Scholarship and Buddhism

What role if any does academic scholarship play in Buddhism? Should Buddhists be concerned with what scholars say, or can we safely ignore them? How should we resolve conflicts between tradition and academia? For specific conflicts I can cite some of my own work. See for example my discovery that karma and dependent arising are mutual contradictory: See Does Karma Break the Rules? and Sarvāstivāda Approach to the Problem of Action at a Temporal Distance . I have subsequently discovered that Nāgārjuna also thought so (MMK 17.1-6). Or my discover that all theories of karma are internally inconsistent : ; or the conflict between metaphysics and morality ; or the assertion made by Sean Carroll that no afterlife of any kind is possible (including rebirth).