Do scientific findings have relevance in Buddhism?

[Feynman]

@laurence

You need to be more specific, are you saying you are capable of showing many Buddhist’s how their ‘expressed beliefs about climate change or the environment are based on ignorance or misunderstanding’? If you are implying as much, you seem to be reluctant to set the record straight?

A response to the second question - or rather the question that is implied by what I read to be a statement followed by a question mark.

I have attempted to set the record straight in the past. Which is why I now ask much more basic questions. Especially so in a forum focusing on early Buddhist texts (EBTs).

For instance,

• does it makes sense to speak of Right View on climate change?

Of course the context of Right View as presented in the EBTs is arguably much different than a so-called right view on climate change. But how about right speech?

• In the context of the EBT’s is right speech limited to only some subjects or a general ethical principle that covers more or all speech? I assumed the latter interpretation but I observe few signs from other Buddhists are keen to apply that precept to their own speech regarding climate change.

  • So I ask myself if the difference is one of interpretation of the precept or perhaps it’s due to the wide spread gap between espoused belief and beliefs-in-action explained here .

• Or again, can the precept of Right Effort (samyag-vyāyāma ) be extended to include a effort to enact the kind of scientific integrity described by Richard Feynman..

  • Or does this precept rightly only apply to the traditional concerns of practice?
  • And if the scope of right effort is limited does it make sense to extend it’s scope when we consider secular issues that are of practical or material concern in this lifetime?