Graham Adams: Follow the money - matauranga Maori and the millions at stake

There is a lot of funding and influence riding on successfully casting indigenous knowledge as equal to science. Graham Adams says the debate over the NCEA science syllabus is only the tip of an iceberg.

Anyone trying to get a grip on the mātauranga Māori debate over the past several months is likely to be completely puzzled by now.

The incendiary stoush was sparked last July by seven eminent professors stating in a letter to the Listener that indigenous knowledge is not science and therefore does not warrant inclusion in the NCEA syllabus as being equal to science.

Yet in the five months since the letter was published, virtually no one among those opposing the professors has argued convincingly that mātauranga Māori is scientific (even if some small elements of it could be called proto-science or pre-science).