Dr. David DeSteno

And from those, we've found wonderful chemotherapy drugs, drugs that reduce pain, etc.

And we wouldn't have done that if we didn't

let go of our arrogance that some of this traditional wisdom might not be valid.

And so what I argue for is a terrible word, but instead of bioprospecting, I call it religio-prospecting, right?

We should go back to these traditions, find these practices, do exactly what you're saying, study them in terms of the scientific method, which I fully support and believe in as a scientist, and see what they do.

And we're finding they can do a lot.

Okay, let me give you two examples.

And I'll start with one that actually really started me.

down this road.

I had a student named Paul Condon, who's now a professor in Oregon, and he was very interested in meditation.

And even if you read the New York Times or the Atlantic, it'll tell you, oh, meditation will lower your blood pressure.

It'll increase your standardized test scores.

It'll increase your executive control.

Does all those things, and that's great.

But if you talk to the monks, they'll say that's not why it was created, right?

It's probably apocryphal, but the saying goes that the Buddha said, I teach one thing and one thing only, which is the end of suffering.

And meditation was a tool that the Buddha believed would help people do this.

And so when we looked around, I'm a social psychologist, so I study behavior.

There was no evidence of this.

And so we decided we're going to put this to the test.