In recent years government ministries have produced an array of online resources intended to enlighten teachers and students on the wonders of the Māori Lunar Calendar or Maramataka. Unfortunately, most of these resources are woefully uncritical and fail to mention that there is very little science to support it.
These documents describe the Māori perspective but conveniently leave out the dearth of scientific evidence that a particular phase of the Moon can influence human behaviour, health, horticulture or the weather. The fear is being branded racist or anti-Māori, but just because something is part of Māori culture should not render it immune from criticism.
It should come as no surprise then that some teachers are now consulting the Calendar to plan their lessons around ‘high’ and ‘low’ energy days to determine which phases of the Moon are best to conduct assessments, carry out sporting activities, and even when to go on trips. Some teachers have even taken to scheduling meetings on days deemed less likely to trigger conflict, all under the moniker of ‘ancient Māori wisdom.’ Indoctrination is also starting early.
In the Far North a group of ECE teachers have been giving lessons on the waxing and waning ‘energy levels’ of the Moon to over 10 early childhood centres. But it doesn’t stop there. Several government-funded health clinics have been encouraging staff to use the Calendar to navigate ‘high’ and ‘low energy’ days and help clients apply it to their lives – people with serious physical and mental health issues. I know of one woman who has stopped taking her medication for bipolar disorder and now uses the Calendar to regulate the condition. There are also reports of women discarding their birth control pills and managing contraception based on the phase of the Moon. Good luck with that.
It is time to get government-sponsored pseudoscience out of our schools and health system. It begins by having the courage to call a spade a spade. If supporters of Māori knowledge want parity with science, then it needs to be subjected to the same rigorous standards that other forms of knowledge undergo. If it passes scrutiny, then I am all for it. But if it doesn’t, it should not be protected. It should be called out for what it is: ‘folklore’ – which is a polite way of saying ‘pseudoscience.’ If people want to teach this ‘folklore’ as a cultural belief – that’s fine, but don’t teach it as a reality and leave out the scientific perspective. That’s educational malpractice and indoctrination.
The mainstream media has also contributed to the confusion that exists around the Maramataka. I analysed nearly 1000 media reports mentioning the word ‘Maramataka’ that appeared between 2016 and 2024. One could be forgiven for thinking that the influx in stories reflects interest in the new Matariki holiday, yet just 14 stories reference the Matariki. After reading through each article, I could not identify a single negative or skeptical position on the Calendar. This is incredibly revealing and goes to show the depth of fear and uneasiness that surrounds the subject of Māori knowledge. Just imagine what would happen if schools in Europe and North American taught astrology uncritically in the classroom?
We need to stop giving Māori knowledge protected status and treating criticism of it as an attack on Māori society. Matauranga Māori has much to offer, but some of it has no grounding in science. Māori knowledge should be held to the same standard as other forms of knowledge: nothing more, nothing less.
Dr Robert Bartholomew is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland. This article was sourced HERE
It should come as no surprise then that some teachers are now consulting the Calendar to plan their lessons around ‘high’ and ‘low’ energy days to determine which phases of the Moon are best to conduct assessments, carry out sporting activities, and even when to go on trips. Some teachers have even taken to scheduling meetings on days deemed less likely to trigger conflict, all under the moniker of ‘ancient Māori wisdom.’ Indoctrination is also starting early.
In the Far North a group of ECE teachers have been giving lessons on the waxing and waning ‘energy levels’ of the Moon to over 10 early childhood centres. But it doesn’t stop there. Several government-funded health clinics have been encouraging staff to use the Calendar to navigate ‘high’ and ‘low energy’ days and help clients apply it to their lives – people with serious physical and mental health issues. I know of one woman who has stopped taking her medication for bipolar disorder and now uses the Calendar to regulate the condition. There are also reports of women discarding their birth control pills and managing contraception based on the phase of the Moon. Good luck with that.
It is time to get government-sponsored pseudoscience out of our schools and health system. It begins by having the courage to call a spade a spade. If supporters of Māori knowledge want parity with science, then it needs to be subjected to the same rigorous standards that other forms of knowledge undergo. If it passes scrutiny, then I am all for it. But if it doesn’t, it should not be protected. It should be called out for what it is: ‘folklore’ – which is a polite way of saying ‘pseudoscience.’ If people want to teach this ‘folklore’ as a cultural belief – that’s fine, but don’t teach it as a reality and leave out the scientific perspective. That’s educational malpractice and indoctrination.
The mainstream media has also contributed to the confusion that exists around the Maramataka. I analysed nearly 1000 media reports mentioning the word ‘Maramataka’ that appeared between 2016 and 2024. One could be forgiven for thinking that the influx in stories reflects interest in the new Matariki holiday, yet just 14 stories reference the Matariki. After reading through each article, I could not identify a single negative or skeptical position on the Calendar. This is incredibly revealing and goes to show the depth of fear and uneasiness that surrounds the subject of Māori knowledge. Just imagine what would happen if schools in Europe and North American taught astrology uncritically in the classroom?
We need to stop giving Māori knowledge protected status and treating criticism of it as an attack on Māori society. Matauranga Māori has much to offer, but some of it has no grounding in science. Māori knowledge should be held to the same standard as other forms of knowledge: nothing more, nothing less.
Dr Robert Bartholomew is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland. This article was sourced HERE
20 comments:
That we have allowed such practices to be initiated speaks volumes about the mental state of our public servants where presumably these sorts of ideas/trials emerge from. Heaven help us!
I don't get it. How can anyone treat Maori legend as more real than scientific knowledge, and what makes them think that Maori legend is more important than European, Chinese, and North American (or anywhere else) legend. Anybody going down that track shouldn't be teaching.
"Matauranga Maori has a lot to offer' is a platitude one comes often but it is never explicitly defined exactly what this is. I don't see why it should have anything more to offer than the hocus-pokus of my Germanic forebears. I have no objection to pre-modern world views being taught in Social Studies but at no point should they ever be presented as alternatives to scientific conceptions.
Now let me see what my horoscope for today says...............
But the expected result of the indoctrination of the public service by CRT - right on target.
If fractional Maori want to study matauranga "science ", go for it, fill your boots.
However, that's not the problem, it's the activists, and the racially biased Europeans (like Hipkins mother, Rosemary who instigated most of this nonsense) who insist that it's real science and should be forced into the brains of our vulnerable young, and the gullible, intellectually diminished cohort.
Easily fixed by urgent directions from the supposedly intellectual people we voted into parliament.
Don't hold your breath - until Luxon has an epiphany, sees the light, and issues the directions, it isn't going to happen.
Unfortunately we are not using real science in other areas of education as well.
The Whole Language reading method forced on generations of NZ children has been described by literacy expert prof. James Chapman as a myth . Yet our Ministry persisted in this method for over 40 years with consequently wholesale reading failure . Then there are the covid vaccines which on another blog here today even AI declares is neither safe nor effective No sound science here, either but we were told to 'follow the science' !
Ideology it seems is always preferred to true science. I won't get into the Darwinism pushed down our throats constantly but that too , is now coming under serious attack as falling short in many
regards and is a theory in crisis say some agnostic academics.
The methods of teaching in our school do not follow the findings of cognitive and neuro sciences. It is not just wonky content that is being promoted in schools like transgender , CRT and so on but the whole shebang of lack of real knowledge like geography, history and real science , poor discipline and scientifically ineffective teaching .
methods including lack of grammar , spelling and rigorous phonics
.
Where for goodness sake do you start in cleaning out the Aegean stables ? Matauranga Maori and associated astrology and animism is just the tip of the iceberg of a fiasco of an education system.
We could use this to our advantage. One half decent kaumatua could replace the whole Met service, NIWA, GNS and probably others. Think of the money we could save.
Platitudes, vague meanings, the 'lived experience', etc. = Lightweight Studies 101. The excellence bar is really really low compared to 15+ years ago.... But too many students cannot pass anything else.
While I agree that we shouldn't shoehorn things that are not science into the definition of science. However, it is important to understand that science itself makes claims that, by its own criteria, it cannot make nor verify, namely, that all there is to know (or all that is worth knowing) can be determined and settled only by scientific investigation.
You'll notice that this is a metaphysical claim, and, contradictorily, science tends to reject metaphysics as "unscientific" (i.e. not amenable to empirical investigation, verification by experiment and so on). That science can tell us everything (even if only in principle) is an unfalsifiable, unverifiable, and therefore unscientific claim. So science sits upon a first principle that it cannot scientifically verify, therefore, it is just a matter of faith.
For science to say "there is nothing beyond the spatio-temporal realm that is the purview of science" it necessarily must transcend its own limits to reach this conclusion, and necessarily, it cannot do this.
In other words, science is essential to understanding spatio-temporal reality, but by its own standards, it is impermissible speak to or posit any statements about anything beyond the self-constrained real of science.
Science realises its own limitations - that is not a 'matter of faith'.
"Science realises its own limitations - that is not a 'matter of faith'."
Tell that to a prominent scientist like Richard Dawkins, who confidently assures us that there is nothing beyond the purview of science. What experiment he conducted to reach that conclusion is unclear. He does not and cannot know that, therefore it follows that believes it merely on faith, and because that is what he prefers to believe.
Many scientists in fact do not understand (or ignore) how limited science is, otherwise they wouldn't make the kinds of metaphysical claims about science that I cite.
For example, the proposition "There is a God" is as unscientific as its negation "There is no God." Neither of these statements are scientifically verifiable, yet, in our secular age, the latter is assumed to be true, but just like the former, it is faith-based.
These people will deride "superstitions" of times past, yet their faith in science as the ultimate arbiter and descriptor of reality is also a superstition. Furthermore, it is metatheoretical in a sense, in that if any theory about anything is not "scientific," then it is deemed to have no merit.
You are misrepresenting Richard Dawkins. He sometimes quotes Stephen Gould about "separate non-overlapping magisteria" (the empirical/the metaphysical).
There are three responses to a claim, not only two. One - accept the claim; two - explicitly reject the claim, thereby reversing the onus of proof; three - suspend judgement on the basis of there not being satisfactory evidence for the claim. Gods, demons, toothfairies, etc, come under category three - the Null Hypothesis rules until empirical evidence overrides it.
Believers always try to make it look as though non-believers work the way they do, but the epistemologies the two groups follow are very different. To believers, it's all a matter of........ yeah, believing! Hence they do things like misrepresent people on the other wide of the fence. Perhaps they just don't understand the epistemology we abide by.
It's still an article of faith that science can give us all the answers we need (or can have), because no scientific experiment can verify this claim.
Think of the logic here: in order to go "outside of" the realm of empirical science (i.e. to show there is nothing there), necessarily, there would have to be something outside of the realm of science, and if there is, this necessarily proves the claims of science false. If science were to exceed the empirical (or rational, in the case of logical or mathematical science) limitations of scientific investigation, it would have immediately refuted itself.
"three - suspend judgement on the basis of there not being satisfactory evidence for the claim."
"Satisfactory evidence" is a fundamental criteria of the scientific method, though. This precisely goes to my point, which is that you are reasoning circularly, in that you assume the scientific method while arguing for its epistemic preeminence.
I believe in a non-spatio-temporal aspect of total reality, you may call this God for arguments sake. However, when I am appealing to the existence of non-spatio-temporality, it would be absurd to invoke science as my justification, simply because the purview of science ends to the extent that spatio-temporality "ends."
Nobody claims that science has all the answers. Straw Man alert,
The second para completely befuddles me. Science by definition is restricted to the empirical realm. That doesn't mean that there is anything outside the empirical realm, but neither is it an explicit denial thereof.
How on Earth can saying "There is not enough evidence for this claim" be construed as circular reasoning?
There are two kinds of pseudointellectualism. One is making something very complex appear to be very simple. The other is to make something very simple appear very complex. The latter is a common argumentative ploy of promoters of convoluted cases that really don't have a leg to stand on.
Some common sense in the comments above and some apparent dross, but, with a nom de plume like Madame Blavatsky in the mix, with its origins in Theosophy, an occult religious movement with the great wisdom of its 'masters' and their supernatural powers, I wonder from what standpoint of science the writer can enlighten those of us who find empiricism and the interpretations implicit in the 'real' world satisfactory?
As one Dr to another, this guy needs to read about the trips Dr David Lewis took around the Pacific testing the accuracy of the techniques used by Polynesian voyagers in their journeys across vast distances of ocean. Their navigation used a complex mixture of knowledge about winds, wave patterns,star systems and other signs to determine where they were and where they needed to head to reach their destinations.
It was as accurate as the navigation techniques used in sailing ships and therefore surely qualifies as science.
Nope, because it didn't use the epistemology of science: the means by which we determine what is true. This is based on empiricism. The classical scientific method (hypothesis based on prior knowledge, experiment) is the gold standard for what constitutes science. That is why science changes over time - it is not a set of beliefs or practices but an investigative methodology.
A motor mechanic may have in-depth knowledge about the alloys used for various components of an engine, but that doesn't make him a metallurgist.
I am tired of those who erect a straw man caricature of 'religion' particularly Christianity for rhetorical purposes , yet tout and imply their private atheism is a panacea for human progress.
NOMA does forbid a scientific entry into fields where many arrogant scientists love to work and yearn to control. Certainly most scientific and religious leaders do advocate the principles of NOMA ( non-overlapping magesteria) the exceptions including creationists and militant atheists with a blinkered concept of religion.
The late Stephen Hawking , a brilliant scientist, stated 'the scientific account is complete .Theology is unnecessary '. This is a definite statement of scientism - an exaggerated trust in the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation.He isn't the only scientist with this view.
I will remind you that 60% of Nobel prize winners, in the physical sciences in the last 100 years , came from Christian homes or were Christian. No conflict with science there.
All navigators before about 1600 basically used their experience in open-water sailing. Christopher Columbus navigated in 1492 as did experienced Polynesian sailors. Not sure why everybody goes on and on about Polynesians. The key is years of open-water sailing and developing dead-reckoning skills. Ask any sailor.
Lewis did his observations from the standpoint of modern knowledge and understanding; it doesn't logically follow that early Polynesian navigators/sailors actually thought that way. It might seem like that from what we now know, but without written records there can only be post hoc assumptions. My ancestor John Norie produced navigational tables in the 18th century, but they were mathematics, not science.
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