Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I suspect the answer to the title question is “No way!”, but the incursion of Mātauranga Māori (“MM”, or Māori “ways of knowing”) into New Zealand’s science is reaching ludicrous depths. Even in the U.S.A. we don’t see headlines like the one below. (Note that “complement” is misspelled as “compliment”.) Why am I so sure … Continue reading Could Mātauranga Māori advance quantum physics?
A Kiwi sent me this just-posted “Shape of Dialogue” video, which, although quite long for me (2 hours!), has an explanation of mātauranga Māori (MM) by a part-Māori scholar and musician, Charles Royal. Royal’s webpage shows that he’s not only an expert in “indigenous knowledge”, but also “Advise[s] and Lead[s] Projects and People, particularly to … Continue reading A Māori scholar/musician explains mātauranga Māori
Karen Finn, labeled below as a “PhD. candidate, University of Auckland,” is also identified in this short article as “a geography teacher and a teacher editor” who’s “researching decolonizing school geography in Aotearoa New Zealand for a Ph.D. in Education.” The short piece appears on Ipū Kirerū, the blog of the New Zealand Association for … Continue reading A New Zealand geography teacher calls for giving Mātauranga Māori “equal status” in the classroom
You may well recognize the name of Nick Matzke, as he was the former Public Information Project Director of the National Center for Science Education, wrote a lot of good anti-creationist material (including a debunking of the “irreducible complexity” of bacterial flagella as adduced by IDers), and played a major role in organizing the prosecution … Continue reading Nick Matzke on Mātauranga Māori vs. modern science
Judging from this video lecture and Q&A session below by a Māori climate scientist, the answer to the title question is “no”. A New Zealand biologist and teacher sent me the 46-minute video, angered at its intellectual vacuity, as you can detect from his/her email. (By the way, the scientists I quote are different people, … Continue reading Can mātauranga Māori help us understand climate change?
Let’s go back for a tick to the fracas in New Zealand over the government’s plan to teach Mātauranga Māori (henceforth MM) or Māori “ways of knowing”, as co-equivalent to modern science in public school science classes. Universities are following the schools’ lead, and touting MM as an almost untouchable but diverse collection of practical knowledge, myth, theology, … Continue reading Another weak defense of Mātauranga Māori
As I’ve written many times, Mātauranga Māori (MM)—considered the “way of knowing” of the indigenous Māori, who arrived in what is now New Zealand from Polynesia in the 13th century—has been the subject of some kerfuffle in NZ. That’s because there’s a movement, promoted not just by the Māori but by many white “allies”, to … Continue reading Is Mātauranga Māori really a “way of knowing”?
I won’t explain in detail the “way of knowing” of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand, the “traditional knowledge” of Mātauranga Māori (henceforth MM), as it’s defined in Wikipedia. You can read all my posts about MM and its issues here (including one post yesterday). Suffice it to say two things. MM is a … Continue reading A sensible way to reconcile Mātauranga Māori and science
Below is the entirety of an article from the New Zealand Herald, and is relevant to our continuing discussion of Mātauranga Māori (MM), the Māori “way of knowing,” a mixture of practical knowledge (often acquired by trial and error), legend, word of mouth, ideology, theology, morality, and spiritualism. My beef is the continuing demand that … Continue reading Advocates of Mātauranga Māori request over $100 million dollars, part of which may be for woo
Suddenly I am inundated with emails from disaffected Kiwis who take issue with the New Zealand government’s and academia’s new push to teach mātauranga Māori , or Māori “ways of knowing” as coequal with real science in high-school and university science classes. Many of these people are worried that the country is being swept with … Continue reading More news from New Zealand about the big science vs. indigenous “knowledge” ruckus
