Sir

I was appalled to learn, through your News story “Neuroscientists see red over Dalai Lama” (Nature 436, 452; 2005), of a petition by a group of neuroscientists to cancel a lecture by the Dalai Lama scheduled for the November meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

What are the motives behind this petition? If the research itself is controversial, then the controversies should be aired at this meeting. The Dalai Lama is fully capable of scientific discussion, as reported in an earlier News Feature “Buddhism on the brain” (Nature 432, 670; 2005 ). Asked what would happen if neuroscience came up with information that directly contradicted Buddhist philosophy, the Dalai Lama is quoted as answering: “Then we would have to change the philosophy to match the science”. What is the harm in listening to a man, religious figure or not, who is so open-minded?

Robert Desimone's statement that the Society for Neuroscience should “distance itself as much as it can from the Dalai Lama and his beliefs” is also unjustifiable. In the past year, the Dalai Lama has spoken in favour of scientific truth-seeking, human rights, species conservation and peace. If these are things that we, as scientists, need to distance ourselves from, then perhaps we deserve the damaging stereotypes we are given in the popular media.