A pious old goat

Mr. Lama gethers wool.

If your wife came home and declared herself the reincarnation of a 15th century king, you would take her to the hospital. When the Dalai Lama say it, people just think he's cute. Tibetan culture is so foreign to Americans that we can't view it critically, and so Mr. Lama usually gets a free pass. He's portrayed as a decent man who wears colorful robes, funny sunglasses and wants everyone to love one another.

There's nothing wrong with that, and if he just stuck to his knitting he'd be above reproach. But lately he's been branching out. In addition to being a spiritual leader, he now wants to be taken seriously in scientific debates as well. Mr. Lama believes that science and Buddhism are not conflicting disciplines, but rather two different methods of investigating the same truth. He wants Buddhists and scientists to work together for the betterment of mankind, and he recently pitched his vision to the annual conference for the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. (with a coincident editorial published in The New York Times.)

This appearance prompted a number of the scientists in attendance to sign a petition protesting his invitation to speak on grounds that his presence would bring neuroscience into disrepute. His defenders countered that most of the protesters were of Chinese origin and thus politically motivated, but the fact is, the protestors were right. Neuroscience has suffered a black eye.

Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system, notably the brain, and conducted properly it is a serious business. But it is rarely conducted properly, and over the last twenty years the field has attracted a number of quacks devoted not to how the brain works but to their own pet theories about how people should think.

Mr. Lama is a religious figure concerned with how people should think, and so naturally he has pet theories of his own. At the neuroscience conference he mentioned a number of the research projects he's involved with, which-surprise, surprise-are all devoted to proving that Buddhist meditation is good for you.

I'm personally conducting a study on why ice cream after dinner makes one so very happy; surely this deserves as much respect as the work of this pious old charlatan, if not more.