Point of Order: Applying Maori knowledge (and Govt funding) to the demystification of whale strandings and the heavens

Matauranga Maori just keeps on giving, providing a regular supply of grist for the mill of scientists such as Jerry A. Coyne, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and publisher of Why Evolution is True.

It is also a belief system which keeps on receiving from New Zealand taxpayers via state funding systems for research provided by a benevolent government – millions of dollars are being provided for programmes that would not be regarded as scientific overseas.

Thanks to the widespread disinclination to challenge the Government’s fusion of matauranga Maori with science, except for a few brave dissidents who stick their necks above the parapet, Coyne has given up on us. He recently wrote:

New Zealand is a lost cause insofar as science education is concerned, for the government and educational establishment is doing all it can to make local indigenous “ways of knowing” (mātauranga Māori, or MM) coequal with modern science, and taught as coequal.

This ultimately would severely damage science education in New Zealand, and drive local science teachers (and graduate students) to other countries, Coyne warned.

It won’t help the indigenous Māori people, either, as it will not only give them misconceptions about what is empirically “true” versus what is fable, legend, or religion, but also make them less competitive in world science—both in jobs and publishing.

Coyne accepts that indigenous knowledge is not completely devoid of empirical knowledge. Indigenous people have a stock of knowledge acquired by observation as well as trial and error.

This includes a knowledge of the indigenous plants and their medical and nutritional uses, when the best time is to catch fish or pick berries, and, in perhaps its most sophisticated version, the ability the Polynesians to navigate huge expanses of water.

But this was done by trial and error,he points out, and must have involved the demise of those who didn’t do it right (something that’s never mentioned.)

In one sense, Coyne agrees, observational knowledge like this is “science”. You can construe “science” as simply “verified empirical knowledge”.

But modern science is more than that: it’s also its own “way of knowing”—a toolkit of methods, itself assembled by trial and error, for obtaining provisional truth. This toolkit, as I explain in Faith Versus Fact, includes the practices of modern science, including hypothesis-making and -testing, experiments, replication, pervasive doubt and criticality, construction models, concepts of falsifiability, and so on.

Because modern science comprises not just facts but a method codified via experience, indigenous knowledge generally fails the second part, for it lacks a method for advancing knowledge beyond experience and verification. Indeed, I know of no indigenous science that has a standard methodology for ascertaining truth. Yes, various plants can be tested for their efficacy in relieving ailments, but this is done by trial and error—in contrast to the double-blind tests used to assess the effects of new drugs and medicines.

Indigenous knowledge can contribute to modern science, Coyne says.

This can involve bringing attention to phenomena that, when tested scientifically, can be folded into the domain of empirical fact. Quinine and aspirin were developed in this way. And, of course, local ecological knowledge of indigenous people can be valuable in helping guide modern science and calling attention to phenomena that might have otherwise been overlooked.

Nevertheless, what we have is experiential knowledge on one hand—a species of knowledge that rarely leads to testable hypotheses—and modern science on the other, which is designed to lead to progress by raising new testable hypotheses.

The concept of “indigenous science”, therefore baffles Coyne, especially if, as in New Zealand, it is regarded as coequal to science.

But is it’s not co-equal, he maintains, because it lacks a methodology beyond trial and error for determining what’s true.

A week or so later, our Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment announced 16 projects to receive funding through the latest round of Te Pūnaha Hihiko: Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund.

Administered by the Ministry, this fund invests in projects designed to strengthen capability, capacity, skills and networks between Māori and the science and innovation system.

In doing so, it inspires new understanding for both iwi and research organisations.

The ministry’s Manager of Contestable Investments, a bloke by name of Alan Coulson, enthused:

“By embracing mātauranga Māori alongside modern science, we grow our pool of knowledge, strengthen community connections, and make room for a wider range of ideas and experiences that enhance our research outcomes.”

Waatea News carried the news – in an item headed Projects seek to surpercharge science with matauranga – to inform its audience how Maoridom is improving our understanding of life, the universe and everything.

Whether the boffins in this country’s universities and Crown research institutes agree with that is open to question, but they do know on which side their bread is buttered and they eagerly clamber into the troughs provided by the Government for projects with a matauranga Maori component.

Established in 2010, the Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund invests around $4 million each investment round into projects across two schemes: the Connect Scheme, which builds new connections between Māori organisations and the science and innovation system; and the Placement Scheme, which enhances the development of an individual(s) through placement in a Partner organisation.

The ministry makes final funding decisions based on recommendations of an independent assessment panel.

The 2023 round, the 11th investment round of the fund, has dished out this funding to these beneficiaries: 

• $249,948 Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences Limited – trading as GNS Science: Te Ao Hurihuri: Cultural Perspectives and Implications of Climate Change. A Ngāti Rangitihi Case-Study. In partnership with Te Mana o Ngāti Rangitihi Trust, Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi.
• $250,000 Landcare Research New Zealand Ltd – trading as Manaaki Whenua: A national resource on pā harakeke for weavers: intertwining mātauranga and science. In partnership with Rongowhakaata Iwi Trust, Te Muriwai Weavers,Te Wānanga o Aotearoa – Christchurch, Ngāti Ruapani ki Uta ki Tai Co-Operative Society Limited.
• $249,956 Lincoln University: Strategic Spatial Planning for multi-generational Māori Food Sovereignty – A Te Whakatōhea case study. In partnership with Te Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board.
• $249,246 Massey University: Kiwi whakapapa project – improving kiwi population success through genetically informed tomo. In partnership with Ahu Whenua Trust.
• $249,997 Massey University: Ko ahau te tohorā, te tohorā ko ahau, I am the whale, and the whale is me – A call for Mātauranga Māori to improve whale stranding response in Aotearoa. In partnership with Te Kauika Tangaroa Charitable Trust.
• $250,000 National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Limited: Ngaa taonga tuku iho o ngaa roto o Tahaaroa. In partnership with Tahaaroa A7A2A trading as Tahaaroa Lakes Trust.
• $250,000 Ngāti Hei Holdings Limited: eDNA technologies for kaitiakitanga o te moana. In partnership with Cawthron Institute Trust Board.
• $249,630 Ngāti Kahungunu Ki Wairarapa Charitable Trust: Te Raranga Māramatanga me Ngā Tipu. In partnership with Cawthron Institute Trust Board, GNS Science.
• $249,999 Nga Wairiki – Ngati Apa Charitable Trust: Pou Kōrero – Speaking For Our Ancestors. In partnership with Institute of Environmental Science and Research.
• $250,000 Otago Museum Trust Board: Tātai aroraki ki te Toka – southern Māori astronomy. In partnership with Te Rūnanga o Moeraki.
• $250,000 Te Manaaki Awanui Charitable Trust, trading as Manaaki Te Awanui: He aha te Pā-Tai?: An enquiry and reclamation of tupuna pā structures and aquaculture practice. In partnership with Cawthron Institute, Wayne Petera, Ian Mitchell.
• $250,000 Te Manaaki Awanui Charitable Trust, trading as Manaaki Te Awanui: Te Urutaunga – Adapting to Change. In partnership with University of Waikato, Te Whānau ā Tauwhao ki Otawhiwhi Marae Trust.
• $170,000 Te Roroa Commercial Development Limited : Te Oranga ā Tāne. In partnership with Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.
• $226,760 Tu Tama Wahine O Taranaki Incorporated: He Kanohi Komiromiro: Kaupapa Māori Outcomes Data Measurement Framework. In partnership with Arama Rata.
• $250,000 Wakatu Incorporation: Māori-led innovation in the cultivation of fungi for high-value applications. In partnership with Dr Simmon Hofstetter, Dr Mahonri Owen, University of Otago.
• $250,000 Whiore Enterprises Limited: Whiore – a pioneering Ngai Tahu-led marine flora & fauna venture into the Blue Economy. In partnership with Ferrier Research Institute – Victoria University of Wellington.

Massey University was obviously chuffed to have landed a chunk of the dosh for two projects, which it brayed about in a press statement.

Professor Isabel Castro and Professor Karen Stockin are involved in projects that address conservation and mātauranga Māori, in partnership with Māori collaborators.

The statement says:

The project will pave the way for non-Māori, Māori and iwi to address whale strandings across the motu by demonstrating the necessity of mātauranga embedment in current stranding research and protocols.

Acknowledging the frequency of whale strandings in Aotearoa New Zealand and the likely increase of them due to human impacts on our moana, Dr Stewart and Professor Stockin recognise the need for mātauranga Māori to be embedded within current operating procedures relating to stranding response.

It should be noted that the scientists won’t be trying to establish whether matauranga Maori should be embedded within current operating procedures relating to stranding response.

Nope. They say they recognise this need.

The press statement goes on:

The kaupapa aims to afford tohorā the benefits of applied scientific advancement and appropriate cultural support. The project will enable and empower hapū members to bring mātauranga Māori when they attend strandings in their rohe.

The author of that stuff would have done the public a favour by telling us a bit more about the Te Kauika Tangaroa Charitable Trust.

Stockin’s whale project Ko ahau te tohorā, te tohorā ko ahau, I am the whale, and the whale is me – A call for Mātauranga Māori to improve whale stranding response in Aotearoa has been co-developed with Dr Ramari Stewart, from that trust.

Point of Order’s online search found scant information about the trust, other than that its registered address is in Ohau.

This is a village and semi-rural community located just south of Levin on State Highway One. The population was 669 in the 2018 census, 630 (94.2%) of them European/Pākehā and 72 (10.8%) Māori.

And the last whale stranding in that neck of the woods was …… when???

None since written records were first kept, we suspect. And not too many before that.

Another project which deserves attention is the partnership between Otago Museum Trust Board and Te Rūnanga o Moeraki “to address the distinct knowledge gap regarding mātauraka tātai aroraki (astronomy) for Kāi Tahu”.

But whoa. A Professor Rangi Mātāmua – who has written widely about Matariki and dedicated much of his life to its revitilisation and resurgence – is regarded as one of the country’s foremost Māori scholars for his contribution to Māori astronomy, star lore and Māori culture.

He was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2022.

Maybe Te Rūnanga o Moeraki should chat with Rangi and Tuhoe, his tribe, to see how much of the knowledge gap can be filled without having to tap into the public purse.

Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton