Science and Morality in Tibet: Translating Research Across Cultures

本研究旨在研究西藏拉萨跨文化合作生物医学研究中围绕世俗与宗教真理概念进行谈判和辩论的科学研究过程。虽然实证研究的概念在西藏并不新鲜，但临床科学生物医学研究的基本方法直到最近才在西藏出现先例。特别是，世俗主义者通过实验或对经验世界的思考（可称为“研究”）来获取知识的想法，在那里只有很短的历史。西藏人对医学真理的态度在历史上深植于佛教话语中，在佛教话语中，道德构成了了解经验世界及其运作方式的基础。今天，生物医学研究是在合作研究项目中进行的，对它们的观察表明，科学方法从西方向西藏文化的转移不仅需要在基本研究概念方面进行激烈的谈判和辩论，而且需要在与真理主张和实证结果相关的道德和世俗主义思想方面进行深入的谈判和辩论。这项研究将进一步加深我们对科学如何在不同文化之间传播和转化的认识，特别是在那些仍然以宗教世界观为媒介的经验主义自然方法的文化中。它将增加我们对社会和文化背景在为跨国生物医学科学的“研究”创造共同意义和实践基础方面所发挥的构成作用的一般知识。特别是，它将增加我们对道德可能性在跨越文化边界的科学努力中以各种微妙的方式被赋予、否定和辩论的知识。

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.