New Zealand, which is still moving towards integrating science and woo, has combined them again in a new summer fellowship offered by the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland (below) The supervisors are Professor Cate Macinnis-Ng, an ecologist, and Sarah Rewi, a research fellow.
I’m not sure whether these fellowships are funded by the Kiwi government, though I’m guessing they are because the U of A is a state school. This means that the project below is likely funded by NZ taxpayers. Importantly, it combines science with woo, in the form of Mātauranga Māori (MM), the indigenous “way of knowing” that includes some empirical trial-and-error knowledge, tradition, religion, story-telling, ethics, sociology, and sundry forms of spirituality. Co-supervisor Dr. Rewi has studied how MM “informs” the study of sooty shearwaters and grey-faced petrels. In that study, the contribution of MM apparently included advice from elders on where and when to kill the chicks for food, and, usefully, how to rotate chick harvest among areas. Because MM includes some real empirical knowledge, it’s not all bunk, but there’s no need to meld MM and science when you can simply incorporate the genuine empirical knowledge of MM (which is scant compared to the amount of woo) into science.
See the ad here (scroll down at the link) or click below:
Here’s a description of the position as noted above; bolding is mine:
With interests in mātauranga-based science research on the rise, it is important these forms of research are responsive to Māori community needs. Understanding the impact of land-use, particularly agricultural activity, on groundwater resources is of key concern to Māori. This project will involve field-based work and data analysis researching into spatial patterns of groundwater chemical composition and microbial communities. It will examine how scientific indicators can assist mana whenua in their assessment of the state of the water’s mauri. No specific skills are required but it is recommended that the candidate has an interest in the interface between mātauranga and science. It is a requirement that the student has whakapapa Māori.
Note that no specific skills are required but you have to be willing to meld MM and science (bolding is mine). And you apparently have to be Māori, so in that sense it’s a racially biased ad. As reader Peter said, who found the ad, “Imagine if a student had to prove they had English ancestry to get a grant to study Roman Britain.”
What do the Māori words mean in the ad? Remember, even most Māori don’t speak the language fluently, and many don’t speak it at all, while European descendants of “colonists” have the language forced upon them without translation, probably because of sacralization of all things Māori. At any rate, here are translations:
Mana whenua, as defined in the Māori dictionary, means this:
(noun) territorial rights, power from the land, authority over land or territory, jurisdiction over land or territory – power associated with possession and occupation of tribal land. The tribe’s history and legends are based in the lands they have occupied over generations and the land provides the sustenance for the people and to provide hospitality for guests.
Apparently the ad means that the research is aimed at helping local people lean some stuff about groundwater, like what spirits it embodies. But things really go into the weeds when we look at the definition of mauri:
Mauri (noun) life principle, life force, vital essence, special nature, a material symbol of a life principle, source of emotions – the essential quality and vitality of a being or entity. Also used for a physical object, individual, ecosystem or social group in which this essence is located.
As Nick Matzke, an American scientist working in New Zealand, noted here, here and here, mauri is simple vitalism, the view that all objects are imbued with some undefined “life force”. In a letter to the New Zealand Herald, Nick correctly noted that mauri, which is worming itself into the NZ science curriculum, is simple pseudoscience:
Unfortunately, the concept of ‘life force’ is a well-known pseudoscience, known as vitalism. Vitalism was experimentally debunked by chemists in the 1800s. Having a government agency force it back into the chemistry curriculum by political fiat — while steamrolling the vehement and informed objections of science teachers — is a huge problem. Vitalism is a pseudoscientific error on the same level as asserting that the Earth is flat, or that the world is only 6,000 years old. If vitalism is right, then all of chemistry and biochemistry is wrong.
And so is biology! (See my post on the incursion of mauri into chemistry and electrical engineering.)
To say that the funding will help the locals assess “the state of the water’s mauri“, then, is to say nothing; it’s like saying the project will help assess the state of the water’s Christianity. There is no mauri that we know of, so this is a funded search for nothing.
Finally, what is the single qualification to get the money and do this “science”? The student must have “whakapapa Māori”, which apparently means Māori ancestry. Here’s the definition of the first word (Māori, of course, are the indigenous people, descended from voyaging Polynesians):
Whakapapa. (noun) genealogy, genealogical table, lineage, descent – reciting whakapapa was, and is, an important skill and reflected the importance of genealogies in Māori society in terms of leadership, land and fishing rights, kinship and status. It is central to all Māori institutions. There are different terms for the types of whakapapa and the different ways of reciting them including: tāhū (recite a direct line of ancestry through only the senior line); whakamoe (recite a genealogy including males and their spouses); taotahi (recite genealogy in a single line of descent); hikohiko (recite genealogy in a selective way by not following a single line of descent); ure tārewa (male line of descent through the first-born male in each generation).
In other words, unless I’m mistaken, the only requirement for this fellowship is that the student has Māori ancestry. This, of course, is ethnicity-based hiring, eliminating all requirements for the position save one’s ancestry, which must be indigenous. This would be illegal in America, but it’s both legal and encouraged in New Zealand.
I’ve given up hope for the future of science in New Zealand, a country with a proud scientific past. In a misguided effort to incorporate indigenous “ways of knowing” into science, of which this ad is one example, the NZ government is busy ruining science education in the country. I had hoped that the newish Luxon government would do better then the damaged wrought by the Ardern administration, but the opprobrium towards criticizing anything indigenous seems permanently engrained.
More or less the goal of Theosophy – unifying spirituality and science to control the evolution of humans, Earth, and ultimately the cosmos through a religion of Inclusion and Sustainability (the seventeen SDGs are its sacred objects).
See
New Genesis – Shaping a Global Spirituality
former UN Assistant Secretary General Robert Muller
Doubleday & Co., Inc.
1982
It is a dialectical synthesis of thought.
“And so the dialectic continues.”
-Delgado and Stefancic
Critical Race Theory – An Introduction, p.66, 3rd Ed.
2017
(Only to show dialectical thought generally – not necessarily race dialectics).
I wonder if things like this aren’t just schemes for wealth-transference to favored groups.
Could be, but one can easily see how this would ruin science and science education.
Oh, absolutely. Two birds with one stone.
Environmental Social and Governance – ESG – is an incentive scheme in coordination with the United Nations.
I do not know if academic institutions report, use, or benefit from ESG metrics – they might only be for investing.
Ah, so mauri is the “low cunning” of Samuel Butler’s potato.
This kind of race-based hiring is entirely acceptable, legal, and appears to be encouraged in Canada. White folks, especially white men, need not apply. The rest of the indigenous woo is also pervasive up here. And its allies are a vociferous zealous lot.
Absolutely correct. The government is encouraging it big time.
you betcha. The Kamloops hoax (yes, that brands me as a “denialist” but I don’t care), enabled the BC government to slip UNDRIP into legislation almost without public notice and absolutely without public consultation (us “settlers” don’t deserve anything approaching consultation apparently), and now they’re going at “reconciliation” whole hog, at the expense of BC taxpayers and at the expense of the ethos of that it means to be Canadian. If the NDP are reelected in the fall there will be bad juju happening in BC.
It’s scandalous. It is a hoax, they have not found any human remains in Kamloops.
Trudeau’s behaviour has been appalling.
Trudeau is the worst offender to be sure. Mr “post-national Canada” has completely fucked this country up. The Kamloops hoax has proven incredibly divisory. Not only have there been no remains found in Kamloops, there has been NO investigation (in spite of the band getting 30 or so million taxpayer bucks to conduct any investigation), they handed the chief the Order of BC for “reconciliation” (WTF), there is extensive and unimpeachable records that show that no children are or have ever been missing and buried by their schoolmates in the middle of the night; and now the feds are mulling over a motion that would make it illegal for me to be saying what I’m saying right now. This country has gone tits up.
“Mauri” doesn’t just involve vitalism. The intuitive folk belief in a life essence is the foundation for supernaturalism, spirituality, and religion. We human beings are natural-born dualists, dividing the world of our experience into concrete things we can see and touch and mental, living, and/or abstract things which don’t seem to follow the same rules so must be a different substance.
This is religion, not science. It’s no different than teaching that God exists because He is the essential quality and vitality of all Being, the Source of life and emotions. The fact that it makes some people feel significant is beside the point.
And, yet, “science” is advocating its own version,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism#Emergentism
As I have tried to point out before, and former amplitudologist Matt von Hippel points out in his blog,
https://4gravitons.com/2024/05/31/does-science-require-publication/
demarcation of what science may be is a philosophical problem. Claiming otherwise is a dogma.
The mathematician Grothendieck wrote about the dogmatism within the science community at the time when environmentalists had first started to oppose unquestioned, feel-good science,
https://publish.uwo.ca/~jbell/univ.pdf
The people who currently advocate for emegentism wear the shroud of “science.” Will anyone challenge their expertise as scientists?
lol
Sorry, but you’re trying to put modern science on the same level as Matauranga Maori. That won’t wash. I don’t know about emergentism, but some people also advocate for panpsychism, which I consider ludicrous and without evidence (in fact, untestable). So just because there are some wonky scientific theories doesn’t mean that “science” (which I take to mean “all science”) is advocating another wonky theory.
What is the “LOL” for?
Maybe the lol doesn’t mean laughing out loud. Maybe it means he’s drowning and is waving his arms in hopes of catching a lifeline. (I admit I stole this whimsical interpretation of the lol thing but it seems a propos here.)
If “science is just another pagan faith,” what does it matter if it’s joined by maori? Where do these people come from?
LOL I heard that too – “pagan faith” – I have to admit, it was a good try!
I don’t get it. Paganism (immediately-pre-Christian religion) is chock full of gods and nature spirits. How does that in any way relate to science? I’ve known a few neo-pagans (e.g. Wiccans) and they were definitely religious and definitely not scientific.
I know – I think Candace Owens was banking on how Newton was into alchemy, maybe if we say pagan, it’ll get some uptake…?
Silliness! Still, an intriguing word to pick. Pagan! So funny.
An interesting historical pagan was Julian the Apostate, the last non-xian Roman emperor. He died battling the Persians; otherwise he might have succeeded in purging xianity from the empire, in which case history would have been a whole lot different….
Oh dear. I have literally just come back from a lunchtime pub meet up with a friend, whose son is a teacher of Biology, in BC, Canada.
My friend seemed quite pleased to tell me that his son is now obliged (and accepting) to integrate ‘indigenous ways of knowing’ (Canadian ‘1st. Nations’) into the School Biology curriculum.
Thankfully, having had a couple of pints of beer, I couldn’t face even trying to gather my thoughts for a rational discussion about this utter baloney!
Yep it’s bad here in Canada.
I’m glad I’m retired and won’t to face anything like that—except in my taxes of course.
As I read your posts regarding the assault(s) on science, I recall that before I retired from the NIH, during the Trump admin, we were constantly warned to not criticize Trump in emails, and even while at work. Lately I’m in a full panic because during a second Trump term, science in the U.S. may be required, even relegated, to do research and present data to support “the fact” that Trump is the best leader ever. And, it seems much of the media are on board… sheesh, the NYT says that for the good of the country, Biden should step aside, while not saying anything about Trump.
The NYT is asking Biden to step down precisely to avoid a Trump presidency, so in effect it is a criticism of Trump. It would be pointless to ask Trump to step down.
See below. No paper hates Trump, or criticizes him, more than the NYT–except perhaps for the Guardian!
whakapapa = whack a mole ?
Sounds almost patricidal. If you had fakamama, too, it would get you sent to bench for Group W.
Maori “whakamā” (‘wh’ pronounced ‘f’) means shame, which I expect most father-rapers do not feel.
It appears to be an inherent weakness of the Homo genus to crave some kind of ideology with which to disguise the harshness of reality.
Some crave ideology. Many harbor a misguided notion of kindness. Most fear social pressure and easily conform to whatever ideology and “kindness” demand. Ways of knowing, race and gender issues, uncontrolled immigration, hate speech laws. We could go on. When our educated and upper classes are awash in this cycle, when preference falsification runs rampant among them, then none of us should be surprised when those less captured fall into their own political cults hoping to find someone to stop the madness.
I didn’t mean to imply that the disguise works. Delusions usually don’t.
The whole M.M. project is trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole.
It is a “reach” on every level.
As is the Maori language push/project. People overestimate – and the Maori industry there promote lies – how little of the language is in daily use.
It isn’t like French in Canada or something…
Until lately it was almost dead. As a kid there we pretty much never heard it beyond a few food and (many) place names.
Now this artificial resurrection serves nobody other than activists.
Particular activist schools force it on children. In an international world can’t they learn Japanese, say (like I did- and enriched my life) or Chinese or a useful, alive language?
Languages should be about bridging humans together not building identity walls between them.
D.A.
NYC
If there really was a benevolent god who created our species and wanted order, the creator would have allowed only one language- Babel is bad! But linguistic-singularity is not reality and never will be, until the talkers are dead. Pro-atheist fact: the fact of multi-lingual earth = proof for no-god.
I don’t see that as evidence against the existence of God, unless you are being tongue-in-cheek, (as I am going to be henceforth.) You can’t just arbitrarily posit some state of nature that “should” exist if God did, and then cite its non-existence as evidence that He doesn’t either. If God had seen fit that pigs should fly, He would have given them wings.
Besides, the Scriptures anticipate your objection. According to the Sunday School version, God did endow us all with a common language. It was only after we started building a tower (later called Babel) to reach Heaven or perhaps less ambitiously to frustrate a second Flood that God, offended by our presumption, condemned us all to speak different languages to preclude future collaborative efforts at prideful blasphemy.
/tongue-in-cheek
You need to go on more podcasts there PCC(E).
Your last one during covid about this was excellent.
Your accent and science chops/fancy uni and publications give you outsized authority in places like NZ and Australia.
Small countries put a LOT of stock in what the perceived Bigs in the metropole are saying about them.
D.A.
NYC
Summer scholarships in NZ are usually funded by the Faculty or the university centrally.
Yes, I second that. The new government is certainly not pushing this stuff. This comes from the University of Auckland, internally.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing is pretty pervasive here, and this example is far from the worst. Plenty more here:
https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/we_cant_afford_cancer_drugs
https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/more_research_grants
I think my favourite is $400,000 for “Guided by Hine te Iwaiwa: Exploring Maramataka [traditional Māori lunar calendar] influence on pregnancy Outcomes”
A few people here try to raise concerns about this sort of rubbish – Nick Matzke obviously, and the people here: http://openinquiry.nz but hardly anyone seems to care about the debasement of science. The recent holiday for Matariki in particular has been accompanied by an outpouring of credulous garbage on the maramataka and the influence of the stars on life on earth:
https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/matariki-maori-new-year/what-and-who-matariki/stars-matariki
I despair
Again, I would be very interested to know if ESG incentives are operating and how. I have not looked into it having just thought of it.
You can see the same thing in Australia with ‘Noongar’ (aka Blak) phrases appearing everywhere and of course you have to trust the people posting them that the translations are accurate…
Most of those who make a big deal of their Whakapapa are a public and not a personal level are those with royal or aristocratic blood. The nobility over the serfs.
As for the hunting thing, yeah, give a group a century and they usually develop a VERY reliable hunting system!
Although to claim whakapapa these days a single Maori ancestor, however remotely descended you are from them, will suffice. The recent claims that the Maori population has grown to nearly a million should be viewed in the light of this, as well as the exciting new Stats NZ policy of imputing descent where data does not exist in the most recent census.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/methods/data-sources-and-imputation-for-maori-descent-in-the-2023-census/
200 years of sex would do that.
🙂
We’re all animals.
I’ve just seen a media post that the Museum of NZ and Khan Academy have created free short online courses about New Zealand’s natural history. I thought that was a great idea and planned to send it to a friend overseas. But I changed my mind once I had a look at it. Under “Natural history and biodiversity”, there is a subsection “Geology and deep history”. And among the units on Geology and Physical Geography, they inserted “The God of Volcanoes”. I reproduce below what it says, while shaking my head in agreement with Jerry that there is no hope for the future of NZ Science…
“The God of Volcanoes
Rūaumoko is the God of Earthquakes and Volcanoes (as well as of seasons) in pūrākau (Māori mythology).
The restless unborn child of Papatūānuku, Earth Mother, and Ranginui, Sky Father, Ruāumoko is said to make the Earth shake and roll in his stirrings within Papatūānuku’s womb. Other versions say he is an infant at his mother’s breast, and his volcanic stirrings come from the fire gifted to him by Tama-kaka, to keep them both warm. Still others say that he is wedded to Hine-nui-te-po, goddess of death and night.
In this video from Dr Huirangi Waikerepuru, you will hear how the legend of Rūaumoko and other Māori creation stories connect the mighty geothermal and tectonic forces at work in Aotearoa to te ao Māori (the Māori worldview), and connect its people to this whenua (land) in a spiritual way.”
https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/museum-of-new-zealand-te-papa-tongarewa/x97ff253fed28b43c:biodiversity-guardianship-and-the-natural-history-of-new-zealand
But of course mauri exists! Sigourney Weaver found it on Pandora, the Gelflings had it in The Dark Crystal, and Yoda had plenty to spare in The Empire Strikes Back.