Robert Bartholomew: We Can't Value ‘Ancient Wisdom’ Over Scientific Fact

Over the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in indigenous knowledge. The United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa have been at the forefront of the movement to integrate ‘ancient wisdom’ with modern science and decision-making by applying it to everything from public health to climate change. The appeal is both understandable and alluring. For millennia, indigenous cultures have accumulated a vast repository of information that has helped them to adapt and survive. Prior to European contact, the Quechua of the Andes used quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree to treat fevers. It later proved to be the first effective treatment for malaria. Salicin from the willow tree was used by tribes in the Americas to treat pain, fever, and inflammation and led to the development of aspirin. The active ingredient in snakeroot, reserpine, was used for centuries by native peoples in India to treat high blood pressure and was adopted by Western physicians as an early treatment for hypertension. From stellar navigation to sophisticated construction techniques, agricultural innovations, and hunting strategies, indigenous knowledge has made significant contributions to human progress.

Professor Jerry Coyne: “The latest from the asylum”.....

“The latest from the asylum”: New Zealand nurses directed to foster, accept, and prioritize indigenous culture, including specious “ways of healing”

The bit in quotes in the title may be a bit mean, but it’s the title an anonymous reader gave in an email linking to several articles from a New Zealand site (here, here, and here). The articles describe a new set of standards for registered nurses in the country, standards that I read in the official government document (see below).

Lushington D. Brady: Jacinta Price Sets Out a New Way

Time for Aboriginal Australia to step up and out of the past

The Dutton opposition in Australia is going big and bold. Ever since John Hewson was belted so thoroughly in 1993 for daring to lay out his policies in detail two years out from an election, the received wisdom has been small-target strategy. Don’t tell anyone what your policies are until the election is announced, and even then, string them out right up to election day, if you can. If you don’t say what your policies are, the thinking goes, they can’t be attacked.

Dutton, instead, has already shown his daring on energy policy, by openly championing nuclear energy. Now, his Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman, rising party star Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, is laying out a bold policy agenda: one that goes right for the throat of the cosy “progressive” assumptions that failed so miserably, and deservedly so, at the Voice referendum.