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Split Thread Maori Creationism in Science lessons

Graham2001

Graduate Poster
Graham2001
Joined
Aug 19, 2006
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1,740
Good luck, it's certainly worth trying. Not so sure about other things they are doing.


There's a claim doing the rounds that they want to teach (Maori) Creationism in science classes.

Split from this thread.
Posted By: zooterkin
 
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Graham2001 said:
Good luck, it's certainly worth trying. Not so sure about other things they are doing.


There's a claim doing the rounds that they want to teach (Maori) Creationism in science classes.
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Can we accept that some things are irrelevant to this discussion? And some of the points raised here do nothing but attempt to nuke the conversation. They are:

1.) governments are bad. Nothing they do is right.
2.) New Zealand is too small to care about anyway.
3.) some other crap that I want to talk about even though there are a bunch of other threads I have already spammed on this topic.
 
Graham2001 said:
There's a claim doing the rounds that they want to teach (Maori) Creationism in science classes.
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Not quite creationism, but Maori legend is given equal prominence to science.

Richard Dawkins summed it up quite nicely: https://richarddawkins.net/2021/12/...s-letter-to-the-royal-society-of-new-zealand/

The irony of teaching a neolithic people's fairytales in science class is pretty funny.

According to Maori, you can't do science without them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...fires-to-antarctic-changes-sparks-controversy
 
The Atheist said:
The irony of teaching a neolithic people's fairytales in science class is pretty funny.
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Because teaching western 'science' has been such a roaring success:-
I personally don’t have any discomfort having worked for the oil companies. All the people I worked with were just as honest and ethical as people I’ve worked with in other organizations. I don’t feel like I’m helping the “evil empire” – I don’t feel any shame. I’m just helping a company that produces a product that is still massively consumed worldwide.
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I work with scientists who are like that. All their 'science' is about making more profits for the horticultural industry, while the really important stuff never gets a mention. We pretend that 'science' is some kind of higher truth that transcends culture, when in fact it is its servant. And when the culture is a capitalist society obsessed with obtaining material 'wealth' at the expense of the environment, the result is complicity and disaster.

According to Maori, you can't do science without them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...fires-to-antarctic-changes-sparks-controversy
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It's called cultural insensitivity. The scientists who published that finding don't appreciate how it will be used by racists to paint Maori as being anti-environment (along with all their other failings), while Europeans and others get a pass for far worse stuff.

But burrowing deep into the article we find that,
While the emissions were small compared with many current-day fires, he said, they were notable coming from a small island. “If you compare it to what’s coming out of the Amazon [burning] now, for instance, it’s small by comparison,” McConnell said. “What was surprising to us was that New Zealand’s got a relatively small land area, and the emissions for such a small land area were pretty large.”

Also surprising was how emissions from Māori arrivals compared with subsequent European ones. “The burning emissions from New Zealand were comparable in the 16th century to what they were soon after European arrival in New Zealand,”
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Yes, early Maori - not understanding the consequences of their actions - burnt a bit of forest at the same time that Europeans were decimating theirs (only being 'saved' from disaster by switching to coal). But Maori culture changed to the point where now they are sworn to protect the land, which is more than we can say for Europe,
Europe has lost a vastly increased area of forest to harvesting in recent years, data suggests, reducing the continent’s carbon absorption capacity and possibly indicating wider problems with the EU’s attempts to combat the climate crisis...

“The forests continue to remain a carbon sink, but less than before,” said Ceccherini. “Even if part of the harvested biomass carbon is used in long-lasting wood products, possibly replacing more energy-intensive materials such as steel or cement, most of it will return to the atmosphere as CO2 in a short period of time, [from] months to a few years.
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The truth is 'science' got us into this current mess, and isn't offering a lot of help to get us out of it. Western science might be a success mathematically, but it's failing culturally. At this point we we might actually be better off teaching "neolithic people's fairytales" as a counterpoint to 'scientifically' raping the planet.
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
I work with scientists who are like that. All their 'science' is about making more profits for the horticultural industry, while the really important stuff never gets a mention. We pretend that 'science' is some kind of higher truth that transcends culture, when in fact it is its servant. And when the culture is a capitalist society obsessed with obtaining material 'wealth' at the expense of the environment, the result is complicity and disaster.
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If you're working with such scientists, doesn't that make you equally complicit?
 
angrysoba said:
Of course it is ridiculous. Fairy tales belong in religious studies classes, not in science classes.
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I think what we're learning is that at the elementary school level, there's no difference. It's all received wisdom being passed on by lay instructors who are themselves products of the same system. Instructors who probably don't have any better grasp of the underlying scientific facts or their implications than the students they're "teaching".
 
ynot said:
What is the perceived upside of this?
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Like the idiotic "New Zealand Maths", it creates a subject for dummies.

Which is actually racist in itself - they're saying brown kids don't have the ability to learn complex subjects.

Cop out, bruh!
 
The Atheist said:
Science doesn't have any cultural relevance.

Science does facts and evidence, hypotheses and testing. No culture. It's not white, brown, black or green.
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Yeah. If I were an NZ school teacher, I think I'd use Maori culture to compare and contrast with the scientific method, but in general I don't think science class is the best place to teach culture. How is this actually playing out in the classroom?
 
The Atheist said:
Science doesn't have any cultural relevance.

Science does facts and evidence, hypotheses and testing. No culture. It's not white, brown, black or green.
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Exactly. It's always the condescending pat on the head for ethnic minorities coming from the left with this sort of thing these days. We're not doing anybody any favours by pretending their fairy tales have scientific merit or to not hold them to the same standards and measures of accomplishment as anyone else. This sort of condescending racism will only hold them back.

The only amazing thing is that this appears to be controversial among the modern left.
 
Too early to tell how it's playing. It's fairly recent and even teachers don't quite understand it so far.
 
arthwollipot said:
Cultural relevance.
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You think cultural relevance is a science subject that should be taught in science classes?

I see in this latter post you no longer seem to think this . . .
arthwollipot said:
Yeah. If I were an NZ school teacher, I think I'd use Maori culture to compare and contrast with the scientific method, but in general I don't think science class is the best place to teach culture. How is this actually playing out in the classroom?
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I will ignore your claim that teaching cultural relevance in a science class is an "upside" (as you now have done).

Perhaps Skeptical Greg may care to provide an actual answer?
 
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Roboramma said:
Is this being taught as sociology and anthropology or as biology and cosmology?
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It's at school, where science is taught as a general subject, and Maori legend in given equal prominence, so it's being taught alongside chemistry, biology and physics.

Sociology isn't part of the science curriculum.
 
Jerry Coyne has been following this and put together a blog posting covering various comments, everyone from Richard Dawkins to the 'Daily Fail', some of it's paywalled.


From what I hear from my Kiwi friends in academia, some of whom keep publicly quiet about these developments given the political climate, the government and universities in New Zealand are standing firm in their resolve to teach mātauranga Māori, or “Maori ways of knowing” alongside and coequal to modern (i.e., real) science in both high schools and universities. I’ve described the controversy in seveeral recent posts.


This is one example of a clash between two values of “progressive liberals”: in this case, traditional or indigenous “knowledge” is valued because it is held by oppressed groups, but its assertions, including creationism, clash with the respect that the Left is supposed to have for the findings of science. (Another example is Western feminists deliberately ignoring the oppression of women in some Muslim countries).
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https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021...ongside-science-in-high-schools-and-colleges/


I think the sad irony in this is that when Biblical Creatonists were making their big pushes to get their 'way of knowing' taught in science classrooms one of the major skeptical retorts was that to consistent the Creationists should be demanding to teach other religiously derived ceation stories.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
I have no idea..

My question was addressed to those who think it's a good idea..
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I would like to point out to my critics that the question was "what is the perceived upside of this?" and not a question about whether I personally thought it was a good idea. Those who support this idea do so because they feel that making science friendlier to indigenous cultures may engage people who might otherwise be not so engaged. That's the argument I've seen, at any rate. Similar ideas have been raised from time to time for indigenous Australian and Native American cultural beliefs, but I'm pretty sure that it's never been made national policy before.
 
My question is, how many Maori are so far sunk in what they think is their traditional way of life that they'll be satisfied with a pakeha version of the old beliefs? How many will quickly get impatient and demand education in what they know to be essential disciplines?

How backward do en zedders think these people really are?

If you feel like answering that, remember that you'll be talking to a member of a mudsill class that was struggling to heave itself upright here in America when Abel Tasman was 28 years old. I, we, know about condescension.
 
arthwollipot said:
Those who support this idea do so because they feel that making science friendlier to indigenous cultures may engage people who might otherwise be not so engaged.
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There it is again - a completely racist idea whose basis is enshrined in the idea that they're not capable of understanding science.

sackett said:
How backward do en zedders think these people really are?
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Only the loony left thinks that way, which wouldn't be a problem, except they presently occupy the Treasury benches.
 
Does anyone have a count of the Maori children who are being taught creation myths that they believe to the point where they can't grasp basic elementary school instruction without being reassured of their superstition?
 
Yeah trying to make something that many kids might not be engaged with, related to something a little bit fun, is the same as being condescending
 
arthwollipot said:
Sociology and anthropology are sciences, are they not?
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An important question.
Roboramma said:
Is this being taught as sociology and anthropology or as biology and cosmology?

If the former, it seems quite reasonable, if the latter it's nuts.
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This.
The Atheist said:
It's at school, where science is taught as a general subject, and Maori legend in given equal prominence, so it's being taught alongside chemistry, biology and physics.

Sociology isn't part of the science curriculum.
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Why not? Prior to highschool, I had classes called, "science" that more or less included bits from all sorts of different fields, why not anthropology and sociology? Highschool, we had physics and biology, certainly would be inappropriate to teach various myths in those classes, so why not another class, called sociology or anthropology or what not.
 
"Looney left" is one of those very short, simple, alliterating phrases that passes for content in far too much of today's political discourse, at least here on the anglophone. I'm ashamed to think that New Zealand has sunk to that level.

Kinda think the raging right is worse, if nothing else because they actually exist.

But keep playing with your Maoris. You don't even have to play nice if you don't want to.
 
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Lithrael said:
Yeah trying to make something that many kids might not be engaged with, related to something a little bit fun, is the same as being condescending
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If the goal were to make the science curriculum more engaging to children, this would be a very heavy-handed and gratuitously problematic way to go about it.

But I doubt that was the goal. Surely modern educators already have a well-equipped toolbox of didactic methods for gaining and retaining student interest. The age-appropriate textbooks probably come with many such tools already integrated in their lesson plans.
 
Yeah, a lot of this stuff gets ham-handed sure. I guess what I really mean to say is that I’d have to see what the actual boots-on-the-ground experience in the classroom is like. A lot of people talking about what it could be or what it represents or etc etc isn’t the kind of thing I find ‘actionable’ as they say.
 
arthwollipot said:
Okay, speaking as myself now and not as devil's advocate. I don't see why that automatically follows from the argument.
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Because it's how it works in the real world. The classes for 2-stroke English and Maths are populated by brown kids.

theprestige said:
Does anyone have a count of the Maori children who are being taught creation myths that they believe to the point where they can't grasp basic elementary school instruction without being reassured of their superstition?
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Yep, I counted them twice.

0

ahhell said:
Why not? Prior to highschool, I had classes called, "science" that more or less included bits from all sorts of different fields, why not anthropology and sociology?
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Sociology isn't a pimple on science's backside, and is appropriately covered in Social Studies/Global Studies.

sackett said:
"Looney left" is one of those very short, simple, alliterating phrases that passes for content in far too much of today's political discourse, at least here on the anglophone. I'm ashamed to think that New Zealand has sunk to that level.
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As someone who's voted left more than right, be assured it pisses me off that it not only exists, but has considerable power here.

sackett said:
But keep playing with your Maoris. You don't even have to play nice if you don't want to.
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:dl:

If only you had a clue. Maori are being gifted control over fresh water, to go along with their control of the foreshore, fishing industry, vast tracts of land, and right now, who gets to go to certain parts of the country.
 
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