Category: ways of knowing

Simon Fraser University tries to decolonize and indigenize STEM

December 18, 2024 • 9:40 am

UPDATE: The site to which I refer below disappeared for a while this morning, and then reappeared.  So the post right below still links to the right places:

Simon Fraser University in British Columbia recently adopted a policy of institutional neutrality.  But its latest endeavor shows that it’s still in the thrall of wokeness, for it’s launched a policy of “decolonizing and indigenizing” STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).  Nothing good can come of their effort, for, as you see, it can mean only the adoption of indigenous “ways of knowing” in the sciences.  There are several pages on the site, which was sent to me by a member of the Simon Fraser community. Click on the screenshot below to go to the “welcome” page and its links.  The small print in the headline says this:

Welcome to the Decolonizing and Indigenizing STEM (DISTEM) Website, dedicated to decolonizing and Indigenizing STEM at Simon Fraser University (SFU)!

This website, originally designed to support STEM faculty, is a valuable tool for anyone committed to the decolonization of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to decolonize and indigenize our teaching. Click the link to go to the web site. Most of the pages are just a bit of text and links to other sites or to the home pages of the authors.

The endeavor seems serious, for this is part of the rationale:

To understand the importance of such systems in the decolonization of library classification, it is essential to explore Ashley’s work with the Indigenous Curriculum Resource Centre (ICRC) and her adaptation of the Brian Deer Classification System (BDCS). Most importantly, classification and categorization systems need to shift away from Western-European knowledge systems to prioritizing Indigenous ways of knowing and being, which are community focused. For example, a shift in language from “Indigenous Peoples – History and Culture” to “Indigenous Peoples – Communities,” moves the narrative away from historicizing Indigenous peoples toward their power, knowledge, and contemporary contributions. Not only does this shift place Indigenous Peoples and communities at the centre, but all other surrounding categories move outward to reflect their relationality to these communities and Indigenous knowledge. Such shifts in thinking and doing are crucial for STEM faculty and students to learn and apply. We strongly encourage you to follow the links provided above to gain a deeper understanding of these vital concepts and how we can all further decolonize our minds.

Note that the program is not designed to bring more indigenous people into science—though that may be one of its aims—but to CENTER the contributions “Indigenous Peoples and Communities” in teaching the content of science, at the same time “moving all other surrounding categories outward.”

Some of the aims from the Project History:

One of the major concerns faculty shared was that they lack the time and resources necessary to learn about and then implement these processes, both personally and professionally. This issue was exasperated because information and resources related to decolonizing and Indigenizing STEM, as well as teaching and learning, are dispersed and disconnected both online and off, which can be overwhelming for faculty, particularly those just beginning their decolonizing journeys. Thus, the DISTEM Website originally aimed to meet faculty needs by creating a central online living archive of relevant and varied resources focused on decolonizing and Indigenizing STEM, both generally and regarding teaching and learning, in postsecondary institutions.

As I always say, if there is indigenous knowledge that is part of STEM, then by all means incorporate it into STEM, for I seriously doubt that there is enough empirical knowledge in American northwest tribes to constitute a substantial moiety of modern science. Like the indigenous “knowledge” of New Zealand, it will consist largely of trial-and-error methods that the locals developed for subsistence: how, when, and where to catch fish, collect berries, build canoes, and the like.  Indigenous knowledge is not a toolkit like modern science—a toolkit for finding answers that incorporates hypothesis-testing, experiments, statistics, blind testing, pervasive doubt, and so out. Rather, indigenous knowledge is a set of facts acquired independently of that tookit. But yes, there may be some indigenous knowledge there, but seriously, why would Simon Fraser make a whole program out of centering science on it.

You know why: they are displaying their virtue by sacralizing the practices of the indigenous people.  But those people descended from other people who crossed over the Bering Strait about 15,000 years ago, and those people had their own knowledge. It’s bizarre to center the “knowledge” of tribes who flourished before modern science began, but again, that’s what you have to do if you want to show your virtue. And it’s too bad for science—and for Simon Fraser.

If you have any interest in scrolling around these pages, the person who sent this to me says this:
The “Prototype” page is the resource. The coloured circles and the orbiting dots are links – click one to make the dots stand still and get a pop-up with some text and a link to a resource. They are amazingly bad. I picked one from “Animals” and one from “Creation Stories”, and got links to old essays by the queer theorist Kim Tallbear. Not a scientist, and not writing about or engaging with science. The “Creation Stories” link is full of old tropes about the racism of human population genetics research. Ho hum.
Here’s what the prototype page looks like (click to go to it). The rings are labeled, from the outside in, “Indigenous Influence/Contributions to Non-Indigenous Society,” “Elders,” “Family Life and Parenting,” “Sexuality and Relationships,” “Gender Roles and Gender Identity,” “Children and Youth,” “Social Structures—Kinship, Clans, Families,” “Indigenous Identity”, and, in the center, “Roles and Relationships.” You know already that this is a sociological resource having almost nothing to do with STEM.

If you click on the green dot in the “Gender Roles and Gender Identity” site, for instance, you get one reference and its summary:

Two Spirit
Garrett, M. T., & Barret, B. (2003). Two Spirit: Counseling Native American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual People. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 31(2), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-1912.2003.tb00538.x

The cultural world of the Two Spirit, the traditional role of Native individuals believed to possess both male and female spirit, is explored in both “old ways” and current-day experiences. Cultural beliefs and meanings around sexual identity are discussed from a Native perspective with recommendations for counseling Two Spirit clients.  (A Spanish translation follows.)

This has nothing to do with STEM.

In one respect this seems harmless, because there’s no way in tarnation for this stuff to really make its way into STEM. But in other ways it’s not harmless, as it warps scholarship, pretends that sociology or ideology is hard science, and makes a mockery of true STEM.

Poor Simon Fraser. In the end they are not decolonizing of indigenizing science, but sacralizing Native Americans.

An unanswered letter to the head of the University of Auckland

July 10, 2024 • 9:45 am

This brouhaha all started in 2021 when seven faculty members at the University of Auckland posted the “The Listener letter on science”, a call to prevent teaching indigenous “ways of knowing” as science.   The letter is archived here and here though the text isn’t online.  If you click to enlarge the screenshot below, you’ll see it’s not all that controversial in itself; but its call that indigenous knowledge  “falls far short of what we can define as science itself” got plenty of Kiwi hackles up.  (The authors are talking about the local indigenous “way of knowing”, Mātauranga Māori (MM), which the government and schools were pushing should be taught in science classes as coequal to modern science.)

The authors were widely demonized, two were investigated by New Zealand’s Royal Society (who insisted at first that MM was indeed science), and several were threatened with academic punishment. As I wrote in my post of Dec. 14, 2021, the Vice-Chancellor of Auckland Uni, who is the head of the institution, also criticized the letter and its arguments:

Earlier this summer, Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater issued a statement explicitly criticizing The Listener letter and its seven signers, making their identities easy to find. Two of her statements from Freshwater’s official announcement of July 26:

A letter in this week’s issue of The Listener magazine from seven of our academic staff on the subject of whether mātauranga Māori can be called science has caused considerable hurt and dismay among our staff, students and alumni.

Note the “hurt and dismay claim”, which at the very outset puts her statement in a context of emotionality rather than reason. And there was more:

While the academics are free to express their views, I want to make it clear that they do not represent the views of the University of Auckland.

The University has deep respect for mātauranga Māori as a distinctive and valuable knowledge system. We believe that mātauranga Māori and Western empirical science are not at odds and do not need to compete. They are complementary and have much to learn from each other.

This view is at the heart of our new strategy and vision, Taumata Teitei, and the Waipapa Toitū framework, and is part of our wider commitment to Te Tiriti and te ao principles.

Now it’s not even clear if the University of Auckland even has an official view about science vs. mātauranga Māori, yet note that Freshwater characterizes the latter as “a distinctive and valuable knowledge system”, maintaining that “mātauranga Māori and Western empirical science are not at odds and do not need to compete.”  That is an arrant falsehood. For one thing, mātauranga Māori is creationist, which puts it squarely at odds with evolution. I won’t go on; you can find for yourself many other ways the two areas are “at odds” with each other.

Freshwater subsequently walked back her opposition after some pushback, and announced twice that year that the University of Auckland would host a series of discussions, debates, and panels on the relationship of local indigenous knowledge to modern science. All of us dealing with this issue from the “modern-science-is-not-equivalent-to-indigenous knowledge” side eagerly awaited this event.

It never happened. That of course is not surprising given that the climate in NZ sacralizes indigenous knowledge, and if you question it as a form of science you can be fired or deplatformed.  But of course I’m not a Kiwi, and I can say what I want. What I’ve wanted to do all these four years is to ask Dr. Freshwater what happened to the debates. So I wrote her this email last week:

Dear Vice-Chancellor Freshwater,

 

I’ve followed for some time the debates in New Zealand about the relationship between modern science and Mātauranga Māori.  Looking at my records,I see that on August 13 and December 14 of 2021, you sent out two notices that the University of Auckland would hold a series of lectures, panels, and debates on this issue.

This is from August 13, 2021:

In recent weeks we have witnessed a widespread public debate on the issue of mātauranga Māori and science. The debate has raised important questions about freedom
of expression, respect for opposing views, academic freedom and the role of universities in Aotearoa New Zealand. On Tuesday the NZ Herald published an opinion piece
on these issues, which you can read on our News pages here.

 

We will be setting up a series of VC lectures, panels and debating sessions, both within the University and externally, to address this and other topics. Universities like ours have an important thought-leadership role to play on these issues, which we embrace, while recognising that we need to foster an environment within which such debates can take place positively, respectfully and constructively.

And from December 14 of the same year:

I am calling for a return to a more respectful, open-minded, fact-based exchange of views on the relationship between mātauranga Māori and science, and I am committing the University to action on this.

In the first quarter of 2022 we will be holding a symposium in which the different viewpoints on this issue can be discussed and debated calmly, constructively and respectfully. I envisage a high-quality intellectual discourse with representation from all viewpoints: mātauranga Māori, science, the humanities, Pacific knowledge systems and others.

As far as I know, no symposia, discussions, or debates were ever held, though this was nearly three years ago. Was this idea discarded, or did I miss something?

Thanks for your attention.

Cordially,
Jerry Coyne
Professor Emeritus
Dept. Ecology and Evolution
The University of Chicago

I have had no reply.  Do you think I will get one? I’m not holding my breath.  I know, because Auckland Uni scours the internet for its mentions (I’ve received stern emails from them demanding corrections of my posts), that they’ll see this, even if Freshwater doesn’t read my email.

The upshot is that there’s never been ANY discussion or debate of this kind in New Zealand, although there have been articles written back and forth, most of them defending the scientific aspect of MM. But rumor has it that there will soon be some significant pushback soon on equating MM with science.

But the University of Auckland, the premier university in New Zealand, has failed abysmally in its promise to encourage free discussion of this important issue. It’s important because resolving whether indigenous knowledge should be taught as science will decide how the country and its students fare in competition with other first-world countries in scientific advances and education.  One of the purposes of a university is to find the truth, but that can’t be done if free discussion is banned.

Australian gas project held up by indigenous myths involving “spirit whales”

March 13, 2024 • 11:00 am

Now I know nothing about the Scarborough gas project in Western Australia except what I learned from the two sites below, the first from journalist James MacPherson’s Substack site and the second, which corroborates his report but is more extensive, from Australia’s Financial Review. You can access the sites by clicking on the screenshots (the Financial Review article is also archived here).

According to the site above, the gas project will cost $16 billion (Australian $) and “will power 8.5 million homes for the next 30 years”.  The project had already been approved by the government and the company was cleared to begin construction. Then two days before that began, the company was hit with a lawsuit that forced a delay. The bizarre thing about the lawsuit, as recounted below, is that is was by an indigenous woman who claimed that the project would disturb supernatural whales that told fish what to do.  Read below for more:

From Patrick’s article (bolding is mine):

Jessica Border, a young lawyer at the Environmental Defenders Office in Perth, said in an emergency court filing in September that her client, Indigenous leader Raelene Cooper, was a custodian of the Whale Dreaming, an Aboriginal story sung or chanted and known as a songline.

The Whale Dreaming states that Burrup Peninsula whales connect places, people and animals to each other, creating migratory patterns for animals and telling them when to eat and reproduce, according to the filing. It contains an “energy line” that passes through Woodside’s gas titles.

“The whale creates a path for the other animals like ‘grading a road’,” she wrote. “Songlines are essential to the survival of human beings and the ngurra or Mother Earth.”

A lawyer for the gas company, in a response filed in court, said: “Until the filing of Ms Border’s affidavit, Woodside had not previously been aware of the asserted existence of the Whale Dreaming within Murujuga [an area offshore the peninsula] or of the applicant’s carriage of a Whale songline.”

“The term ‘environment’ is defined to encompass the social and cultural features of ecosystems and of locations, places and areas,” he wrote in the judgment.

The use of songlines to fight resources projects is a tactic used by the Environmental Defenders Office [EDO], a Sydney-based not-for-profit company and relentless opponent of resources industries.

One of the EDO’s favourite courts is the Federal Court, which has shown more interest in songlines than any other. Some 20 judgments over the past decade have acknowledged the existence of songlines.

Justice Colvin, who ruled against Woodside, accepted Ms Cooper believed in whale spirits. “The evidence explains the cultural significance of the whales, turtles and dugongs in the sea at that place and of songlines, including the Whale Dreaming,” he wrote.

However, I can’t find the sentence in bold above in Colvin’s judgment, and its absence is puzzling. If you can find it, let me know. As far as I can see from a quick reading of the judgment, Colvin argued that there wasn’t sufficient consultation with indigenous people, including Ms. Cooper, who was “required to be consulted”, although there had been extensive consultation from other indigenous people.

If Cooper’s claim about spirit whales is indeed what she said, then the court is relying on mythology to stop a project that seems to have been environmentally vetted and approved.  Cooper, of course, is relying on a delusion, but if environmentalists are supporting her to stop the pipeline, then they are dissimulating—giving credence to a ludicrous “songline” about fish-controlling whales to get the project stopped.  For all I know, perhaps the project is a danger to the environment. But that doesn’t mean opponents must bring in religious mythology when considering its value.

And there are, as the article points out, dangers in using myths in court:

No High Court decisions cite songlines, according to legal databases. Legal academia has not embraced them either. One of the few journal articles on the topic, The Australian ‘songlines’: Some glosses for recognition, was lead written in 2017 by a country NSW academic, Gary Lilienthal, who has appointments with universities in India and Ethiopia.

“The pre-eminent authority on colonial land title and its relationship to Aboriginal title is me,” Professor Lilienthal said on Wednesday. “If you look back at the ancient laws around the world, including Talmudic law, most of them are transmitted by song.”

Among mainstream lawyers there are concerns that manipulating Indigenous mythology to stop resources projects could backfire, by alienating other Australians, as it did in last month’s Santos case.

What is the Santos case? An explanation:

The decision, by judge Craig Colvin, has become of greater significance since one of his judicial colleagues, Natalie Charlesworth, dismissed a similar challenge to a gas project being built in the Northern Territory by Santos, a decision that is forcing land rights lawyers and activists around the country to assess how they use Indigenous fables to protect Aboriginal communities.

Justice Charlesworth found an expert from the University of Western Australia falsely told Tiwi islanders songlines were used to stop construction of a Woodside pipeline.

These myths shouldn’t be part of court cases. While they’re of cultural significance, this ruling seems to imply that there is some “reality” to them as well—a reality significant enough to warrant stopping an energy project.  Just as there is no place for mythology alongside empirical reality in science (viz. the kerfuffle over Mātauranga Māori in New Zealand), there is no place for mythology in this case.”

It all comes from regarding indigenous people as “sacred victims,” giving their word extra credibility that would not be conferred on other people. Yes, cultural desires must sometimes be considered, even if there’s no evidence for them, but this is not such a case,. As Richard Feynman said about the Challenger disaster, “”For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”

********************

Here’s part of the judge’s decision referring to Ms. Cooper (again, see the whole thing here..)

1    Two subsidiaries of Woodside Energy Group Ltd (together, Woodside) plan to undertake a seismic survey in waters off the coast of the Pilbara region in Western Australia. To do so, they must have obtained approval from the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) of an environment plan. On 31 July 2023, they obtained approval for a plan subject to conditions. Relevantly for present purposes, the conditions require Woodside to undertake further consultation with representatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bodies prior to the commencement of the seismic survey.

2    Ms Raelene Cooper is a Mardudhunera lore woman, elder and a traditional custodian of Murujuga. Ms Cooper was a person who, under the terms of the conditions, was required to be consulted. Ms Cooper has commenced proceedings in this Court seeking judicial review on the basis that NOPSEMA did not have statutory power to make the decision to approve the environment plan for the proposed seismic survey (Ground 1). In the alternative, Ms Cooper claims that Woodside has not complied with the conditions requiring Woodside to consult with her and others and that she has standing to seek a permanent injunction restraining Woodside from undertaking the seismic survey (Ground 2).

3    The Court has granted an interlocutory injunction restraining Woodside from undertaking any activity described in the environment plan pending the urgent determination of three preliminary issues, namely:

(1)    whether NOPSEMA had statutory power to make the decision to accept the environment plan where it was not reasonably satisfied that the consultation required by reg 11A of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Environment) Regulations 2009 (Cth) had been carried out, and so was not reasonably satisfied of the criteria in reg 10A(g)(i) and reg 10A(g)(ii);

(2)    whether, if (1) is established, it would be open, as a matter of law, to refuse the relief sought on any discretionary basis identified by Woodside; and

(3)    whether Ms Cooper has standing to seek relief in relation to Ground 2 of her application.

 

h/t: Don

Academics in New Zealand going down the tubes

June 30, 2023 • 9:15 am

I’ve written many times about the decline of academics in New Zealand over the past 20 years. This is not a matter of debate; it’s shown by many statistics. One site, for example, gives the data and, quoting from other sources, says this:

The New Zealand education system is also now one of the most unequal in the world. The gap between the educational “haves” and “have nots” eclipses all our English-speaking OECD peers. All this, despite Government spending per child increasing in real terms by more than 30% since 2001.

Here is more from Roger Partridge (2020).  Here is a 2022 update:

Low attendance at school is another sign the country’s education system is slipping with children from lower socio-economic areas the worst affected, the executive director of the New Zealand Initiative says.

The New Zealand Initiative is a think tank which carries out research to help New Zealand plan for the future.

It has commented on new research by the Education Review Office that shows children are missing school more in New Zealand than other English-speaking countries.

The office found four in ten parents were comfortable with their child missing a week or more of school per term and a third of students did not see going to school every day as that important…

The education system had been declining for 25 years and data backed up his view, such as the Pisa study carried out by the OECD. As an example, in maths the knowledge of a 15-year-old New Zealand student equated to a student aged 13 and a half 20 years ago.

Also from 2022:

In the past 12-18 years, New Zealand’s scores had declined by 23 points for reading, 22 points for science and 29 points for maths. The OECD estimated that 30 points was equivalent to one-year of learning.

If you want more, see this article from the New Zealand Herald, this one from the Waikato Business News, this one from Stuff,  this one from the New Zealand Initiative, and a post I wrote about the data in June. All sources agree on this decline, though the government, bent on achieving educational equity rather than quality, doesn’t seem to care much.

The post below by three Kiwi professors highlights the problems even more, blaming them on “misplaced social justice activism” that is hurting all groups in NZ, including the Māori, supposedly the beneficiaries of much of the new reforms. The problem is that the government, which is about as woke as they come, wants to reform education by making it more Māori-centric instead of making it more rigorous.

One sign of this, which I’m not going to dwell on today, is the explicit drive to teach science in such a way that modern science (misleadingly called “Western science”) is taught as co-equal to Māori “ways of knowing” (Mātauranga Māori, or MM), which, while including some empirical evidence, is also laden with myth, legend, superstition, religion, and morality.  I cann’t emphasize to the reader how much the drive to sacralize the ways of indigenous people has permeated the country. But in the end this will make it more parochial and less able to compete with similar countries for educational status and achievement.

Kiwis dare not question this drive as it puts their jobs and reputations in jeopardy. But the three below took the chance:

Click to read.

A few quotes:

Social justice activism is potentially damaging to the New Zealand university system and society as a whole (see the recent article by Peter Winsley [3]). University students must, of course, be free to study and debate social justice issues, but it is the place of the State, the courts, and charities to deliver social justice, not the university itself. Universities should be places of open enquiry in the quest for evidence-based truth and of open debate on matters of controversy, but not institutions where subjective experience or an ideological view is presented as an unarguable truth and becomes indoctrination.

. . . Social justice activism is potentially damaging to the New Zealand university system and society as a whole (see the recent article by Peter Winsley [3]). University students must, of course, be free to study and debate social justice issues, but it is the place of the State, the courts, and charities to deliver social justice, not the university itself. Universities should be places of open enquiry in the quest for evidence-based truth and of open debate on matters of controversy, but not institutions where subjective experience or an ideological view is presented as an unarguable truth and becomes indoctrination.

Some dangers of speaking out (there are far more incidents like these than I could recount):

Here in New Zealand, a senior academic was recently warned that questioning a perceived fall in academic standards would lead to disciplinary action. Also in New Zealand, failing to address matauranga Māori (Māori knowledge, including traditional concepts of knowledge) in contestable funding grant applications, even in mathematics or fundamental physics, may jeopardise the chance of winning a grant. These are just [two] examples of situations that have become commonplace.

. . . Many academics are uncomfortable with the direction that is now being taken but are afraid to speak out for fear of loss of promotion prospects, disciplinary action, being labelled racist, or even finding their names on one of the current redundancy lists.

Even questioning whether MM should be taught as coequal to modern science in science class also got seven signers of the famous Listener letter in trouble; all were demonized, some demoted. and two were reported to New Zealand’s Royal Society, of which they were members. (The “investigation” fizzled.)

I’ll skip the rest of the article except to highlight the solutions offered by the authors—solutions that are sensible but seemingly impossible to enact:

How do we turn all of this around? Possible actions are:

Incentivise freedom of speech and political neutrality. It is not the remit or responsibility of the university to be the kind and conscionable face of the State, or of any political party. For that we have the justice system and Government agencies. Government does not own our universities but, of course, is a major funder. It could influence internal policy by strong encouragement of freedom of speech, and by rewarding an absence of social justice politics driving programmes and staff behaviours. This could occur through, for example, targeted funding around best practice in the neutral role of “critic and conscience of society” and/or international teaching and research relevance. While social justice issues should be widely debated, a university’s operating culture should not be driven by social justice political agendas.

Carry out an internationally benchmarked review of university funding and reset base student funding levels, with a higher proportion of government funding supporting institutional operations. The level of student fees for the various programme categories will also have to be reviewed. Conversely, we would ideally deliver fees-free degree education, but if this is not possible, then access to university education could be ensured for students of limited means by funding targeted, need-based scholarships. Internally, universities should refocus a greater proportion of expenditure on core teaching and research.

Re-focus the Performance Based Research Fund back from its recently increased social justice focus to a renewed emphasis on research excellence and relevance.

Reboot Immigration New Zealand to ensure that ample, properly trained capability is present to deliver a speedy and effective international student visa service. Finance Education New Zealand and universities for an intensive and extended marketing campaign in key overseas source countries for international enrolments.

Generate an agreement between the eight universities around commitment to maintaining international standing. This initiative would require statements around adhering to the liberal epistemology in science, resisting moves to give equivalence in science studies to indigenous or minority “ways of knowing”, and removing unnecessary restrictions to teaching and research, thus ensuring international connectedness in research, and respect for multiple viewpoints while holding to a politically neutral position on all subjects.

Conclusions

New Zealand must not aspire to being an inward-looking Pacific ethnostate, a direction that seems to have been fostered by the present Government. It is vital that, for their future international credibility, our universities, on a viable financial footing, return to being completely apolitical and resist the changes that are being wrought by social justice activism. University decisions and actions in relation to teaching, research and outreach should be based on merit and not on identity.

Yes, these are all good, and, if implemented, would kick New Zealand back up into academic parity with other economically comparable countries.

But if you know New Zealand and its government (the new PM, Chris Hipkins, is the former Minister of Education who promoted the ‘social justice’ attitude and its concomitant effect on academic quality), you’ll know that these suggestions are, as Mencken would say, “bawling up a drainspout.” There is no chance, given the suppression of dissent about these issues, to even discuss them.

As I always say, I call attention to this because I love New Zealand and its people, but deplore what they’re doing to themselves. Further, this decline is an object lesson for the U.S., as ideology is increasingly creeping into our academics, now seen as a branch of Social Justice activism. “It can’t happen to us,” you say? I’m not so sure.

I’m sad to say this, but I don’t think the academic problems of New Zealand will be fixed.  They are circling the drain, but the politicians and academics don’t seem to care (except for those who dare not speak of the problem).

More “ways of knowing”: New Zealand government reports that singing traditional Māori songs to saplings helps them grow

August 23, 2022 • 9:15 am

Reader Doug reported this “discovery” in a comment on a recent post. It’s a press release from a ministry of the New Zealand government, describing an astounding example of the power of “other ways of knowing” to effect plant growth.  The announcement is (as usual) full of Māori language that we Anglophones don’t understand, but I’ll translate the important ones in brackets.

The upshot is that the Ministry claims that speaking and singing to plants in traditional Māori ways helps plants grow. Click to read. “Waita” in the headlne means “singing”:

 

Here’s the upshot (my emphasis)

A Northland marae [traditional Māori meeting ground] , which has recently expanded its business, is showing that a little TLC (tender loving care) in its nursery operation can go a long way to giving seedlings a head start.

Akerama Marae nursery support manager Thelma Horne says, her team regularly korero and waiata to the fledgling native tree seedlings in their nursery.

“Some people think we are a little crazy, but it is how we do things around here,” Thelma Horne says.

Proof it works is on full display in their nursery where prized Kauri and Totara, grown from eco-sourced forests nearby, are shooting up much faster than what is normally expected, says Thelma Horne.

“Scientists want to know why our trees are growing so successfully. Instead of taking months, we are cropping Totara seedlings out in weeks.”

According to a correspondent and a Māori dictionary, “korero” as a verb means “to tell, say, speak, read, talk, address, while “waiata” as a verb means “to sing”.  In other words, talking and singing to the saplings speeds up their growth.

This effort is supported with a big-bucks grant from the Kiwi government:

Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Services partnered with the marae-based project last year, with a grant of nearly $500,000 over 2 years through the One Billion Trees (1BT) programme. [“Marae” are traditional Māori meeting grounds, complexes with buildings and an open area.]

. . . and is using traditional “ways of knowing, or mātauranga Māori, to speak and sing to the trees.

“Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Service is proud to be associated with the Akerama Marae Nursery,” says Alex Wilson, director forest development, grants and partnerships.

“The nursery project has sound foundations in mātauranga Māori and restorative planting principles.”

Thelma Horne says there aren’t any trade secrets to what is driving their success in the nursery.

“We have a different language to scientists. We can whakapapa [“to recite in proper order (e.g. genealogies, legends, months) recite genealogies”] direct to the rakau [“plant”], and that’s what we’ve been doing. We grow our plants, like we manaaki (help) our tamariki (children) so they can grow strong. A whanau is resilient when they are with their family, and we have maintained that analogy when they are growing in the nursery.

“Whanau” is defined as “extended family, family group, a familiar term of address to a number of people – the primary economic unit of traditional Māori society. In the modern context the term is sometimes used to include friends who may not have any kinship ties to other members.”

This practice will be used on a big scale:

“I believe, it is a start to many generations to return and to be able to rediscover their connection to the whenua [“land“] and to the rakau, and to learn more about their own whakapapa . . . that is a wonderful thing, and it all starts with learning our own waiata oriori (lullaby to regenerative seed and whanau) about planting seeds,” Arapeta Barber says.

Now it’s good to restore the forest, but of course where are the data showing that singing and talking to plants in Māori ways makes the plants grow taller? The only evidence is this “proof”:

Proof it works is on full display in their nursery where prized Kauri and Totara, grown from eco-sourced forests nearby, are shooting up much faster than what is normally expected, says Thelma Horne.

Is there a control group that isn’t spoken or sung to, and is otherwise treated the same? And another control group that is spoken to in another language, say English?

If there’s no control, then the only evidence is “growth higher than expected,” which of course is not evidence at all. And if there is a control group, could somebody be giving the special plants extra attention?

It’s just another sign of the New Zealand government’s unrestrained fealty to all things Māori that they fund a project that includes singing to plants, promoting unpublished and data-free results as a press release, and giving total credence to unbelievable results to legitimize Māori traditions.

Now I suppose there’s some unknown way that speaking and singing to plants in Māori could promote their growth, but I’m willing to bet a substantial sum that a properly controlled experiment overseen by objective observers wouldn’t work.

Where are the real scientists in New Zealand to ask “where are the data” and say “I won’t believe this without evidence”?  Where are they? They are too cowed to speak up.

Nola and Cooper resign from New Zealand’s Royal Society after being exculpated for criticizing indigenous “ways of knowing” as “science”

March 18, 2022 • 11:45 am

For a while now I’ve been discussing the row in New Zealand about whether  indigenous “ways of knowing”, Mātauranga Māori (“MM” for short), should be given equal treatment in the science classroom to modern science. The short answer for those with any neurons is “no”. While MM does comprise some “practical knowledge” like how and when to pick berries or catch eels, it also comprises a mélange of legend, superstition, moral dicta, and palpably false empirical claims (one being that Polynesians discovered Antarctica, another being divine creationism as the source of life).  As a whole, MM should be taught in New Zealand as part of local history and sociology, but not as science.

That was the position of seven University of Auckland professors who wrote a letter to the magazine The Listener pointing this conflict out (for relevant links, go here). They did not impugn MM as a subject worthy of teaching, but did say that it shouldn’t be taught as co-equal to science in school—a movement pushed by NZ’s woke government and academic authorities. The seven signers—or “Satanic Seven”—were demonized, though they had lots of silent support (to criticize MM as science is decidedly unfashionable, since it’s seen as an attack on the indigenous Māori.

Two of the seven professors, philosopher Robert Nola and biochemist Garth Cooper, were further demonized by being singled out for investigation as members of the prestigious Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ). They were accused by two people of writing a letter that violated the Society’s regulations (see this link for a fuller epxlanation). The complaints didn’t go very far: the RSNZ convened a committee to study the two sets of complaints, and then concluded that the complaints, all involving bad or unethical behavior, as well as harm to people (i.e., Māori) were not worthy of further investigation. Cooper and Nola were thus vindicated, though, in a last slap at them because of the trouble they caused, the RSNZ removed this sentence from their final report (it was in an earlier version):

The Panel considered there was no evidence that the Fellows [Nola and Cooper] acted with any intent of dishonesty or lack of integrity.

Removing that sentence was just a nasty piece of work.  And now, after. being vindicated, both Nola and Cooper have resigned from the RSNZ, as recounted in this article in Point of Order. Click on screenshot.

I had a feeling resignation was in the air, but haven’t been formally informed by either man, though I’ve asked them for statements (stay tuned).

I think they did the right thing. There was no point in staying on to change the RSNZ “from the inside,” as the institution has shown itself refractory to change, as well as ignorant and vindictive. And the pair have already gotten their honor of being elected; there is no additional honor accrued by staying on. Why would they want to remain members of a society that issued this statement about the Listener letter that Cooper and Nola signed?:

The recent suggestion by a group of University of Auckland academics that mātauranga Māori is not a valid truth is utterly rejected by Royal Society Te Apārangi. The Society strongly upholds the value of mātauranga Māori and rejects the narrow and outmoded definition of science outlined in The Listener – Letter to the Editor.

It deeply regrets the harm such a misguided view can cause.

These are people who don’t know what science is, but they’re woke enough to defend superstition when it’s unscientific but purveyed by a local minority. In other words, theyre cowardly and ignorant.

I won’t go on except to give a few quotes from the Point of Order piece. The second is self-aggrandizing.

Two distinguished scientists – Professors Garth Cooper and Robert Nola – have resigned both as members and as fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

. . .The resignations of the two luminaries follow the society’s decision – announced last week – not to formally proceed with a complaint against them as Fellows of the Society for being among seven University of Auckland professors who signed a letter to the New Zealand Listener headed ‘In defence of science’ in July last year.

The self-aggrandizing bit:

The society’s decision not to proceed has spared it the prospect of being criticised – if not mocked – by scientists around the world.

Jerry Coyne, emeritus professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago, pointed out that mātauranga Māori contained strong elements of Creationism (“refuted by all the facts of biology, paleontology, embryology, and biogeography”) and that “expelling members for defending views like evolution against non-empirically based views of creation and the like is shameful”.

He concluded his letter to the society by advising:

 “I hope you will reconsider the movement to expel your two members, which, if done, would make the Royal Society of New Zealand a laughing stock.”

But they don’t mention that a much bigger fish, Richard Dawkins, wrote letters to both the RSNZ and The Listener defending science against MM, and Richard has a big microphone. Also, there are rumors that I can’t confirm that the BIG Royal Society, the one in London, wrote to the RSNZ chewing them out for investigating Nola and Cooper. That would have shaken up the people in Wellington!

And so all’s well that ends well:

In the upshot, there have been no expulsions – but the professors have decided they no longer want to remain members and fellows of this society.

But it’s not that simple. The RSNZ, made to look like fools, have been suitably chastened, and Nola and Cooper have been exculpated. But the battle for the hegemony of MM continues and shows no sign of abating. All over New Zealand, science students should prepare themselves for a dire watering down of the curriculum.

Robert Nola

 

Garth Cooper

h/t: Don

NZ Science Dean wants schools to teach Māori “spirituality” and “non-secularism” in science

February 15, 2022 • 10:45 am

Shoot me now!  New Zealand’s system of science education continues to go down the toilet (along with Donald Trump’s papers, I guess) as everyone from government officials to secondary school teachers to university professors pushes to make Mātauranga Māori (“MM”) or Māori “ways of knowing” coequal with science, to be taught as science in science classes. All of them intend for this mixture of legend, superstition, theology, morality, philosophy and, yes, some “practical knowledge” to be given equal billing with science, and presumably not to be denigrated as “inferior” to real science. (That, after all, would be racism.) It’s one thing to teach the indigenous ways of knowing as sociology or anthropology (and but of course “ways of knowing” differ all over the world); it’s another entirely to say that they’re coincident with modern science.

The equation of “ways of knowing” like MM with modern science is, of course, part of the Woke Program to “decolonize science”. The problem, of course, is we have a big conflict—one between a “way of knowing that really works“, which is science, and on the other side a reverence for the oppressed and their culture, embodied in MM.  The result is, of course, that the oppressed win, and all over the Anglophonic world science is being watered down, downgraded, pushed aside, or tarred with adjectives like “white supremacist” and “colonialist.”

And so here we have a professor and a college administrator, Dr. Julie Rowland of Auckland University, pushing to get spiritualism and MM taught either alongside science or as science. She’s not really clear about that, but I sense a camel’s nose approaching the science tent.

Rowland is not only a structural geologist, but the deputy dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland, considered (for the time being) New Zealand’s best university.

And so, in an article in Newsroom, we see the Deputy Dean of Science telling us that science is not enough; we need more spirutuality—presumably Māori spirituality—taught in schools and Universities. Click to see another batch of bricks crumble in the foundation of New Zealand’s science

Note that Rowland not only refers to New Zealand by its Māori name, “Aotearoa”, but hastens to mention the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (called “Te Teriti” in Māori), as the basis for the injection of spirituality into school. That ancient treaty, which says nothing about science, and wasn’t even signed by many Māori chiefs, is held up not only as the founding document of New Zealand, but is used as an excuse for Woke behavior like the stuff under consideration.

Rowland begins by giving to science with one hand and taking with the other:

Science is a rational pursuit of knowledge, but it does not exist in splendid isolation. If this is painted as the ‘ideal’ science, then it is incomplete. People do science, and people and their culture/s are inseparable.

In Aotearoa/New Zealand our nation’s origins lie with the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty is a formal agreement with the third article guaranteeing Māori equal rights and privileges. That means access to education within a system that seeks to fulfil the potential of every individual.

I suspect the heart of the issue is the notion that education should be secular and devoid of any form of spirituality. Proponents of this view would say a karakia (sometimes interpreted as a prayer) to open or close an event, or before guests eat afternoon tea, has no place in education. But in the context of Māori practices and values, and bringing Treaty articles to life, this makes perfect sense. And is absolutely integral.

No it’s not; not in modern education. Keep prayers and MM out of science!

Further, those equal rights and privileges do not include the right to have your legends and mythology taught as science. It’s as if the Constitution gave every Native American the right to have their “way of knowing” taught in schools, and as science. The thing is, we can amend the Constitution, but the Treaty is both nebulous and subject to conflicting interpretations. There is no final authority to rule on what it says, though certainly the Māori should and do have legal and moral equality with everyone else. But that doesn’t include equal rights to have your myths taught in science class—any more than the equality of Americans guarantees that every religious version of “creation” be taught alongside evolution. As Daniel Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Rowland continues by adding that NZ’s Education Act of 1877 established compulsory secular education for “colonial” kids, and extended it in 1894 to all residents of New Zealand. Back then the country had a separation of church and state, though there were religious schools.

But Rowland thinks that 1894 was a big mistake:

Over the past three decades, Māori values, which are inextricably linked to spirituality, have been taken more seriously by the education sector resulting in a shift in the meaning of a secular education. For example, by 1999, all primary and some specialist (physical education) secondary teachers were required to factor spiritual well-being into their teaching programmes. If you’d been trained to think that spirituality has no part in education, as I did then, this was challenging.

But consider the alternative. If Māori values are parked outside state education, who is education for, and on what terms? Clearly, this scenario disregards every aspect of  Te Tiriti o Waitangi and wider indigenous rights.

This is arrant nonsense. Why should there be a guarantee that everyone’s “values” be taught to them in school?  If this were America, and a Christian said that her antiabortion and creationist values should be taught in public schools, she’d immediately be slapped down by the First Amendment. For every group—nay, every person—has different values. Even the constitution and meaning of MM differs among Māori scholars!  If a Māori child needs her values buttressed, there is an entire and tightly knit community, the iwii, to accomplish that.

The purpose of education, at least as I see it, is to impart generally accepted knowledge to students, and to teach them how to think and how to defend and analyze their views. This is precisely the opposite of MM, which is a kind of theology that cannot be questioned or falsified. Under my construal, education is indeed for everyone, but for those groups who have spiritual/religious/moral values that differ from those of other groups, they have to get those things reinforced on their own time.

Finally, we see below that a dean at Auckland University’s faculty of science starts plowing the ground to make way for the teaching of MM as science. This is a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that’s flattening both science and the educational system of Aotearoa:

In my view, efforts to acknowledge and understand mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) enrich the capacity of students and staff to connect across different world views, which is critical if we are to address the inequities in Aotearoa, let alone global crises like climate change. Acknowledgement and understanding of beliefs leads to richer engagement and the building of a relationship of equals.

Universities are the last in the education line to grapple with the duality that comes with meeting Treaty obligations. There is widespread support for this among academics who see the relevance in multiple ways. Our universities are not at a crossroads choosing the path of the universality of science or a race-based ideology. We are on a dual carriageway and the momentum is building.

You see what she’s doing here? The last two sentences give away the goal. I’ll repeat them:

Our universities are not at a crossroads choosing the path of the universality of science or a race-based ideology. We are on a dual carriageway and the momentum is building.

She argues that there’s no need to give precedence to science over whatever she construes as a “race-based ideology”, which to me suggests she’s referring sarcastically to how some characterize MM. The last sentence, at least, implies that both MM and science are speeding along that “dual carriageway” into the science class. And yes, the momentum is building as the Valorization of the Oppressed has dictates that MM is coequal to science. According to the good Dean, you can have your science and your mythology too. Did you know that, according to MM, the Polynesians discovered Antarctica in 700 AD (the real finders were the Russians in 1820), centuries before the MM came to New Zealand? This is all oral legend, and it is wrong. And it’s just as wrong as the “theology” of MM, with its panoply of gods and legends that can’t be supported by evidence.

It’s unbelievable that a science dean at New Zealand’s best university can put out this kind of palaver.  The nation’s scientists, who by and large seem adamantly opposed to this stuff, have no say in the matter, and if they object, they could be fired. It’s politics, Jake!

People of Aotearoa: rise up against this nonsense! Do you want your science education to become the laughingstock of the world? For that is what will happen if the benighted keep barrelling along that dual carriageway of science and nescience.