Bob Edlin: Govt has lopped millions of dollars from research funding....

Govt has lopped millions of dollars from research funding and – guess what? – Māori research projects have not been immune

PoO was puzzled by a headline which said Govt cuts Māori research projects that don’t fit with ‘growth agenda’. Was this intended to dismay, perturb or outrage Newsroom’s audience?

It drew attention to a report which said:

Lushington D. Brady: NZ Academia Is a Global Joke

As the Labour government promises to throw yet more buckets of cash at New Zealand’s failing universities, no one appears to be giving much thought to whether or not it would be better to simply let them fail. Or, failing that, actively putting them out of their misery.

Lushington D. Brady: Snuffing Out the Candle in the Dark

I have a love-hate relationship with Richard Dawkins. On the one hand, I often find his pretensions to philosophy ill-informed and annoying. I mean, he openly professed ignorance of epistemology, after writing a book on what was, in fact, epistemology (The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True). His attacks on religion are too often trite and undergraduate-level stuff.

On the other hand, I admire him for at least being consistent — and willing to equally offend the self-righteously woke. Even at the risk of his own cancellation.

Point of Order: Champion of mātauranga Māori dabbles with a myth:

.....European navigators didn’t fear sailing too close to the Earth’s edge

Dave Armstrong, a columnist for state-subsidised Stuff, went out to bat for mātauranga Māori this week and to remonstrate with Richard Dawkins, the renowned British biologist, science communicator and atheist.

During his recent New Zealand tour, Dawkins had written an article for The Spectator about our government’s decision for Māori “Ways of Knowing” (mātauranga Māori) to have equal standing with “western’ science” in our education curriculum.

Armstrong challenged the renowned scientist’s critique:

Graham Adams: Dawkins’ views on teaching mātauranga Māori go viral

Like the inhabitants of many small countries, New Zealanders are usually extremely keen to know what foreigners think of them.

The fact Jacinda Ardern was canonised overseas was a major boost for her domestically. Her international stardom became a proxy for loving New Zealand — we calculated that if foreigners loved her, they must love us too.

Don Brash: Richard Dawkins is surely right

I’m not sure whether to be amused, depressed or angry at the reaction to the article by Richard Dawkins in The Spectator recently.

Richard Dawkins wrote the piece after his visit to New Zealand in late February. I heard him speak in Auckland and he made some comments about matauranga Maori which were consistent with those he had made nearly two years ago, when defending the seven University of Auckland professors who had written to The Listener arguing that matauranga Maori was not in any sense equivalent to science as normally understood.

He deplored the fact that matauranga Maori would be taught in schools as part of the science curriculum:

Richard Dawkins: Why I’m sticking up for science

I’m in New Zealand, climax to my antipodean speaking tour, where I walked headlong into a raging controversy. Jacinda Ardern’s government implemented a ludicrous policy, spawned by Chris Hipkins’s Ministry of Education before he became prime minister. Science classes are to be taught that Māori ‘Ways of Knowing’ (Mātauranga Māori) have equal standing with ‘western’ science. Not surprisingly, this adolescent virtue-signalling horrified New Zealand’s grown-up scientists and scholars. Seven of them wrote to the Listener magazine. Three who were fellows of the NZ Royal Society were threatened with an inquisitorial investigation. Two of these, including the distinguished medical scientist Garth Cooper, himself of Māori descent, resigned (the third unfortunately died). I was delighted to meet Professor Cooper for lunch, with others of the seven. His resignation letter cited the society’s failure to support science against its denigration as ‘a western European invention’. He was affronted, too, by a complaint (not endorsed by the NZRS) that ‘to insist Māori children learn to read is an act of colonisation’. Is there an implication here – condescending, if not downright racist – that ‘indigenous’ children need separate, special treatment?

Graeme Reeves: Ella Henry responds to Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins

Associate professor Ella Henry’s response to Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins, one the world’s leading public intellectuals, to the teaching of Maori mythology as science in New Zealand.

Dawkin’s view is that if Maori mythology is true science then it should be taught in every country on the grounds that science is global whereas mythologies are culturally specific and should be taught in mythology classes separately where those mythologies have agency but not in science classes.

Henry’s response published by Newshub was, “let’s remember that 3000 years before Dawkins’ ancestors dipped their toes in the North Atlantic, mine were traversing the biggest ocean on the planet using nothing more than Polynesian science.”

3000 years ago Henry’s other ancestors were experiencing the early stages of the Bronze Age. Bronze is made from an amalgamation of tin and copper. The process is scientific and represented a great advancement in western civilisation.

Maori by contrast remained in the Stone Age until they came into contact with Europeans with their metal implements and weapons.

Matt Ridley: Reflections on The Selfish Gene

Books about science tend to fall into two categories: those that explain it to lay people in the hope of cultivating a wide readership, and those that try to persuade fellow scientists to support a new theory, usually with equations. 

Books that achieve both — changing science and reaching the public — are rare. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) was one. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is another. From the moment of its publication 40 years ago, it has been a sparkling best-seller and a scientific game-changer.