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.
Send in your photos, folks. We’re doing this feature after my Parisian hiatus, but I always need photos, and in fact we’re running low. Please follow the instructions on the sidebar (or link), “How to send me wildlife photos.” Thanks in advance.
Today’s batch comes from reader Rodney Graetz in Canberra. His narrative and captions are indented, and you can click on his photos to enlarge them.
A Backyard in Autumn
It is Autumn here in Canberra Australia with warm 25°- 30° C (81°F) temperatures in addition to many months of good (La Nina) rainfall, our backyard is humming. Here are a few examples of the activity.
Life at work. We do not feed birds; we do cultivate flowers to attract birds and insects. This flower is a Paper Daisy (Xerochrysum species) native to the arid outback. We chose it for the beauty of its colour and shape and (successfully) predicted that it might also attract insects, even though daisies are not big producers of nectar. If you search this photo, you will find six very different insect species, all foraging in separate parts of the one flower. Life: busy at work.
Look at me, look at me! A light-hearted comment on the strategy of sexual dimorphism – the separate colouring and body shape of male and female organisms and the competition for mating opportunities. Here is the male Orchard Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio aegeus) – I think.
This is the female of the species – I think. She has the wider wingspan with very different wing shape and colouring. Both sexes were happily and simultaneously feeding on the nectar-rich flowers of ‘Butterfly Bush’ (Buddleia sp.), but no display or mating behaviour was noticed.
The body shape of a praying mantis appears too frail for an ambush predator, but obviously, they are successful. Here a slightly battle-worn, thin (starving?) individual; note the tattered antennae. It was still very aware, reacting to my presence metres away shooting with zoom lens. I suspect that the costuming of several of the more bizarre characters in the Star Wars movies, such as Admiral Ackbar, was based on the head shape of a praying mantis.
The ambush predator in action – note the long antennae folded carefully away from the struggle. This mantis – not the same individual as above – hung itself on the underside of a leaf and captured an unsuspecting, daylight-flying Grape Vine Moth. This moth species is a chubby, relatively heavy prey item and it was its vigorous fluttering struggle that I noticed. I was impressed that the mantis was able to continue to hold it while hanging from the leaf. How to stop the fluttering of the heavy moth?
Simple – first, disconnect the control centre.
A familiar fungus (Amanita muscaria), about 3 days old, in the front lawn. Originally a Northern Hemisphere species, now spread world-wide, travelling as a component of the root system mycorrhiza of introduced trees, such as Quercus rubra (Red Oak), a street tree whose scattered, woody leaves are obvious in the photo. I like its symmetrical shape and colour, along with the mystery of its rapid appearance, followed by slow decay, and disappearance. I know it is toxic, but not lethally so, while a close relative, Amanita phalloides (‘Death Cap’), growing just a few streets away, is super-lethal, as two visiting Chinese Chefs recently demonstrated.
A young female (Doe) Eastern Grey Kangaroo [Macropus giganteus], likely less than 3 years old, and her independent young (Joey), both on alert to my presence. This not my backyard – though I have found kangaroos there – but in a nearby (300 metre) nature reserve. Note the focussed orientation of ears, which can rotate about 90°. By her height, this is likely her first joey, which by its size, she can no longer carry in her pouch (marsupium). If you look at her lower abdomen, you can see her pouch is gaping open, indicating that the joey is still suckling. This is one example of why Canberra is called the ‘Bush Capital’.
It’s Monday and the FIRST DAY OF MAY; yep, it’s May 1, 2023. I always celebrate May Dayt by playing Julie Andrews’ rendition of Lerner and Loewe’s “The Lusty Month of May” from Camelot. The 1960 play was made into a movie, but Andrews turned down her role as Guinevere, and was replaced by the Vanessa Redgrave, who could sing, but not nearly as good as Julie.
They don’t write Broadway songs (or musicals) like this any more. Great tune, and lots of clever (and internal) rhymes.
National Barbecue Month
National Loaded Potato Month
National Egg Month
National Hamburger Month
National Salad Month
National Salsa Month
National Strawberry Month
May 1-7: National Raisin Week
May 3-9: National Herb Week
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the May 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*As I recall (though I may be wrong), Trump didn’t give the traditional Presidential stand-up comedy shtick at the Annual White House Correspondents’ dinners, but Biden does. He did it two nights ago, and, as the NYT reports, he finally got a chance to make fun of Fox News.
Whatever news gods decided that the cable television stars Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon should be fired the same week that President Biden was scheduled to give a funny speech ribbing the news media certainly were generous in providing fresh material. And Mr. Biden took advantage on Saturday night as he gleefully mocked some of his favorite foils.
In his annual appearance at the black-tie White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, the one night a year that a president is expected to play a stand-up comic, Mr. Biden made the most of the opportunity with some timely skewering of those who usually skewer him — most notably Fox News, which fired Mr. Carlson on Monday just days after settling a defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million.
But instead of letting you read about it, why don’t you just listen to Biden’s remarks yourself in the video below. Unfortunately, he decided to make a speech about Americans held in Russian captivity before getting funny, but you can skip that and start at about 7:45. He gets in a good shot at Marjorie Taylor Greene. He’s not as funny as Obama, but at least he’s tolerable as a humorist. But then in the last five minutes he reverts to politics again. “Our administration did great things.” The dinner isn’t really the place to start running for reelection.
*As part of the pandemic-induced drive to raise prices but being sneaky about it, many restaurants are, according to the NYT, skipping the free bread and serving a “bread course” for which you are charged. (You’d never see that in France!)
At Nura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, it’s two fresh rounds of butter-drenched naan, nestling a pair of warm Parker House rolls. At Dauphine’s, in Washington, D.C., it’s fat slices of sweet potato brioche with buttermilk biscuits and a demi-baguette. Bird Dog, in Palo Alto, Calif., serves everything-togarashi challah — a Jewish-Japanese hybrid — and at Audrey, in Nashville, there are burnished orbs of Appalachian salt-risen bread.
At a certain tier of restaurants, the bread has been good for decades. But now it has emerged as a course of its own.
“Our Breads,” declares the menu at Marcus Samuelsson’s Hav & Mar, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. At Le Fantastique, in San Francisco, the “Bread & Butter” gets equal billing with the mains: $12 for a baguette with smoked-peppercorn-and-yuzu-kosho-infused butter. Hav & Mar’s basket with Ethiopian-influenced teff buttermilk biscuits and sweet blue cornbread is $19, Nura’s basket is $21 and both offerings come with an assortment of dips.
Twenty bucks for bread? Even if it sounds good, that is a ripoff. But they have an excuse:
“Yes, flour is cheap,” said the chef and restaurateur Greg Baxtrom, whose Rockefeller Center restaurant, Five Acres, serves a laminated carrot curry milk bread accompanied by a copper ring of fresh pea butter for $14, “but labor is expensive.”
I’m sorry, but I’m morally opposed to paying for bread. What’s next, a water course? They already have that: Badoit, Perrier, and other fancy waters. But never in France will I pay for water when you can order a free “carafe d’eau”.
*Palestine is going to continue its “pay-for-slay” program (also called “The Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund“) in which Palestinians convicted of harming or killing Jews in terrorist attacks get payments for themselves or their families while they’re in prison. And remember, money that America gives to Palestine eventually finds its way into these funds. That means YOUR taxpayer dollars.
The PA government recently approved its 2023 budget. Presenting the budget to the cabinet, Shtayyeh explained that the budget included a deficit of US$610 million. While acknowledging that the PA’s terror reward payments are causing financial damage to the PA, Shtayyeh clarified that the PA has no intention to abolish the payments:
Shtayyeh: “The Israeli monetary deductions and the decrease in the number of donors are meant to pressure us and subdue us, but everyone knows that we will not trade in policy for money, and what is important is that we rely on each other and understand the reality we live in.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 4, 2023]
Fortunately, Israel has a way of taking back that money from Palestine:
“The Israeli monetary deductions” Shtayyeh complained about, refer to deductions made pursuant to Israel’s Anti-Pay-for-Slay law. The law, passed in 2018 with the assistance of Palestinian Media Watch, provides that Israel must deduct from the taxes it collects and transfers to the PA, the sum the PA spent in the previous year paying salaries to imprisoned and released terrorists and allowances to the wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorists – cumulatively known as the PA’s Pay-for-Slay policy.
Since the law was first implemented in February 2019, Israel has made decisions to deduct 2,479,478,454 shekels – a sum equivalent to the PA’s Pay-for-Slay payments in 2018 through 2022. As of the end of March 2023, Israel had actually deducted 2,014,058,985 shekels, and the remainder will be deducted during the rest of 2023.
According to the law, the sums deducted are frozen and held till such a time when the PA abolishes its policy.
But, as noted above, the Palestinians still underwrite terrorism despite the economic loss to the rest of the country. This shows where their priorities are. (And yes, the American taxpayer does subsidize this, for our government gives $$ to Palestine, with the caveat that it can’t be used to pay terrorists, but of course this just frees up money from other sources that can now be used to pay terrorists!
It’s a travesty that the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israelis groups ignore this “pay for slay” policy. Can you imagine the field day that the American media would have if they discovered that Israel was paying its own civilians to kill Palestinians, and gave them a salary if they were caught? The world would be outraged! But when the Palestinian Authority does it, well, it’s business as usual. The old double standard.
*Part of the “Hanoi Hilton,” the infamous North Vietnamese prison where downed American airmen were kept during the Vietnam war, has now been salvaged and is on display at the American Heritage Museum outside Boston. (I believe John McCain was kept there.) A fascinating article at CBS News describes the prison, its horrible torturous regimen, and the reactions of former prisoners who visited the exhibit.
Robert Shumaker, who was shot down in 1965, said, “You’re on top of the world, flying this fighter that could go a thousand miles an hour, you know? You’re invincible. And there you are on the ground, you know, and reduced to almost being an animal.”
Often injured when they bailed out, the pilots were abused by angry villagers, given crude medical care, and held under not just harsh, but cruel conditions.
Shumaker showed Martin leg irons that were applied to those who “misbehaved.” “They’d lock your ankles in here,” he said.
“How long would they leave you in those things?” Martin asked.
“I was in it for, I think, maybe two or three weeks or so.”
And worse, much worse, awaited them in a place called the Knobby Room – the torture room where the Vietnamese would try to extract information from the prisoners. “I was tortured 12 times,” Shumaker said.
Drawings by Mike McGrath show us exactly what that torture looked like. “They put your arms behind your back and they’ll cinch up your elbows until your ribs start pulling apart here,” McGrath said. “Then they rotate over your head until your shoulder dislocates, and no man can stand the pain.”
Shumaker noted, “They ran a metal bar down my throat to keep me from screaming.”
What were they trying to get out of you? Shumaker said, “They just wanted to get propaganda statements out of us, about how we (according to them) bombed churches and pagodas and all kinds of things, which was untrue.”
McGrath said, “No man stuck to name, rank, serial number. Impossible. We all had guilt feelings that we broke a bond with the United States and gave information, whether false or true.”
Four-hundred-and-ninety-three men the North Vietnamese called “air pirates” were captured in North Vietnam. Twenty-eight died in prison.
The rest came home.
Even those these men were brave, it was a senseless war, and 50,000 more died for no good reason.
*In what almost looks like an attempt to smear people who were associated with the late and much-despised Jeffrey Epstein, the Wall Street Journal has dug up some more people who met with Epstein and whose association with the convicted sex offender had not been previously publicized.
The nation’s spy chief, a longtime college president and top women in finance. The circle of people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein years after he was a convicted sex offender is wider than previously reported, according to a trove of documents that include his schedules.
William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2021, had three meetings scheduled with Epstein in 2014, when he was deputy secretary of state, the documents show. They first met in Washington and then Mr. Burns visited Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan.
Kathryn Ruemmler, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, had dozens of meetings with Epstein in the years after her White House service and before she became a top lawyer at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2020. He also planned for her to join a 2015 trip to Paris and a 2017 visit to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, invited Epstein, who brought a group of young female guests, to the campus. Noam Chomsky, a professor, author and political activist, was scheduled to fly with Epstein to have dinner at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2015.
None of their names appear in Epstein’s now-public “black book” of contacts or in the public flight logs of passengers who traveled on his private jet. The documents show that Epstein arranged multiple meetings with each of them after he had served jail time in 2008 for a sex crime involving a teenage girl and was registered as a sex offender. The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, haven’t been previously reported.
The documents don’t reveal the purpose of most of the meetings. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t verify whether every scheduled meeting took place.
Well isn’t that special? Now these people will be fighting off inquiries for the rest of their lives. Chomsky’s response was particularly pungent:
When asked about his relationship with Epstein, Mr. Chomsky replied in an email: “First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally.”
In March 2015, Epstein scheduled a gathering with Mr. Chomsky and Harvard University professor Martin Nowak and other academics, according to the documents. Mr. Chomsky said they had several meetings at Mr. Nowak’s research institute to discuss neuroscience and other topics.
Epstein donated at least $850,000 to MIT between 2002 and 2017, and more than $9.1 million to Harvard from 1998 to 2008, the schools have said. In 2021, Harvard said it was sanctioning Mr. Nowak for violating university policies in his dealings with Epstein, and was shutting a research center he ran that Epstein had funded. MIT said it was inappropriate to accept Epstein’s gifts, and that it later donated $850,000 to nonprofits supporting survivors of sexual abuse.
Here’s Epstein’s mansion in the Virgin Islands, reportedly the site of sexual abuse of underaged girls:
(From WSJ): Epstein’s former residence on a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. PHOTO: EMILY MICHOT/TNS/ZUMA PRESS
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Kulka are about to scrap again:
A tweet from Masih. Man, the Iranian theocrats are getting really antsy about women removing their hijabs. Let’s remember this when we hear some Western feminists or hijabis inform us that the hijab is a “choice”.
The Islamic Republic officials threatened women by announcing that if they take off their hijabs, they will be identified by face recognition cameras and arrested. This is how brave women of Iran responded:#WomanLifeFreedompic.twitter.com/sMU1C83EJT
It simply means the immutable yet fluid feeling that one is male or female or neither or both based on conceptions of masculinity and femininity that are innate but also social constructs that don’t exist.
From Luana, who says that “someone misses the point” of our paper. Indeed.
Science is political, because it is done by humans with all their attendant biases. Insisting science is apolitical, and that acknowledging the biases inherent in the status quo *introduces* politics into science, is not helpful, and will only hamper scientific progress 🤷♀️ pic.twitter.com/eBfxpM0r8F
From Malcom, a samurai arrow. Sound up, of course! Freaky!
Kabura-ya (鏑矢) is a Japanese arrow used by the samurai in feudal Japan. Its sound was created by a specially carved bulb of deer horn attached to the tip & believed to chase away evil spirits before the battle 🔊
Sometimes there's a tweet where you're like, "Okay, I understand where this person is coming from and, with patience, I might be able to correct some of their misconceptions."
And sometimes you go, "Okay, at least humans are mortal and this person won't be around forever." pic.twitter.com/GUHwmpvzYT
Friends, we live in challenging times. But this morning, I am celebrating being alive at the same time that this magnificent dick- shaped iceberg exists. And as I type, it's being carried by the ocean currents, headed to the town of Dildo, Newfoundland. #DickeyBerg#IceBirdpic.twitter.com/1c6MMjduqr
I’ve circled it, so here it is. I can’t see the wings: perhaps they’re too clear to see or this is a newly emerged adult and hasn’t yet expanded its wings
Here’s a paper from the journal Environment and Planning F:Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice that one can take as the definitive statement of the value of indigenous “ways of knowing” (mātauranga Māori, or MM) in New Zealand, and why they are at least as good as, but less “harmful” than, colonialist Western knowledge. Nearly all the authors save Tara McAllister are on the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland, which used to be (note past tense) the best university in New Zealand. This paper is a dreadful and nearly impenetrable piece of work, but I went through it, and I’m here to tell you several things:
a. This paper does not tell us how Pūtaiao, defined as “Kaupapa Māori science” (the Māori are of course the descendants of Polynesians who peopled New Zealand when Europeans arrived and settled), will actually operate, except that it’s supposed to be the special purview of Māori, and non-Māori can’t properly practice it. (“Kaupapa Māori science” is defined in the glossary—yes, the is one—as science done according to “Māori approaches, principles, and vision”. ) There is not ONE EXAMPLE of Kaupapa Māori science showing its distinctness from modern science, or how it will supplement or be superior to modern science.
b. The paper shows us how heavily the academic version of MM has been influenced by French postmodernism. This accounts not only for several features of Pūtaiao, like intersectionality and standpoint epistemology, as well as by the claim that science is deeply and thoroughly infected with racism and genocide, but also explains why the paper is written in a way that is nearly impossible to understand. I used to reject claims that those who pushed Māori ways of knowing were infected with postmodernism, but this paper makes it clear that at least those academics who defend these ways of knowing are postmodernists.
c. The paper is replete with victimology and virtue flaunting, beginning with each of the authors identifying their sub-tribe of Māori at the outset, ending with a long description of the biographies of the authors (their standpoints), and, most obviously, being heavily larded with Māori language throughout (remember that 16.5% of New Zealanders are Māori, only 1% less than the percentage of Asians in the country, while Europeans are about 72%). Moreover, those who speak Māori are much rarer: as Newshub notes,
The fact that you can’t understand this paper without a glossary unless you’re one of the 1-3% of Kiwis who speak Māori, combined with its constant claims of victimization of indigenous people and of the evil deeds of Western science and scientists, makes this effort a prime example of “the authority of the sacred victim.” But victimology does not justify or buttress a “way of knowing”, and so the paper turns into a long disquisition about the philosophy of Pūtaiao as argued by Auckland academics. It says nothing concrete about what kind of science Pūtaiao will produce, why it needs its own institutes to keep it separate from “Western science”, how it differs in practice from modern science, what its advantages are over modern science, and so on. Any real scientist reading this will cry out “Just give me one lousy example of the kind of scientific research you’re talking about. Tell me about questions and projects which Pūtaiao will approach differently from modern science, and how the Māori methods are superior.”
They do not even come close to addressing that question in this long and tedious paper, which makes me, at least, echo H. L. Mencken: “What are the sweating professors trying to say?”
d. Finally, since we have big-shot professors pushing this line of inquiry, and the government and all those who wish to keep their jobs will fall in line, this bodes very poorly for the future of science in New Zealand. Science being turned into a form of indigenous “ways of knowing” that are not recognizable as, much less compatible with, modern science, and a “science” like the one described here threatens to put its head up its fundament by an obsession with victimology, philosophy, etymology, identity politics, and local lore.
New Zealanders who want to really help understand the universe and engage in genuine science, as opposed to science permeated with religious lore, morality, special private language and statements about how “everything is inteconnected”, had best go overseas to do their studies. I’m absolutely serious. This paper, and everything I’ve read, tells me that science in Aoteoroa—what the authors call “New Zealand,” (a country whose name is being subsumed into Māori)—is no longer circling the drain, but is actually in it.
If you worry about how American science is being wrecked by ideology, well, New Zealand will show you what the next step in this process will look like (Canada is getting there, too). I have no confidence that the degeneration of science in New Zealand can be corrected, for those who oppose what’s happening have been silenced by fears of ostracism or of losing their jobs. (Thanks, Royal Society of New Zealand!)
Click screenshot to read the article for free, or download the pdf here.
To get a flavor of the paper, read the abstract, which I’ll put below:
ABSTRACT.
Overcoming the long-standing distrust of ‘research’ is especially challenging within the colonial structures of Western science. This article aspires to rise to this challenge by conceptualising Pūtaiao as a form of Indigenous research sovereignty. Grounded in Kaupapa Māori Theory, Pūtaiao is envisioned as a Kaupapa Māori way of doing science in which Indigenous leadership is imperative. It incorporates Māori ways of knowing, being, and doing when undertaking scientific research. An essential element of Pūtaiao is setting a decolonising agenda, drawing from both Kaupapa Māori Theory and Indigenous methodologies. Accordingly, this centres the epistemology, ontology, axiology and positionality of researchers in all research, which informs their research standpoint. This approach speaks back to ontological framings of Western scientific research that restrict Indigenous ways of researching in the scientific academy. Furthermore, Pūtaiao offers tools and language to critique the academic disciplines of Western science which are a colonial construct within the global colonising agenda. As such, the theoretical search for Indigenous science(s) and Indigenising agendas explore the dialogical relationship between both knowledge systems – Kaupapa Māori science and Western science. This relationship necessitates setting a decolonising agenda before an Indigenising agenda can be realised, whereby they are mutually beneficial rather than mutually exclusive. This article is an affirmation of the work and discourse of Indigenous scientists. In this way, Pūtaiao becomes a pathway for asserting Indigenous sovereignty over and redefining scientific research for future generations of Māori and Indigenous researchers.
It would help if they actually TOLD us how modern science (properly decolonized) and Kaupapa Māori science are mutually beneficial.
I’ll give a few quotes from the paper to apprise you of its tenor.
MM as science:
In summary, Pūtaiao reframes the current scientific discourse around the inclusion of mātauranga Māori in science to consider the relationship between Te Ao Māori, and science through Kaupapa Māori Theory and methodologies. Importantly, science is not conceptualised simply as scientific knowledge but understood as a knowledge system.
The evils of “Western” science and postmodernism and the intent to “disrupt” modern science:
Importantly, culturalist approaches alone are not sufficient to disrupt, decolonise and transform knowledge systems, such as science. This is illustrated by a critical examination of the colonial origins of science and the consistent use of science as both a justification for, and a tool of, colonial violence and oppression against Māori and Indigenous peoples. Culturalist approaches are distinguished from structuralist approaches by their focus on aligning space, structures and systems with Māori and Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing.
. . . Science including eugenics, genetics, genomics, epidemiology have been, and in many cases continue to be, used to scientifically justify racism and colonial violence in the form of ‘genocidal violence (killing of peoples), linguicide (death of languages), epistemicide (destruction of knowledge systems), cultural genocide (destruction of cultures) and ecocide (destruction of eco-systems)’ (Havemann, 2016: 49).
Intersectionality:
Simultaneously, we might also recognise the internal diversity of Māori experiences and local knowledges, such that there may not be one ‘true’ or comprehensively singular perspective shared by all Māori. Here, a relativist ontology might be useful in situating intersections of age, race, gender, class, sexuality, rural and urban positionalities in a sociocultural context configured by matrices of power relations, and multiple perspectives within and between Iwi, Hapū and whānau. In this way, a Māori ontology is inclusive of specific ontologies of diverse whānau, Hapū and Iwi, based on shared understandings and experiences through whakapapa.
Simultaneously, we might also recognise the internal diversity of Māori experiences and local knowledges, such that there may not be one ‘true’ or comprehensively singular perspective shared by all Māori. Here, a relativist ontology might be useful in situating intersections of age, race, gender, class, sexuality, rural and urban positionalities in a sociocultural context configured by matrices of power relations, and multiple perspectives within and between Iwi, Hapū and whānau. In this way, a Māori ontology is inclusive of specific ontologies of diverse whānau, Hapū and Iwi, based on shared understandings and experiences through whakapapa.
The equivalence of modern science and Pūtaiao in rigor and creation of knowledge about the universe:
Western science, in this context, approaches scientific knowledge and methods from a Western worldview, based on Western ways of being, knowing and doing. In contrast, Pūtaiao as Kaupapa Māori science centres Māori ways of being, knowing and doing. Both approaches are equally rigorous and create reliable knowledge. The participation of Māori within the science knowledge system, however, is not a choice to subscribe or assimilate to Western science or Western worldviews.
The admission that Pūtaiao is really more than science. It seems clear that one of the “advantages” of Pūtaiao as the authors see it is that it is NOT just a way of producing knowledge and that knowledge itself: it is also a way of telling us how to live. That’s why MM is not equivalent to science.
Mātauranga is central to Kaupapa Māori. Mātauranga is both a body of knowledge, and an epistemology – a way of knowing and worldview. Royal (2009) states that,
The purpose of indigenous knowledge is not merely to describe the world (acquire facts about phenomena) but ultimately to understand how one may live well in it. Indigenous knowledge is thus value-laden and value-driven. It seeks mutually enhancing relationships between the human community and the natural world. (p. 114)
Here, whanaungatanga, relationships, are a critical element of Kaupapa Māori, mediating research at every stage. Extending on this, Hoskins and Jones (2017) express that,
The identity of ‘things’ in the world is not understood as discrete or independent, but emerges through and relates to everything else. It is the relation, or connection, not the thing itself, that is ontologically privileged in Indigenous and Māori thought. (p. 51)
This is the nature of how we come to know as Māori. Literature, both academic and the literature shared through whakapapa kōrero (ancestral narratives, histories), waiata (songs), whakataukī (proverb, aphorism), whakairo (to carve), and many more ways are key to expressions of mātauranga within Pūtaiao. The environment is central to understanding mātauranga, as Durie (2005) explains,
Seriously, what do these have to do with with science?
But wait! There’s more: (“Whakapapa” is defined in the paper’s glossary as “a way of knowing about the world through intergenerational relationships.” It is the genealogical aspect of MM that allows the incorporation of legend and ancestral stories into MM.):
From Kaupapa Māori critical theories and social constructionist approaches we explore how whakapapa ‘provides the theoretical or epistemological basis for a Maori “way of knowing” about the world’ (Roberts, 2013: 93) where ‘whakapapa maps epistemologies (including tribal concepts, principles, ideas, and related practices) and locates them within a particular context’ (Bean et al., 2012). As described by Burgess and Painting (2020),
The concept of whakapapa explains the origins, positioning, and futures of all things. Whakapapa derives from the root ‘papa’, meaning a base or foundation. Whakapapa denotes a layering, adding to that foundation. Rooted in creation, generations layer upon each other, creating a reality of intergenerational relationships. Everything has whakapapa, all phenomena, spiritual and physical, from celestial bodies, days and nights, through to the winds, lands, waters, and all that transpires throughout. (p. 208)
Whakapapa, is not only a body of knowledge but a way of understanding the universe, and all its complexities, by weaving existence together within genealogical constructs as the foundation of Māori ways of being, knowing and doing.
Finally, because I’m getting tired and also angry,
The Māori brand of science must have its own safe space, and can be practiced and analyzed only by Māori:
For a Māori axiology, data ethics acts as a beginning, a process to create axiological space in research and recognise that in order for Māori Data Sovereignty to be realised, Māori data must be subject to tikanga and Māori governance. Here, Māori Data Governance refers to tikanga, policies, laws, and structures through which Māori exercise control and autonomy over Māori data (Kukutai and Cormack, 2020). Te Mana Raraunga – the Māori Data Sovereignty network – have published a charter outlining tikanga for data, and a Mana Mahi (Governance-Operations) framework to support the inherent rights of Māori with regards to Māori data. In Pūtaiao, this is based on whakapapa in terms of a deep intergenerational relationship with people and the natural world.
1. Asserting Māori rights and interests in relation to data.
2. Ensuring data for and about Māori can be safeguarded and protected.
3. Requiring the quality and integrity of Māori data and their collection.
4. Advocating for Māori involvement in the governance of data repositories Indigenous Data Sovereignty.
5. Supporting the development of Māori data infrastructure and security systems.
6. Supporting the development of sustainable Māori digital businesses and innovations.
In this way Pūtaiao or “Kaupapa Māori science” becomes the exclusive purview of Māori themselves—almost like a club or fraternity. This is very different from modern science, in which all are welcome to participate, including of course Māori. Modern science is an international enterprise with a worldwide form of practice and recognition of results, while Pūtaiao can be practiced only in Aoteoroa (the authors outline how they’ve constructed a self-contained institute practicing Pūtaiao), and its analysis is deemed refractory to inspection by “outsiders” from modern science. After all, who wants Māori science judged by those evil Western scientists who purvey genocide, linguicide, and even ecocide and epistemicide?
If you have any doubt that these authors±who appear to be almost oblivious to the fact science is not philosophy—are clueless about how to attain their goal, read the final 1½-page section of the paper, “How do we transform scientific research?” It’s a big metaphor about trees and forests with no concrete answers to the question.
In the end, we have a lovely country, with lovely people, falling victim to a form of postmodernism that has affected academia to the point that it no longer accepts modern science, though it pretends it does. (Of course these same people are flying in planes, using antibiotics and GPS devices, and so on.) But New Zealand’s excessive fealty towards the authority of the sacred victim, the Māori, and the citizens’ unwillingness to say, “Stop the madness!” is going to erode whatever good science is left. It’s very sad, but in the end it is the fault of the people themselves, and of their government.
Here physicist Sabine Hossenfelder turns her attention away from physics towards a far more incendiary topic: gender transitions. In this 27-minute video (the last 1.5 minutes is a commercial) she covers the topics below, concentrating on published data to draw her conclusions. In general it’s a good introduction to the issue, and certainly not “transphobic”.
If you haven’t kept up on the issues like the recent determination in some countries that hormone blockers should be considered an experimental clinical procedure rather than a routine treatment), it’s edifying to watch the video. As a physicist, she’s particularly attuned not just to statistically significant effects, but large effects with high statistical significance. We don’t see that in many studies on the effects of affirmative care, puberty blockers, transitioning, and so on, and she is right that sample sizes are quite low and studies generally over too short a period.
I am distilling Hossenfelder’s conclusions below, inserting my own take only when necessary (I make it clear when I do).
a.) What makes a male versus a female? Although she implicitly complains that there are two sexes (and some rare intersexes), she relies on a chromosome-based sex definition rather than one based on gamete size. (She is correct that XXs are usually females and XYs males, but this is not always the case due to chromosome-related “disorders of sex determination”; and at any rate, she should use the definition adopted by biologists who actually deal with sex in plants and animals.)
b.) What is gender and gender dysphoria? Unfortunately, as per some trans activists, Hossenfelder uses sex and gender interchangeably, and adopts the term “assigned gender at birth” for the entire video. But genders aren’t “assigned” at birth; rather, biological sex is RECOGNIZED at birth (usually by its correlates). The phrase is thus doubly confusing. This is my quibble; I have no objection to the rest of her discussion, which is short.
c.) How hard is it to be transgender? Hossenfelder describes the stigmatization of transgender people throughout the world (it’s illegal in some places), the higher rate of sexual violence they experience, and their higher risk of suicide (she doesn’t mention that the latter may be a correlate of gender dysphoria, which itself could result from general mental problems, rather than suicide being actually caused by a person identifying as a member of one’s nonbiological sex.
d.) Is the recent rise in the proportion of transgender people due at all to social contagion? The rise is quite dramatic in the US and UK where we have decent data: in some place a doubling or tripling in the last five years. It’s also seen in Sweden, Canada, and other places that keep records. She notes that most of the increase comes from gender dysphoria in young biological women (a reversal of the situation in past years). Hossenfelder notes that social contagion is at least a plausible hypothesis because far more adolescent girls than adolescent boys have mental health issues, which could lead to gender dysphoria. But there are no solid data implicating social causation, says Hossenfelder, nor conclusive evidence for the syndrome of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” said to be prompted by social contagion (i.e., people being prompted to identify as trans due to social pressure or a desire to conform).
e.) What about gender affirming care and puberty blockers? (These are associated, of course, because part of gender-affirming care is a readiness to prescribe puberty blocks to children with gender dysphoria.) Hossenfelder notes that the touted “perfect safety” of puberty blockers is dubious. Although they do stop puberty, they also have some noxious side effects. More important, there are not enough long-term studies of the medical effects of taking puberty blockers, but the data we have suggest that bone density doesn’t recover after stopping them, and they may be associated with heart problems and infertility.There’s also no strong evidence that taking puberty blockers improves the mental health of the children taking them.
f.) Is hormone therapy efficacious or dangerous? Yes, it does change secondary sex characteristics, but is neither completely reversible nor efficacious in completely eliminating sex-based differences in some traits, even if discontinued. However, hormone therapy does seem to increase life satisfaction and reduce depression, but the changes are small and some of the studies lack control groups or placebo-effect treatments. Further, the studies haven’t been long-term studies, sample sizes have been small, and hormones like testosterone may reduce depression in biological males themselves, not just in trans males, so it may be a general and not transgender-specific effect. In some of these conclusions Hossenfelder relies on critiques by Jesse Singal.
Her conclusion are summarized in this chart:
Here general take, as you see, is one of caution towards both the physical and psychological effects of transitioning. We don’t know whether the rise in gender dysphoria and transitioning is due to social conditioning, a new freedom to be yourself, or both. As she says, “Anyone who insists that one of those possibilities doesn’t exist is pushing an agenda, and shouldn’t be taken seriously.” The fact that we can’t separate those two causes explains why countries like Sweden, the UK, and Finland are placing hormone blockers in the category of an experimental treatment.
It’s Sunday, and here is John Avise with his weekly batch of bird photos. John’s narrative and IDs are indented, and click on the photos to enlarge them.
Home Sweet Cavity
Many avian species are cavity nesters in nature, either excavating or taking over holes in dead or living trees for their nests. However, especially with the dwindling of old-growth forests across much of North America, a paucity of natural wood cavities has become a limiting factor in the breeding success of some such species. Accordingly, bird lovers have built and put out countless nesting boxes explicitly for these birds. This week’s batch of photos show several cavity-nesting avian species and either the excavated cavities or man-made boxes that they utilize for nesting. Except where noted, all pictures were taken in Southern California.
Matthew found this tweet from Marianne Denton with a hidden damselfly in it. Can you spot it? This is pretty damn hard. PLEASE don’t reveal the location in the comments; just say “found it” if you found it.
I’ve put an enlarged version of the photo at bottom; click once or twice to make it big.
