NEWS &TIPSScientists Bridle at Lecture Plan for Dalai Lama
By
BENEDICT
CAREY
Published: 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.
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.
Forum:
Bioethics
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."
Forum: Bioethics
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."
In NY Times 2005 | ||
