Letters to the Editor
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Science versus the Believer
In the first article, B. Allan Wallace failed the litmus of basic science by demanding the scientific establishment prove a negative without presenting evidence for his own hypothesis. He has apparently decided to backpedal from his earlier assertions that the scientific establishment (whom he now accuses of a strawman ideology called "physicalism") must prove that consciousness isn't caused by non-physical means. He's retreated to safer waters, saying only that every subjective conscious experience hasn't yet been correlated to a particular brain state and we should therefore be open-minded about looking for answers outside the brain. This is equivalent to claiming we should look for the cause of global warming outside the solar system merely because every temperature spike hasn't yet been attributed to a terrestrial activity. I'm afraid this is still spurious reasoning; the burden of proof lies with Mr. Wallace to present evidence for his hypothesis. Once again it would seem the Buddhist has a lot to learn from the scientific method.