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I recently interviewed fellow Neuroethics Blog contributors Dr. Julia Haas and Dr. Gillian Hue about courses they taught during the summer at Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in South India as part of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI). Julia (who is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University) taught philosophy of science at Drepung Loseling Monastery in Karnataka, and Gillian (who is the senior program coordinator for the Emory University Initiative to Maximize Student Development , program associate in the Emory Neuroethics Program , and the Managing Editor for AJOB Neuroscience ) taught neuroscience at the Sera Jey Monastery in Bylakuppe. A neuroscience class at Sera Jey Monastery (Photo credit: Gillian Hue) The ETSI (part of the Emory-Tibet Partnership ) works to introduce science programs into the education of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns. Julia explained that “for the past six years they had a pilot program...

Images courtesy of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at UCLA. Neuroscience is changing the way we view the brain. It is also changing the way we view ourselves. Discoveries announced in journal web pages one day find themselves as fuel for debate on newspaper op-ed pages the next. Some of these discoveries have practical implications and point toward promising new medical therapies. Others suggest new - and often troubling - approaches for dealing with social or legal problems. Many simply shed new light on long-standing questions about human nature. Like it or not, the evidence that supports these discoveries turns out to be quite persuasive. Wearing the mantle of science, decorated with images that hint at the workings of the human mind, it commands a special, and perhaps not entirely deserved, authority. This evidence is also subject to being appropriated for purposes beyond that supported by conclusions of the research which gave rise to it. Consequently, we must be ...