Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson

speaking of science and Buddhism:

Drepung [a Tibetan Buddhist monk] said, "The two are now parallel studies. One the one hand, science has specialized, through mathematics and technology, on natural observation, finding out what is, and making new tools. On the other, Buddhism has specialized in human observation, to find out -- how to become. Behave. What to do. How to go ahead forward. Now, I say, they are like the two eyes in the head. Both are necessary to create whole sight. Or rather ... there is an old saying: 'Eyes the see, feet that walk.' We could say that science is the eyes and Buddhism is the feet."

p. 242

This is a great part of the book and the next several posts are from this lecture given by Tibetan Buddhists st the NSF. I was particularly struck by this section because I was reading it a few weeks ago, as the protests over Chinese occupation of Tibet have been going on. It is a shame to see the domination of one system over another, but in the book, the Tibetans are careful to say that it is not a place, but a state of mind. I am not sure that this is really what they believe, biut the characters in the novel are quite well expressed and seem very real.

Of course, that is what a novel is all about. And this is a major turing point in this book for the main character, Frank. The rational man of science, a bit ruthless, and always thing of the evolutionary underpinnings of behaviour is blown away by an old Tibetan monk talking about science and Buddhism. But we need a theory of behaviour, which science cannot provide. We can talk about political science or social science and use observation techniques and rational logic to analyze what we see, but we then need to be able to say "This is what we should do!"

This is a recurring problem in the ISSS organization. There are academics who are looking at how systems work and the best way to create, repair and sustain human systems, but they are often uncomfortable with the idea that it means we should do something. Similarly, in my school, the School of Policy Studies, very smart individuals, who teach how to make good policies often become idiots and make bad policy because they do not want to take their academic expertise and apply it in the real world. I think it is fear - they are afraid that their research is not valid or not really anything. And that is where Buddhism is a very brave thing - the will to do.