjects. The field is
already trying to manage a deeply mystifying presence: the brain, which
in some ways is still as dark as deepest space.
The scientists point out that scans showing areas of the brain that
light up during emotions like jealousy or guilt are fascinating but that
their significance is still unclear. And in their laboratories, some
investigators who plan to attend the neuroscience meetings are trying to
find the neural traces of consciousness itself, a notoriously
disorienting quest that has led more than one enterprising scientist
into a philosophical fog.
"Neuroscience more than other disciplines is the science at the
interface between modern philosophy and science," wrote one
neuroscientist on the petition, Dr. Zvani Rossetti of the University of
Cagliari in Italy. He added, "No opportunity should be given to anybody
to use neuroscience for supporting transcendent views of the world."
One thing certain about the Dalai Lama's scheduled talk is that he
will not lack for an audience. Neuroscientists around the world have
been intensely debating the event, and Dr. Carol Barnes, president of
the neuroscience society, says she will not cancel the talk or change
the schedule.
"The practice of meditation is a human behavior, and the Dalai Lama
is extraordinarily skilled at it and at promoting qualities of peace and
compassion that I thought could bring us together," said Dr. Barnes, a
professor of psychology and neurology at the University of Arizona who
invited the Dalai Lama to speak last February. "That's not the way it's
gone so far."
Source:
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv
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