Neuroscientists protest lecture
By Aaron Nathans
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher is defending a speaking invitation extended to the Dalai Lama to a convention of neuroscientists.
The exiled leader of Tibet is scheduled to speak at the annual convention of the Society of Neuroscience next month in Washington. But according to a New York Times article, 544 researchers have signed a petition, encouraging the group to cancel the lecture because “it will highlight a subject with largely unsubstantiated claims and compromised scientific rigor and objectivity.”
The subject in question is meditation and mindfulness. The Dalai Lama has been working with researchers such as UW-Madison’s Richard Davidson to probe why meditation results in health benefits.
“The Dalai Lama is not coming as a scientist to this meeting. He’s coming as a public figure, a public intelluctual. He’ll be focusing more on the importance of certain positive human qualities such as compassion, altruism, affection and happiness,” Davidson said in an interview on Friday. Davidson and the Dalai Lama are friends and allies in the meditation movement. “There’s no requirement our scientific rigor be abandoned in doing scientific research on these qualities.”
Many of the researchers who signed the petition are Chinese or of Chinese descent; the Chinese government put down Tibet’s independence efforts about 50 years ago.
Davidson said that despite the protest, the Dalai Lama’s speech is expected to continue as scheduled.
E-mail: anathans@madison.com
