Professor Jerry Coyne: Another desperate but failed attempt to show that indigenous “science” improves modern science

This article at The Conversation, by a climatologist at the University of Wellington and a lecturer in design (?) at the University of Auckland, is a desperate attempt to buttress Māori “ways of knowing” by showing how they align with modern science conducted in Antarctica. It is purely performative, meant to sacralize Māori “science,” but in fact adds nothing to modern science. Its only aim is to show that if you twist Māori lore sufficiently, and squint hard enough, you can sort of see some similarities with modern science.

The article is embarrassing and should not have been published in The Conversation. Its appearance can be understood only as an attempt to make up for earlier oppression of indigenous people by overstating their contributions to modern science. This of course is one of the aims of New Zealand’s government, and the article and attendant trip for the authors to Antarctica were in fact paid for by several sources of government support, including the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden fund designed to

. . . drive world-class research in New Zealand by supporting and incentivising excellent researchers to work on their best and boldest ideas leading to new knowledge and skills with the potential for significant downstream impact for New Zealand.

Shoot me now!

UPDATE: I’ve learned that part of the Marsden Fund also supports “Vision Mātauranga” projects designed “to unlock the innovation potential of Māori knowledge, resources and people to assist New Zealanders to create a better future.” I suspect that this is why Winton and Hoeta produced such a misguided paper, extolling Māori knowledge but not giving examples of how it’s informed modern science.

Have a look at the piece and see if excellent research with big potential is described (click on the headline below to read):



First, though authors and government support are shown below:


Click to view

Click to view

Now that we’ve determined that the NZ taxpayer is funding this palaver, let’s look at what it’s about. As the beginning shows, it’s merely an “exploration” of how one might comport Māori lore with modern science. There is nothing in the whole piece that shows how Māori lore can add to modern science. All the bolding below is mine:

Antarctica’s patterns of stark seasonal changes, with months of darkness followed by a summer of 24-hour daylight, prompted us to explore how a Māori lunar and environmental calendar (Maramataka) might apply to the continent and help us recognise changes as the climate continues to warm.

As if there aren’t better ways to measure the effects of global warming! Reducation of fixed ice and movement of animals, for example. But let’s proceed:

Maramataka represent an ancient knowledge system using environmental signs (tohu) to impart knowledge about lunar and environmental connections. It traces the mauri (energy flow) between the land (whenua), the ocean (moana) and the sky and atmosphere (rangi), and how people connect to the natural world.

Maramataka are regionally specific. For example, in Manukau, the arrival of godwits from the Arctic indicates seasonal changes that align with the migration of eels moving up the local Puhinui stream.

During matiti muramura, the third summer phase that aligns with the summer solstice, the environment offers tohu that guide seasonal activity. The flowering of pohutukawa is a land sign (tohu o te whenua), the rising of Rehua (Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius) is an atmospheric sign (tohu o te rangi), and sea urchins (kina) are a sea sign (tohu o te moana).

When these signs align, it signals balance in nature and the right time to gather food. But if they are out of sync (such as early flowering or small kina), it means something in the environment (te taiao) is out of balance.

These tohu remind us how deeply land, sea and sky are connected, and why careful observation matters. When they’re out of sync, they call us to pause, observe and adapt in ways that restore natural balance and uphold the mauri of te taiao.

Have a look at the last link to see if there are any practical implications of observing sea urchins and stars and birds. And remember, this is from Antarctica, but the implications are apparently for New Zealand. (Note also the plethora of Māori words, whose presence is irrelevant to nearly all readers but constitute a big sign of virtue for the authors.)

Why on Earth did they go to Antarctica to suss out things to do in New Zealand? No explanation is given, but note that the sentence in bold above denotes not a search for truth, but an “exploration” of how Māori lore might allow things in Antarctica to help people in New Zealand. The connection is still unclear to me.

A bit more “exploration.” Again, this exercise is not to find anything out, but merely to construct metaphors:

One of the key tohu we observed in Antarctica was the mass arrival of Weddell seals outside New Zealand’s Scott Base at the height of summer.

Guided by Maramataka authorities, we explored other local tohu using Hautuu Waka, an ancient framework of weaving and wayfinding to navigate a changing environment. Originally used for navigating vast oceans, wayfinding in this context becomes a metaphor for navigating the complexities of today’s environmental and social challenges.

That is not science, and it’s not even sociology. It’s simply storytelling. And it’s opaque.

Remember, the NZ government sent two researchers to Antarctica (not a cheap proposition) to produce stuff like this:

While the tohu in Antarctica were vastly different from those observed in Aotearoa [JAC: the Māori word for “New Zealand”, untranslated, of course], the energy phases of the Maramataka Moon cycles aligned with traditional stories (pūrākau) describing snow and ice.

We identified some of the 12 different forms of snow recorded by ethnographers, who described them as the “offspring of wind and rain”.

At Scott Base, we observed feather-like snow (hukapuhi) and floating snow (hukarangaranga). Further inland on the high-elevation polar plateau, we found “unseen” snow (hukakoropuku), which is not always visible to the naked eye but felt on the skin, and dust-like snow (hukapunehunehu), akin to diamond dust. The latter phenomenon occurs when air temperatures are cold enough for water vapour to condense directly out of the atmosphere and form tiny ice crystals, which sparkle like diamonds.

In te ao Māori, snow has a genealogy (whakapapa) that connects it to wider systems of life and knowledge. Snow is part of a continuum that begins in Ranginui (the sky father) and moves through the god (atua) of weather Tāwhirimātea, who shapes the form and movement of clouds, winds, rain and snow. Each type of snow carries its own name, qualities and behaviour, reflecting its journey through the skies and land.

Note the religious aspect of MM that worms its way into the “science” above.

And here’s the part where the authors implicitly claim that indigenous ways of knowing (Mātauranga Māori, or MM) supplement modern science. This is the basis for the government’s and educators’ attempts to teach MM alongside modern science as an alternative form of “knowing”.

Connecting Western science and mātauranga Māori

Our first observations of tohu in Antarctica mark the initial step towards intertwining the ancient knowledge system of mātauranga Māori with modern scientific exploration.

Observing snow through traditional practices provided insights into processes that cannot be fully understood through Western science methods alone. Mātauranga Māori recognises tohu through close sensory attention and relational awareness with the landscape.

Is there anything in the following actually contributed to science by MM, or anything new at all? Not that I see. The stuff about ice cores was figured out by modern science:

Drawing on our field observations and past and present knowledge of environmental calendars found in mātauranga Māori and palaeo-climate data such as ice cores, we can begin to connect different knowledge systems in Antarctica.

For example, just as the Maramataka contains information about the environment over time, so do Antarctic ice cores. Every snowflake carries a chemical signature of the environment that, day by day, builds up a record of the past. By measuring the chemistry of Antarctic ice, we gain proxy information about environmental and seasonal cycles such as temperature, winds, sea ice and marine phytoplankton.

The middle of summer in an ice core record is marked by peak levels in chemical signals from marine phytoplankton that bloom in the Ross Sea when sea ice melts, temperatures are warmer and light and nutrients are available. This biogenic aerosol is a summer tohu identified as a key environmental time marker in the Maramataka of the onset of the breading season and surge in biological activity.

I’m highly doubtful that the traditional Māori lunar calendar incorporates “biogenic aerosol signals from marine phytoplankton in the Ross Sea.” Or do they just mean that it’s getting warmer? The embarrassing piece ends this way (again, my bolding):

The knowledge of Maramataka has developed over millennia. Conceptualising this for Antarctica opens a way of using Māori methods and frameworks to glean new insights about the continent and ocean. Grounded in te ao Māori understanding that everything is connected, this approach invites us to see the polar environment not as a remote but a living system of interwoven tohu, rhythms and relationships.

Most of those who claim the importance of indigenous knowledge systems make the argument that those systems show that “things are connected.” But of course that’s nothing new to science! To make such a claim not only bespeaks desperation, but also adds nothing to modern science. The sentence in bold above gives not one example of how MM can help us “glean new insights about the Antarctic continent and ocean. That also goes for the whole article. Weak parallels are not knowledge.

I conclude that the authors, especially Dr. Winton, should be embarrassed to have written this piece, that the attempt to beef up modern science with indigenous knowledge is a pretty futile effort, and, as always, that New Zealand should not be funding this kind of endeavor. If the indigenous people are still suffering from decades of oppression, well, fix that suffering. But don’t try it by mixing indigenous “knowledge” into modern science! That’s harmful to both Māori and the other inhabitants of New Zealand.

UPDATE: I learned that Dr. David Lillis has also analyzed the Winton and Hoeta paper in a piece at BreakingViews@co.nz called “Intertwining Knowledge Systems.” I deliberately didn’t read it before I wrote the above, but now I have, and we come to the same conclusions.

Lillis takes The Conversation piece apart paragraph by paragraph. Here’s just one example. The first paragraph is a quote from the Winton and Hoeta paper, the second Lillis’s analysis:

“In te ao Māori, snow has a genealogy (whakapapa) that connects it to wider systems of life and knowledge. Snow is part of a continuum that begins in Ranginui (the sky father) and moves through the god (atua) of weather Tāwhirimātea, who shapes the form and movement of clouds, winds, rain and snow. Each type of snow carries its own name, qualities and behaviour, reflecting its journey through the skies and land.”

Here we have a charming allegory. Of course, we can teach it to children, along with similar allegories from other populations in New Zealand, but not literally nor as science. Of course, science also has names for various types of snow, each characterized by particular formation and texture. These types include powder snow, packed snow, corn snow, crud, slush and ice.

His long and devastating piece concludes that the pablum pushed by Winton and Hoeta is not science in the way it’s practiced now:

Let us preserve and value traditional beliefs but not confuse them with modern world science. We owe it to future generations to get this very critical matter right.

Amen! Sadly, they’re not getting it right in New Zealand.

Professor Jerry Coyne is an American biologist known for his work on speciation and his commentary on intelligent design, a prolific scientist and author. This article was first published HERE