Professor Jerry Coyne: The ideologically captured scientists of New Zealand

The Conversation, which seems a reputable and often interesting site, now has some dire results of a survey of non-Māori New Zealand scientists. The new survey shows that many (but thank goodness not all) of these have been captured by the drive to sacralize the indigenous Māori “ways of knowing, or Mātauranga Māori (MM).

MM does contain some empirical knowledge, mostly of the practical sort like how to catch fish or when to harvest berries, but also includes religion, morality, the supernatural (the ubiquitous vitalism called mauri), guides to behavior, legends and word of mouth, and other non-scientific concepts that many see as “ways of knowing.”