Science and Morality in Tibet: Translating Research Across Cultures

本研究旨在探讨西藏拉萨跨文化生物医学合作研究中世俗与宗教真理观之间的谈判和辩论过程。虽然经验研究的概念对西藏来说并不新鲜，但临床科学生物医学研究的基本方法直到最近才在该地区有先例。特别是，世俗主义者通过实验或对经验世界的沉思来获得知识的想法，可以被称为“研究”，在那里只有很短的历史。西藏人对待医学真理的方法在历史上植根于佛教的话语中，其中道德构成了了解经验世界及其运作方式的基础。 今天，生物医学研究正在合作研究项目中进行，对它们的观察表明，从西方到西藏文化的科学方法论的转移不仅需要在基本研究概念方面进行深入的谈判和辩论，而且特别是在道德和世俗主义的思想中，与真理主张和经验结果有关。这项研究将进一步加深我们对科学如何跨文化传播和翻译的认识，特别是在那些对自然的经验方法仍然由宗教世界观介导的文化中。它将增加我们对社会和文化背景在创造共同意义和实践基础方面所发挥的构成性作用的一般知识，以便在跨国形式的生物医学科学中进行“研究”。特别是，它将增加我们对道德可能性的微妙方式的知识，这些可能性在科学努力中和通过科学努力跨越文化边界时以各种方式被启用，否认和辩论。

This research proposes to study processes of scientific research as they are negotiated and debated in and around secular versus religious conceptions of truth in cross-cultural collaborative biomedical studies in Lhasa, Tibet. Although the concept of empirical study is not new to Tibet, the basic methods of clinical scientific biomedical research had no precedent in this locale until recently. In particular, the idea of secularist approaches to knowledge by way of experimentation or contemplation of the empirical world in what can be labeled "research" has only a very short history there. Tibetan approaches to medical truth were historically embedded in Buddhist discourse, in which morality constituted a foundation for knowing both the empirical world and how it worked. Today, biomedical research is being undertaken in collaborative research programs, and observation of them suggests that the transfer of scientific methodology from Western to Tibetan culture requires intensive negotiation and debate not only in terms of basic research concepts but specifically in and around ideas of morality and secularism in relation to truth claims and empirical results. This research will further our knowledge of how science travels and translates across cultures, particularly cultures in which empirical approaches to nature are still mediated by religious worldviews. It will add to our general knowledge of the constitutive role played by social and cultural contexts in creating shared meaning and practical bases for doing "research" in transnational forms of biomedical science. In particular, it will add to our knowledge of the subtle ways in which moral possibilities are variously enabled, denied and debated in and through scientific endeavors as they cross cultural borders.