Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I suspect the answer to the title question is “No way!”, but the incursion of Mātauranga Māori (“MM”, or Māori “ways of knowing”) into New Zealand’s science is reaching ludicrous depths. Even in the U.S.A. we don’t see headlines like the one below. (Note that “complement” is misspelled as “compliment”.) Why am I so sure … Continue reading Could Mātauranga Māori advance quantum physics?
UPDATE: Notice that one of the debate participants, David Lillis, has left a comment below. ******************** The NewsHub article below, reproduced on MSN, contains a short (10-minute debate) about whether and how Mātauranga Māori (Māori “ways of knowing) should be taught in public schools. The participants are Sir Ian Taylor (a half-Māori businessman and a … Continue reading A debate: should Mātauranga Māori (indigenous “ways of knowing”) be taught as science in New Zealand schools?
A Kiwi sent me this just-posted “Shape of Dialogue” video, which, although quite long for me (2 hours!), has an explanation of mātauranga Māori (MM) by a part-Māori scholar and musician, Charles Royal. Royal’s webpage shows that he’s not only an expert in “indigenous knowledge”, but also “Advise[s] and Lead[s] Projects and People, particularly to … Continue reading A Māori scholar/musician explains mātauranga Māori
Judging from this video lecture and Q&A session below by a Māori climate scientist, the answer to the title question is “no”. A New Zealand biologist and teacher sent me the 46-minute video, angered at its intellectual vacuity, as you can detect from his/her email. (By the way, the scientists I quote are different people, … Continue reading Can mātauranga Māori help us understand climate change?
You may well recognize the name of Nick Matzke, as he was the former Public Information Project Director of the National Center for Science Education, wrote a lot of good anti-creationist material (including a debunking of the “irreducible complexity” of bacterial flagella as adduced by IDers), and played a major role in organizing the prosecution … Continue reading Nick Matzke on Mātauranga Māori vs. modern science
Karen Finn, labeled below as a “PhD. candidate, University of Auckland,” is also identified in this short article as “a geography teacher and a teacher editor” who’s “researching decolonizing school geography in Aotearoa New Zealand for a Ph.D. in Education.” The short piece appears on Ipū Kirerū, the blog of the New Zealand Association for … Continue reading A New Zealand geography teacher calls for giving Mātauranga Māori “equal status” in the classroom
As I’ve written many times, Mātauranga Māori (MM)—considered the “way of knowing” of the indigenous Māori, who arrived in what is now New Zealand from Polynesia in the 13th century—has been the subject of some kerfuffle in NZ. That’s because there’s a movement, promoted not just by the Māori but by many white “allies”, to … Continue reading Is Mātauranga Māori really a “way of knowing”?
Let’s go back for a tick to the fracas in New Zealand over the government’s plan to teach Mātauranga Māori (henceforth MM) or Māori “ways of knowing”, as co-equivalent to modern science in public school science classes. Universities are following the schools’ lead, and touting MM as an almost untouchable but diverse collection of practical knowledge, myth, theology, … Continue reading Another weak defense of Mātauranga Māori
