Skip this if you don’t care about science education in New Zealand, but plenty of scientists there are worried about it. And it’s a harbinger of what may happen to science education in the U.S. as science courses add requirements to teach indigenous “ways of knowing” and the curriculum itself pushes out traditional material to make way for content that aligns with ideological and political objectives.
Each faculty at the University of Auckland, for instance, has to have one of these mandatory courses tailored to ideological ends. The one below, for instance, is being created on a trial basis as a requirement for all science majors. I believe I’ve discussed it before, so click on the headline below to see what’s on tap in science education.
Here is the course overview and the course goals (“learning outcomes”):
Course overview:
Contemporary science is deeply entwined with place, knowledge systems and ethics. This course examines these concepts through the lens of sustainability to demonstrate how they shape research agendas, methodologies, and applications of contemporary science. To address the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability, science must recognise and navigate the complexities of these interrelated concepts.
Explore the role of place-based knowledge, the importance of embracing diverse knowledge systems for science and the ethical responsibilities inherent in contemporary science in Aotearoa New Zealand. This interdisciplinary course will challenge you to think critically, fostering an awareness of the intricate relationships between science and its broader context, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi.Learning outcomes:
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
-
- Demonstrate how place, and an understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, are significant to your field of study
- Critically and constructively engage with knowledge systems, practices and positionality
- Employ a reciprocal, values-based approach to collaborating
- Communicate ideas clearly, effectively and respectfully
- Reflexively engage with the question of ethics in academic practice
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of sustainability
Note the worshipful discussion of “Te Tiriti o Waitangi”, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi that is nearly sacred and almost serves as a constitution for New Zealand, though some of its interpretations are questionable and it was not signed by many Māori leaders on the South Island. It’s not even a document with hard legal status.
The Treaty did assure the Māori that they’d have the same rights as British citizens and would keep control of their lands and properties, and was written to bring New Zealand into being as a British colony. That means that today Europeans are seen as oppressive “colonizers”. The treaty is now used as a rationale to ensure that Māori or those of Māori ancestry are given equity (not just equal opportunity) in admissions, grants, and so on. The Treaty is also the rationale for the current change in curricula, meant to effect “decolonization,” which in my view means changing modern education to one infused with traditional Māori “ways of knowing.”
The course outline and objectives above are ideological in this way, involving not science per se but a postmodern philosophy of science in which reality is shaped by the scientist and the place where he/she came from.
The emphasis on “ethics” doesn’t belong in a mandatory science course, and I think will serve only to confuse students.
Finally there’s this:
“the importance of embracing diverse knowledge systems for science and the ethical responsibilities inherent in contemporary science in Aotearoa New Zealand”
and this:
“This interdisciplinary course will challenge you to think critically, fostering an awareness of the intricate relationships between science and its broader context, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”
I’d be delighted if someone would explain to me why the Treaty of Waitangi should be explicitly discussed in a required science course. Note the emphasis on “diverse knowledge systems”. I can only guess what that means, but it’s pretty clear.
Now here’s a new course that isn’t required for science majors, but still counts as a science course. Click on the headline below for the course description, even more risible than the one above,
Here is the course prescription, the course overview, and the learning outcomes. Remember, this is a course for which students get science credit:
Course Prescription
Mātauranga is central to the future practice of science in Aotearoa New Zealand. Explores foundational understandings of mātauranga Māori and Kaupapa Māori for scientists. Students will meaningfully and respectfully engage with te ao Māori through place-based relational learning and case studies grounded in whanaungatanga. Students will experience Māori ways of being, knowing, and doing.
Course Overview
This course welcomes all students who wish to engage with mātauranga in relation to scientific place-based knowledge. Engagement with Indigenous knowledge, including mātauranga, is increasingly important to the practice of science in Aotearoa [New Zealand] and beyond. Pūtaiao, meaning science curriculum that includes mātauranga, is well established in primary and secondary education. This course will further develop the learning of pūtaiao [pūtaiao] into tertiary science education and scientific research. Enhancing understandings of mātauranga and Kaupapa Māori [Māori practice] for scientists will develop skills in critical thinking, reflective and relational practice, and the application of Kaupapa Māori in science.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
-
- Compare articulations of Kaupapa Māori, mātauranga and science.
- Recognise strategies that support, protect, and empower mātauranga in science and the relevance to whānau, hapū and iwi.
- Critically explain and communicate understandings of the relationship between Kaupapa Māori, mātauranga and science.
- Describe the history of Pūtaiao in science education and relate the development of Pūtaiao to the practice of science in Aotearoa.
- Work effectively in a team to develop research skills, including the ability to meaningfully and respectfully engage with te ao Māori.
Note that Kaupapa Māori means the practices of the indigenous people and Mātauranga Māori comprises Māori “ways of knowing”, including some empirical knowledge gained by trial and error (MM isn’t hypothesis-based), as well as a bunch of superstition, ethics, tradition, myths, lore, legend, and religion.
This course appears one designed to demonstrate that indigenous ways of knowing are not only vital to modern science, but nearly coequal to it, something “central to the future practice of science in Aotearoa New Zealand.”
My answer to that last quote is simply “no it isn’t.” In science classes what should be taught is modern science: the general body of knowledge and tools for knowing as practiced throughout the world today. Indigenous knowledge may be a part of that, but only a very small one, and likely could be omitted without loss. If traditional lore and knowledge about when to collect eels or berries is to be taught, it should be in anthropology or sociology class, not a class that gives you science credit.
This course shows that the new curriculum in NZ simply has lost sight of the distinction between science and non-science, and is blurring the boundaries between naturalistic modern science, social science, and ideology.
Note in particular this bit from the second course: “Students will meaningfully and respectfully engage with te ao Māori”. (Te ao Māori is the specifically Māori worldview.) What would people make of the phrase “meaningful and respectful engagement” if used in a science course, where students are encouraged to question everything? What this shows is data being replaced by motivated reasoning that aligns with social justice principles.
If you think this is irrelevant to America, think again. What we’re seeing is fast-forward time travel of DEI carried to its logical limits, with the sacralization of everything indigenous. While I don’t think for a moment that we’ll have Native American science courses pervading American universities, American teaching of science is becoming increasingly infected with principles of social justice. I’ve gone into this issue many times before and won’t repeat my thoughts, but do spare a thought for the poor science teachers in New Zealand who have to spoon this stuff into the mouths of their students, impeding what should be a real education in science.
“What would people make of the phrase ‘meaningful and respectful engagement’ if used in a science course, where students are encouraged to question everything?”
I’m reminded of Sastra’s excellent observation earlier this week. What they mean by “engagement” is “show-and-tell”. No contest between competing ideas, no attempt to change minds on the other side, and no concession that the other side might have the better argument or evidence. Just creedal statements.
Usually I quote :
“… and so the dialectic continues.”
-Delgado and Stefancic
Critical Race Theory – An Introduction, p.66, 3rd Ed., 2017
For this, we can play the drinking game – every time you read “critically”, take a drink – for “critical” here means not what normies think, but to criticize and denounce power structures as in the critical ____ theory literature. Paulo Freire comes to mind for this but it is widespread.
Interestingly, this is the first I noticed George Soros’ reflexive alchemy language – viz. “reflexively”. Seriously, that’s what George writes in his books. E.g:
“Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, – that of alchemy, operational success.”
Supposedly in Alchemy of Finance but I cannot get a copy from my local library to verify.
Soros is excellent with reflexivity, he borrows a lot from Popper whom he is an unashamed fanboy of. As am I.
D.A.
NYC
Me too
Not a fan of Soros though
I hear G. Soros was a student of Popper, but Wikipedia is light on details.
I figure “Open Society” is homage to the book by Popper.
This *is* relevant to the U.S. The fact that university science departments, scientific societies, and granting organizations are genuflecting to social justice warriors—ending honorific names, funding indigenous “science” studies, and teaching “decolonization” courses in science curricula—is sufficient indication that this stuff is soon to appear at a location near you.
Agreed Norman, and in Canada, which is probably a few years ahead of USA.
It’s also happening in Australia, Murdoch University is running adds proudly proclaiming ‘Indigenous Knowledges in Practice’. The pluralization of ‘knowledges’ is not explained on the poster, it’s just taken as a factual statement that there are multiple ‘knowledges’.
If the Pacific NW of the US had something equivalent to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the outcome for education would be obvious. All educational discourse would be required to be 50% coast Salish, 50% Makah, 50% Suquamish, 50% Chimakum, 50% Quileute, 50% Willapa, 50% Chinookan, and 50% Tillamook. This is mathematically a little difficult to achieve, except of course that mathematics itself would be construed in the same manner, permitting as much logical inconsistency as may be desired.
Alas, we do not enjoy a local Tiriti o Waitangi. As a result, we can only content ourselves with the insertion of Land Acknowledgments into the syllabus of every course on every conceivable subject.
The DNC had a prominent land acknowledgment at their convention.
What is appalling here is the failure to see the significance for the whole development of modern science over the last 500 years of knowledge that is not “place-based”. The discoveries of the properties of lenses, and the application of knowledge of these properties to the construction of telescopes in the 17th century enabled Galileo and subsequent scientists to question established knowledge and discover basic principles which were not “place-based”, but held universally.
Yes. It’s extraordinarily parochial.
If this NZ stuff was really true, it would be true the world over. It wouldn’t be restricted to one country.
It is true
I’m not sure why you say that? Other countries have indigeneity worship to greater or lesser degrees, so why should the whole world be the same as New Zealand. Other countries, for one thing, didn’t have Jacinda Ardern as PM.
The NZ folks are putting their beliefs on the same plane as science. Thus they should be true the world over.
They’re doing something similar in Canada. So why aren’t the Canadian beliefs exactly the same as the NZ ones? Science doesn’t vary from place to place.
It’s clear that in both cases these are strictly local folk beliefs.
If the NZ creation story, for example, were true, it would be equally true everywhere. After all, there is only one World, it can’t simultaneously be the result of more than one creation myth unless they were all fundamentally the same.
I think Frau Katze means that if, for example, Hui Te Rangiora really did discover Antarctica in a 7th-century boat made of human bones, then everyone everywhere would believe that. As Jon noted upthread, this hegemony (ha ha) of Matauranga Maori over science in New Zealand is harder to achieve in other places with diverse indigenous cultures and languages because none of them can dominate in the competition to substitute *their* spirituality for reality.
That’s what I meant.
Learning outcome #6:
By the end of this course the student will demonstrate through Enlightenment period logic that this entire course is simple rubbish.
If Enlightenment-style reasoning could rubbish this entire ideological enterprise, then it’s clear that the education system has been failing generations of students long before the new ideology permeated the science classrooms. That, or a subset of human beings will always fall prey to magical or politicized thinking—no matter their training and intelligence.
+1, and then some.
What a steaming pile of rhino output.
A word I ran into in Thoreau’s ‘Walden:’ excrementitious
Quite so. But any one who engages too critically, eg, see the comments on Jerry’s post under #5, with the dubious assumptions of this course will be failed for lack of respectful and constructive engagement.
The proposed course’s justifications echo the doublespeak found in other promotions of indigeneity in the curriculum. Thus the rewritten NZ history curriculum began with the assertion that Maori history was foundational to NZ history, but then skipped the 500 or so years between initial Maori settlement and European settlement. Study of that time, especially the extremely turbulent 25 years immediately prior to the Treay of Waitangi, undermines some quite important historical claims and moral judgements of the decolonisers.
Such as the Musket Wars, and the Maaori* cultivating Pakeha contacts for access to guns and other cargo?
* Just to stir the rhino output, I’m using the double-vowel alternative orthography to the macron. For example, the name of the high-warlord and prophet Te Kooti is not pronounced as though he had head lice, but rather as Te Kōti.
Without making life difficult for New Zealanders by offering speculative detail, if seems to me from those course descriptions that New Zealand is scared shitless about something. Canada is afraid, too. In our case we have ladled in a large dollop of propaganda-induced guilt that makes appeasement look noble.
But what, or who, are Americans afraid of? Who could possibly hurt you if dumped your land acknowledgments in the trash? Do you not know that we do them only because we were instructed to by the people we are afraid of? We aren’t doing them out of the goodness of our hearts. You don’t need to copy us.
Could you explicate to the ignorant… Me… Leslie? Who is the Boogeyman Canada and New Zealand fears that the US needn’t?
Teachers in New Zealand have to undergo some form of professional development each year that ticks a box so that they can keep on teaching. At my school I have to write up stuff that I have done towards this. Here’s the indigenous bit I have to complete:
“What specific goal did I set myself around Te Reo Māori and Tikanga and progress towards it?”
I focused on bringing Matuaranga Maori into my subject: Science. I have looked high and low for local indigenous knowledge that has science in it. There are plenty of examples of stone age technology (especially in the student workbooks) but none of it is explained by MM. None of it. There is no MM that explains the workings of the world in scientific terms. And that’s what I’ve written: there is no MM science that I can find. I have until November for the submission deadline, but I have no intention of changing it. What are they going to do, sack me? Unlikely, it would raise an unpleasant shit storm: “Teacher sacked for being unable to find MM Science”. I’ll just be seen as an agitator and quietly ignored.
I have two years to retirement, thank goodness, because I’ve had my fill of this bulls*it. I’ll soon be out of it, but I feel sorry for the youth of NZ that have to pretend that this nonsense is true.
The entire heirarchy here, from school management through to government, are all unwilling or unable to notice that their emperor has no clothes.
See, this is the kind of specific information that I am curious about finding with regards to this stuff. Here you are being compelled to express a hyper-inflated ideology that is outside of the ambit of your discipline. I’d hate to have to do that too, especially bc it would basically tell me to tell a lie. I am fortunate that I don’t have to do that.
Similar situation. I’m a government scientist in a CRI in NZ. It’s truly incredible how this stuff has happened and the speed of it’s implementation.
This (fairly recent) waving around of the Treaty as a sacred document reminds me of the ignorant MAGAs with their $3 gift shop US Constitutions who “know all about the Constitution.”
As a lawyer it makes my head hurt.
NZ science is so down the tubes. If I lived there and had kids I’d educate them abroad. You know if this has infected STEM so badly the humanities are a catastrophe.
D.A.
NYC
To add insult to injury, not only is that SCIGEN 102G course compulsory, it is worth 15 points towards the degree (the same as for example quantum mechanics) and costs the standard tuition fee of $977.40 (also the same as for example quantum mechanics).
About this new course: Since it is required, does that mean that students will also take one less more advanced science course?
I think this is what Nick Matzke was referring to in his comments on the previous thread on this topic.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/08/20/promised-debate-at-auckland-university-about-indigenous-ways-of-knowing-fails-to-materialize/
This course outline on critical thinking is amazing, I’m already critical of what they are doing.
I’ve raised this subject with an educated NZ family, and the answer was ho-hum.
Apparently some people just don’t care.
Keep going Jerry, there seem to be few voices in the wilderness
On a related note:
“Queering nuclear weapons: How LGBTQ+ inclusion strengthens security and reshapes disarmament”
https://thebulletin.org/2023/06/queering-nuclear-weapons-how-lgbtq-inclusion-strengthens-security-and-reshapes-disarmament/
Quite the read.
D.A.
NYC
Thanks, David, this one is a doozy! One of the best of its
gems: “Indeed, queer theory helps us not only see the bad of a world with nuclear weapons, but also imagine the good of a world without them.” In a similar vein, one often notices how Critical Post-Colonial Theory helps us understand the bad of
food poisoning and the good of avoiding it.
Indeed quite the read. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is (used to be?) a very serious and sober publication, as befitting the area of nuclear technology. Given this author’s transparent illogic and special pleading I would not want him remotely near a decision-making or -influencing role in the area.
BTW, is there any evidence that diverse-but-irrelevant life experiences actually help someone to to contribute to good decision making?
Appalling that the Bulletin has sunk to this level.
Life imitates art.
The Free Press today has an item on the appointment of a special assistant who wants to queer America’s real-life nuclear weapons research and security apparatus. It links to the Fox story below.
Even better, the official, Ms. Sneha Nair, is none other than the second author of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article you referenced.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-harris-department-energy-official-calls-queering-nuclear-weapons-part-radical-dei-agenda
This brings to mind the appointment of the non-binary alleged nuclear expert Sam Brinton who, however, blasted his own career by stealing from airports.
I must say I’m enjoying these international exposures of the nutty things going on in NZ education, but I feel compelled to point out that the practical effect of most of these ‘initiatives’ is probably not as bad as you’d think, at least not yet.
Some years ago, a similar course (but in the business school) was introduced at my institution (Canterbury) as an elective, and it kept getting cancelled for not meeting minimum enrolment numbers. The administration’s response was, of course, to make it compulsory. But this couldn’t hide the fact that almost all students had revealed they know these courses are a waste of time, avoid them if they’re able, and if not just view them as an additional cost of getting a degree (an indigenous-type shakedown, one might say…)
So the main effect of courses like Scigen 102G is to dilute the quality of the Auckland science degree. Which of course isn’t a good thing, but it’s not hugely different to the baby and filler courses appearing in the first two years of most US degrees.
For academics (as opposed to students) though, it’s potentially a bit more serious. Just yesterday, a local think-tank, the NZ Initiative, released a report on academic freedom in NZ which noted (among many other things): “The Treaty of Waitangi is the issue that academics are most afraid to discuss, with several saying that a radical progressive interpretation adopted by administrators
was not up for discussion.”
Thanks. I’m also told that there’s a severe-cost-cutting initiative at Auckland that may result in the actual firing of faculty and staff, and thus the elimination of courses that they teach.
That report can be downloaded here: https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/reports/unpopular-opinions-academic-freedom-in-new-zealand/
It covers a fair bit of ground, and our host gets a mention. It’s a disturbing read, although will no doubt be ignored or dismissed on the grounds of “small sample size”.
Of course you can’t tell what’s coming down ther line. However being retired and with time to spare I have recently chaired 4 PhD science orals – which have all been standard science.
Well, it’s growing beyond science and collegiate classwork, as this CNN article highlights. Looking past the fact that this article on pollution cleanup reads like a paid advertisement (the glowing adoration is so thick it borders on needing a calorie count), note that the author uses the term “New Zealand” exactly once without referencing the Maori word for the nation every other dozen times that the nation is referenced. “Aotearoa New Zealand” is used as though that’s the official name. Perhaps it’s a petty annoyance relative to academics, but I actually think that the two go hand in hand.
By land, sea and sky, Māori are using Indigenous knowledge to combat climate change
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/10/climate/climate-change-maori-new-zealand
Hahaha: “It’s that “interconnectedness” that makes Māori ideal stewards of Aotearoa New Zealand, Parkin-Rae says. “No one takes better care of the land than the Indigenous people who have loved and cared for it for thousands of years.”
The same people who killed off all of the moas (and by extension hasst’s eagles) within 100 years of arriving? The same people who used fire to clear huge swathes of land, destroying forever the natural ecosystem that had been in place, and that cause a huge rise in carbon emissions in the southern hemisphere? Clear cut burning of ancient forests and hunting animals to extinction is quite the “interconnectedness”.
Not only that, but Maori didn’t arrive there until around 1300 ad – that is certainly not “thousands of years”.
This is flat out misinformation.
As a New Zealand citizen who immigrated here 30 years ago and renounced my USA citizenship 4 years ago, I am extremely concerned with the direction my adopted country is going. The speed by which this country is becoming a race-base nightmare apartheid society is frightening. The incredible stupidity of the average NZ non-Maori citizen who doesn’t see any problem with living in a tribal-based society where your ancestry trumps your intelligence and skill is hard to believe. NZ is a small, 5 million population, country and the perfect laboratory for this insidious Neo-Marxist bullsh_t. Arden and her woke Labour government was the worst. Read the He PuaPua document that her government secretly formulated and hid from their coalition partner if you want to see the true direction this country is going.
In NZ the MoEd has butchered history, Science and sex education. The Northland Regional Council in its consiltation for its Annual Plan regarding water opted for pantheism and Tiriti. I had not realised how competitive wokery is until I read this about the US Dept of Energy -Nuclear Division which now has an analyst who wishes to apply LGBT etc and Queer Theory to nuclear weapons. Read here :https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-harris-department-energy-official-calls-queering-nuclear-weapons-part-radical-dei-agenda. This morning I thought of writing a satirical crit theory piece on “Daylight as Heteronormative Hegemony and Oppression.” But that cannot compare to nor compete with the Queering of Nuclear weapons.