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Disinformation Campaign Against Dalai Lama Speaking at Neurscience Conference

by repost
The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since he fled Chinese troops in
Tibet in 1959. Over the past decade he has increasingly encouraged
researchers, sometimes at gatherings at his home, to study whether Tibetan
Buddhist meditation can reshape the brain and increase mental well-being.
Many of the scientists who initiated the protest are of Chinese origin.
But they insist that their concerns are purely scientific. Yi Rao a
neuroscientist at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, helped to
draft the petition, which says that the science of meditation is "a
subject with hyperbolic claims, limited research and compromised
scientific rigour".
Disinformation Campaign Against Dalai Lama Speaking at Neurscience Conference

I got the below unsolicited email to sign a petition against allowing the Dalai Lama to speak at the Society for Neuroscience conference this year (I've attended in previous years). The Dalai Lama's work that neuroscientists are interested in is based in the potential neurological and physiological changes that come about from meditation. The smear campaign being waged (primiarly by Chinese researchers and probably pro-war people) is painting it as a 'religious' event, essentially, and the petition organizers are using disinformation against researchers working with him.

There was also an article in Nature on this issue which I'll include at the bottom.

Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 13:43:04 -0400
From: Concerned Neuroscientists <Neuroscientists [at] ufl.edu>
To:
Subject: Dalai Lama's Lecture at the SfN2005 Annual Meeting

Dear Colleague,

While fully supporting the initiative to promote interaction between
neuroscientists and the public, we are very concerned that the SfN has invited a
prominent religious leader, the Dalai Lama, to lecture on "Neuroscience &
Meditation", a topic with unsubstantiated scientific claims. It is worth noting
that Dalai Lama's legitimacy relies on reincarnation, a religious doctrine
against the very foundation of modern neuroscience. We invite you to visit our
petition site where we outline compelling reasons to dispute SfN's decision. If
you share the same concerns with us, you can sign the letter at
http://www.petitiononline.com/sfn2005/petition.html

Thank you in advance for your support!

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?sfn2005

(Please feel free to forward this petition to your colleagues, trainees
and reseach staff)


http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050725/full/436452b.html

Nature
25 July 2005

Neuroscientists see red over Dalai Lama
David Cyranoski

Critics of meditation 'pseudoscience' say conference talk should be cancelled.


Some say meditation focuses the mind - but others say the research behind
such claims is limited. A growing number of neuroscientists are calling
for the cancellation of a special lecture to be given by the Dalai Lama in
November.

The Buddhist leader is due to speak at the annual meeting of the Society
for Neuroscience (SfN) in Washington DC, but a petition against the talk
has already gathered some 50 signatures.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since he fled Chinese troops in
Tibet in 1959. Over the past decade he has increasingly encouraged
researchers, sometimes at gatherings at his home, to study whether Tibetan
Buddhist meditation can reshape the brain and increase mental well-being.

It was during one of these meetings that he was asked by a member of the
society's executive committee, to give an inaugural lecture on 'the study
of empathy and compassion, and how meditation affects brain activity'.

Some of the critics believe that the Dalai Lama's lecture should be ruled
out because of his status as a political and religious figure. "One of the
reasons for inviting him is that he has views on controlling negative
emotions, which is a legitimate area for neuroscience research in the
future," says Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute for
Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But "the SfN
needs to distance itself as much as it can from the Dalai Lama and his
beliefs", adds Desimone, who opposes the lecture but has not yet signed
the petition.

Many of the scientists who initiated the protest are of Chinese origin.
But they insist that their concerns are purely scientific. Yi Rao a
neuroscientist at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, helped to
draft the petition, which says that the science of meditation is "a
subject with hyperbolic claims, limited research and compromised
scientific rigour".

The letter singles out one of the key publications in the analysis of
meditation, in which Richard Davidson, a psychologist at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison, and his colleagues claim that neural networks are
better coordinated in people who are practised in meditation.

Rao says that the study is flawed, especially in terms of the controls it
used, because it compared practising monks in their thirties and forties
with much younger university students. "Davidson is a respectable
scientist," he says, "but he has put his respectability on the line with this."

Davidson defends his work as the first step in a new field. "Meditation
research is in its infancy," he says. He helped to arrange the Dalai
Lama's talk at the SfN meeting, to be held on 12-16 November. He says that
criticism of the lecture on scientific grounds is misplaced, because the
Dalai Lama is not claiming to be a scientist. "He merely wants to increase
scientific attention on the topics that he thinks are important for human
welfare," Davidson says.

The lecture is the first in a new series organized by the SfN, billed as
"dialogues between neuroscience and society". The controversy has ensured
that dialogue is already off to a rocky start.

The SfN's president, Carol Barnes, says that she is trying to find a
resolution to the protest that will not involve cancelling the lecture.
But one of the petition's organizers, Jianguo Gu of the University of
Florida, says that he and several other scientists will cancel their
lectures if the Dalai Lama's talk goes ahead.
by repost
264. Twinkie B. Militant
Adjunct Assistant Cheap Labor
University of Florida

Tibet has been a part of China for CENTURIES -- we did not INVADE TIBET, we reintroduced it to our IMPERIALIST HAN EUGENICS project.


244. Stuart E. Dryer
Professor and Chair
University of Houston

Once one religious leader is invited to speak at SfN the floodgates are opened for others and I cannot see how one might formulate rational criteria about who to exclude and who to include. At what point does it stop? This is completely inappropriate especially in light of the current political climate and its potential to adversely affect our field. I admire the Dalai Lama at many levels but this invitation exhibits very poor judgement.


242. Sean Maw
Dr.
University of Caglary

I do NOT support this petition. The Dalai Lama has been working with neuroscientists on neuroscience, and he has a strong interest in the area. The experience of religion is a thought process and therefore falls within the relevance of neuroscience. He brings forward a very interesting, if not controversial, topic. But it is relevant, and he has enough relevance to neuroscience to warrant the talk. Most who oppose it are either politically motivated (Chinese) or seem to very narrow minded. What WILL make SFN look foolish, is opposition to his talk.


219. Fidel Santamaria
Postdoc
Duke University, USA

SFN would be getting in dangerous watters. If we invite one Religous leader then we would be pressed to invite others that we might not like as much, like creationists and other non-scientific approaches to science.
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?sfn2005&151
by Socialist
The Dalai Lama is a CIA agent and of course, religion is superstition. The Dalai Lama is as much a con artist and parasite as any other religious figure. Tibet is certainly part of China. What the current capitalist government of China is doing anywhere in China is not good but the fact remains that supporting this viciously anti-labor, anti-women, anti-gay, pro Iraq war CIA agent, the Dalai Lama is despicable. A good reference is the book, The Making of Modern Tibet by A. Tom Grunfeld (1996, ME Sharpe, Inc., NY).The horrifying serfdom promoted by feudal Tibet from which the Dalai Lama benefited and which he supports is what he wants restored.
by reader
A lot of people who are outside of the Bay Area are likely to be homophobic so I don't exclude anyone on that basis. What evidence is there for him being CIA? Why would the CIA be promoting peace and meditation? I can understand as far as him being an asset to disrupt China, but so were a lot of others in Tibet with genuine interest in their own movement, not the CIA, even though they were benefiting the US - they committed suicide once they knew their cause was lost, not because they were all CIA assets.

Does Tibet/ DL support war in Iraq? WHat evidence is there for that?
by not sure
Not sure about the Dalai Lama, but his oldest brother Norbu taught Tibetan at Indiana Univesity to aid CIA operations in China.

"In 1956, the CIA secretly met with Norbu and several other exiled Tibetans and agreed to train half a dozen Tibetans in guerrilla warfare but the program went nowhere, and, in the mid-1960s, Norbu, his wife, and three sons arrived and quickly became part of Bloomington."
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/aug/25us2.htm

for more info on his move to Indiana see:
http://www.wolverton-mountain.com/interviews/people/norbu.htm

What the Dalai Lama says is one thing but his political role these days seems a bit vague. He talks about peace just as does the Pope and other religious leaders but despite having to say he disagreed iwth the Iraq war (since it was a war) its hard to really know what his real views are.
by wheen
This is funny. I'm reading "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" by Francis Wheen and this fits right in. Pseudo-science masquerading as science, and the scientists who facilitate it...
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