Short answers, pulled from the story.
Buddhist representatives appeared on a global stage for the first time in 1893 at the Parliament of World's Religions in Chicago. Figures like Anagarika Dharmapala and Shaku Sōen presented Buddhism as a rational philosophy rather than superstition during this event.
Dignāga and Dharmakīrti established that there were only two valid instruments of knowledge: perception and inference. These thinkers generally rejected scripture as a primary source for discovering truth and held that one should rely on reason to decide issues.
Eighty-one percent of Buddhists accepted evolution as the best explanation for human origins according to the 2009 Pew Research Center survey. This acceptance exists alongside distinct views where Buddhism places consciousness at the center of all life production while biology focuses on genetic mutation and natural selection.
Physicists David Bohm, Anton Zeilinger, Erwin Schrödinger, Carlo Rovelli, Vlatko Vedral, and Trịnh Xuân Thuận have drawn parallels between quantum mechanics and the doctrine of emptiness. They suggest that properties arise from relations between phenomena rather than autonomous essences in alignment with Buddhist philosophy.
James H. Austin published Zen and the Brain in 1998 becoming one of the first Westerners to study the neurology of meditation. By 2015 there were 674 such studies reported widely in popular press regarding long-term transformations in cognitive function among meditators.