Monastic Science

Amy Yee reports for today's New York Times that Tibetan monks and nuns in Dharamsala, India, are getting an intensive education in science. Yee writes, "they learned about Galileo’s law of accelerated motion, chromosomes, neurons and the Big Bang, among other far-ranging topics."

The monks and nuns were engaged in "a four-week crash course in physics, biology, neuroscience and math and logic taught by teachers from Emory University in Atlanta." Although the students were accustomed to spending many hours every day studying Buddhism and philosophy, most had never been exposed to science before, and some barely knew basic mathematics.

There are plans to incorporate a regular science curriculum into Tibetan monasteries and convents in India. Emery professors have created a science textbook in Tibetan and English. At a recent science fair, "monks gave presentations on sound waves, the origins of the universe and how the brain works."