More good news. Recently we heard how the US is restoring California's second largest river, and here in humble wee NZ we've cleaned up 50K hectares to allow the return of Kiwi to the Capital.
Lessons here how community engagement can be got, mixed stakeholders will sit down, and progress can be made – you start with a proper cause.
This is how we will do it. Conceptually-simple, broadly-effective ideas, such as letting the roadsides become un-mown-wildflower-and-herb "gardens" will bring on positive changes to the environment, outer and inner 🙂
I covered this on Open Mike yesterday. It was a long term engagement by multigenerational large scale landowners.
In particular to the landowners of the big Terawhiti block, Kinnoull, Meridian, Mill Creek Farms, Papanui Boomrock, Pikarere, many of which have been in families for generations.
Kiwi to call the capital home as huge conservation project comes to fruition | Stuff.co.nz
This is a private protected area larger than Abel Tasman National Park. This kind of project takes years and years to do, so also well done to all the Trustees in particular previous Mayor Kerry Prendergast.
I think you are right – engage the whole community for a goal to benefit all, instead of different sectors pursuing their own profit-oriented targets. It's hard to get all participants to agree on how to attain the goal, of course.
As for California, I'm surprised they have any rivers left after 20 plus years of megadrought. States with historical rights to water from the Colorado river basin will have to alter their positions.
Not necessarily. We drive past several of them regularly – as long as they are "tidy", not a fire hazard in dry weather, not harboring rodent pests, and not provoking any of the neighbours to draw any of these things to the attention of AT, they will usually stay as they are. AT does not have an army of inspectors, they rely on complaints from the public.
I've done a few now, basically if they're looked after and don't obscure traffic from a driveway you're pretty safe. But all bets are off if someone lays a complaint. Then AT tend to take the easy route and say remove it.
In this case, you can't really blame AT – the Auckland bylaw on berms is really clear – they're required to be mown, and landowners are not allowed to plant them.
If there is a complaint – then AT really have no option but to enforce the bylaw.
You’re right, it just seems silly, that’s all. We don’t own the berms, yet we have to maintain them, and when people plant them out and someone complains AT respond faster than they fill in pot holes🙂🙂
In early June 2014, an Ohio couple who were Mr. Schenck’s star donors shared a meal with Justice Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann. A day later, Gayle Wright, one of the pair, contacted Mr. Schenck, according to an email reviewed by The Times. “Rob, if you want some interesting news please call. No emails,” she wrote.
Mr. Schenck said Mrs. Wright told him that the decision would be favorable to Hobby Lobby, and that Justice Alito had written the majority opinion. Three weeks later, that’s exactly what happened. The court ruled, in a 5-4 vote, that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance covering contraception violated their religious freedoms. The decision would have major implications for birth control access, President Barack Obama’s new health care law
[…]
In interviews and thousands of emails and other records he shared with The Times, Mr. Schenck provided details of the effort he called the “Ministry of Emboldenment.”
Mr. Schenck recruited wealthy donors like Mrs. Wright and her husband, Donald, encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions. He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show.
All the while, he leveraged his connections to raise money for his nonprofit, Faith and Action. Mr. Schenck said he pursued the Hobby Lobby information to cultivate the business’s president, Steve Green, as a donor.
Recent post regarding the ongoing is Matauranga Maori science discussion. Quite concerning implications discussed of miss-representation of NZ governance history, where an initiative involving Maori political leaders improving health policies by favoring scientific Medicine, is instead recast as colonial oppression of Maori culture.
If Mātauranga Māori was considered another source of information for scientific enquiry, such as every other source, then the issue on its reference would be moot.
However, unlike other observational data, or theory or existing understanding, it is not placed under the same critical thinking and testing to identify veracity, and ensure it is still accurate.
As we see in the science curriculum, Mātauranga Māori inclusion also means rewriting the understandings of existing scientific concepts and creating a manufactured hybrid, which is inherently dishonest. I also personally find it disrespectful.
(Eg. DNA = whakapapa, sub-atomic energy links = mauri)
We have had a decades long renaissance of Te Ao Māori.
Adults who have been through Kōhanga Reo, and Kura kaupapa Māori, inclusion of Māori tikanga practices in governmental institutions, increased delivery of and participation in Māori studies at an academic level, as well as the proliferation of many Māori educational providers. Marae renovations, Crown restitutions, Māori produced and broadcasted programmes, on mainstream broadcasting as well as a dedicated channel, open access for all adult NZers to participate and learn etc.
These positive achievements were the result of immense effort and stamina of many Māori, and those who have seen the need for support for such initiatives.
They are unequivocally a valuable taonga for all NZers.
At present we have a lot of people, who have considerable Māori knowledge and understandings that have been taught to them via the above systems. This is particularly true, amongst the academics, politicians, institutional and governmental workers who have absorbed the information that has been delivered so well, that you don't even need to wring from them the standard delivery lines. They leak out, unfortunately often colouring all scenarios with colonisation, and systematic racism, and bigotry.
While all this was taking place, Māori were simultaneously participating in the renaissance and getting on with their lives here and now, like everyone else.
The academic Māori, the political Māori, the environmentally conscious Māori are part of the whole – not the whole. Just as the academic Pakeha, the political Pakeha, the environmentally conscious Pakeha does not represent the whole.
Why is the idea of Māori limited to those who have all taught and learned at the same institutions, and who gain status and remuneration because of their focus? (That is not to imply that either is undeserved, but to point out the fact that their view may be self-limiting.) But it doesn't translate that they speak for all. Would any Pakeha accept this type of wholesale representation?
So, science is a body of knowledge informed by many sources, and Mātauranga Māori is one of them. Scientific knowledge is made robust by testing, and Mātauranga Māori should be treated equally to every other source and subject to the same assessments. If Mātauranga Māori contribute new and valid means of testing and experiments then all well and good.
But what should be avoided, is the idea that it is the mere fact of its existence is evidence of relevance or quality. We know that when tested much of this knowledge is verifiable, ie. navigational prowess, environmental observations. Bring it on. It will proven to be repeatable, or it won't.
I consider any other adoption a patronising view of my Māori culture and the quality of what it has to offer, and so reject it.
I don't have a problem with learning about Polynesian navigation as a part of science. Our Pacific cultures have a lot of practical knowledge about this part of the world. And it's important for students to see their culture represented.
When it comes to scientific theories though, the ideal is rigorous: testable, measurable models that can be used to make reliable predictions. Preferably underpinned by mathematical logic and basic axioms.
However these models tend to break down when looked at closely. All human knowledge is fuzzy at the edges (e.g. Gödel's incompleteness theorem). This makes the philosophy of science interesting & tricky. Defining "what is science" has been a bone of contention for centuries.
Thanks for engaging @roblogic by providing a point of discussion.
"However these models tend to break down when looked at closely. All human knowledge is fuzzy at the edges (e.g. Gödel's incompleteness theorem). This makes the philosophy of science interesting & tricky. Defining "what is science" has been a bone of contention for centuries."
I consider scientific knowledge and processes (including testing and methods of proof) to be an ever changing entity.
That's why I can see no need for exceptional admittance of Mātauranga Māori, because it can inform both knowledge and identify needs for necessary changes – but only if proven to be necessary.
A part I didn't add above, is that it is assumed that all Māori have either a racial preference for Mātauranga Māori, or have a colonised view of Mātauranga Māori due to systemic racism.
It seems unfathomable to many, that there may be Māori that have different perspectives. Mātauranga Māori knowledge applied in context and for its intended purpose can enhance understandings and improve experiences. Mātauranga Māori knowledge that applies universally, and can be predicted and repeated to the same level as other current scientific knowledge is the knowledge that belongs in the science curriculums.
There is value in both forms of knowledge.
However, we denigrate the value of the first, when we demand inclusion of it to the second without scientific rigour.
How do you feel about the application of Māori terms such as mauri, to concepts such as sub-atomic energy levels?
I know that Māori academics have written these new interpretations, but I have no doubt there are Pakeha academics you disagree with, and I find this rewriting of Maori concepts into theories that are not part of Te Ao Māori both clumsy and patronising.
The problem is that the Maori column is written almost entirely in English and purports to explain the 'Maori' version has no effing idea how electricity works.
Absolutely, a useful Maori translation would be good, but the implication of the nonsense written is that you can't understand Electricity in 'Maori' (I'm quoting because nobody thinks in Maori).
Being written in English it becomes a mockery of how 'Maori' understand electricity working.
Whereas I think the implication is that many people, including many Māori don’t speak te reo.
What do you mean nobody thinks in Māori? Fluent speakers do.
Beyond that, I’m still not clear what the problem is for people here. I have my own issues with it, but right now I’m more interested that people are reacting against it without a good explanation as to why.
I’d also like to know who wrote it, the process by which it was included. Is it just a really bad take on electricity? Or is there something else going on?
"…but right now I’m more interested that people are reacting against it without a good explanation as to why."
People have pointed out it is nonsensical.
(I didn't, I thought that fact was obvious.)
So, a list is required?
(For you, weka, because I know your request is likely to be genuine)
This is a safety document – language should be clear, concise and relevant.
This addition under "Maori" makes no sense as a heading on a table row with "Electricity" as the other entry. Is "Maori" another form of energy, or a "Maori" form of electricity? This is not clear. (Neither of those interpretations make sense BTW, perhaps someone could suggest one that does?)
What is wriiten under the "Maori" heading appears to be the result of someone looking up the words on the left in a Maori dicttionary, and then selecting a few of the kupu that result – and then – providing the English definitions for those selected words. Not a study in conciseness either.
The mythological story of Papatuanuku has no relevance – in the context of electricity – to the earth referred to. The story is actually almost in direct conflict to the role of the earth wire.
So, not only irrelevant – contradictory and confusing.
Not suitable for a safety document that aims to reduce harm.
A direct te reo Maori translation is not a problem.
That is not what this is.
Long term:
People presented with such guff repeatedly will be more likely to develop the notion that Maori inclusion often is:
unclear, rambling and irrelevant. They may also decide it is not fit for purpose (like the example above). In this case, they are right.
(For you, weka, because I know your request is likely to be genuine)
Sorry, I’m going to have to be blunt here. This isn’t just you, this is a problem with others too, but this is the ideal opportunity to make this really clear. I know you know this stuff, others do too, so I am unclear why people feel like they don’t have to explain their thinking upfront.
This is a political blog whose purpose includes robust debate. If people want to post something that shocks/annoys etc and simply say ‘this is nonsense’ that’s what Facebook is for. Here we require people to explain what they think and not have to drag it out of them.
None of us can mindread. I have my own problems with the chart, but I don’t know what your and others’ problems were specifically. And that’s what we are here to talk about, the problems with how Mātauranga is being integrated into wider society (and imo, the benefits of that integration).
If you find some commenters disingenuous in asking then just ignore them 👍
Thanks for explaining, I will respond in a different comment.
wanted to add that I was asking what you and Nic thought because I did in fact want to understand the nuances in your thinking and get a better understanding of how people view this issue differently. I’m aware that on TS sometimes people are more interested in using someone’s position against them and/or to point score. We’re trying to change that 😉
We don't know that much about linguistics, however we do know this.
Fluent Maori (any language) speakers do not think in Maori (their language).
We can understand this must be the case from our understanding of multi-lingual people. Reasonably fluent multi-lingual people are already capable of hearing a new concept in one language and then expressing it in an different language. Also people *never* need to re-learn ideas while learning an additional a language. This makes it absolutely clear there is an internal concept and a connected more surface concept of its expression in a language. In fact you don't even need the multi-lingual bit, children when asked to draw a cat are able to transfer the request from the linguistic interpretation, through the cat, to the other surface concept of what a cat looks like.
And just to head off an incorrect counter point. There are occasional concepts which don't have a direct translation in another language. These work the same way, except that there may not be a specific word in the language being spoken.
"Is it just a really bad take on electricity? Or is there something else going on?"
My interpretation is that the writer here has imagined they have been transported back several hundred years in time and are now required to explain to some Maori in their own tongue how to wire an electrical circuit (with the requisite parts of course, like a battery and stove). For some reason they decided to use a bunch of myth words to explain it which may have confused the audience somewhat. In my own imagination at this time the locals respond by saying, 'This is very useful, why thank-you for this gift. Now your staying here permanently until we understand how this stuff actually works.'
"Sorry, I’m going to have to be blunt here. This isn’t just you, this is a problem with others too, but this is the ideal opportunity to make this really clear. I know you know this stuff, others do too, so I am unclear why people feel like they don’t have to explain their thinking upfront."
I understand your view, but both Nic the NZer and Belladonna gave reasons in their comments. They just didn't preface it with an explanatory introduction.
Is it possible you don't recognise the reasoning in this form? Or, is is that you discount them, and what you are looking for is persuasive reasons?
"Sorry, I’m going to have to be blunt here."
I'm OK with blunt. It often means someone is seeking to understand or be understood. I hope that I've interpreted your comment correctly, and thus made my response relevant.
Molly, sorry, that’s just patronising. I’ve already said to you that I asked because I wanted to know what people’s thinking was. I want to know because I want to understand. I haven’t discounted anyone’s reasoning in this subthread, so I don’t know where you get that from. When I get the chance I will respond to various comments here with my own thinking.
I asked *you, politely, to explain what you saw as the problem with the chart (that you had just posted as an image). Because I wanted to know what *you thought.
Belladonna also shared after I has asked. I understood her reasoning perfectly well. I haven’t discounted it.
Nic gave a brief answer, which wasn’t really an explanation so I asked some questions and now we’re having a conversation based on that.
None of that is out of the ordinary for TS and I’m at a loss as to why I am having to explain this.
"Are you saying that people can never think in their second language?"
People don't even think in their first language. What people actually think in is clearly connected to multiple ways for it to be expressed, including as language (also diagram, picture, written, music, computer code).
ok, that’s some obscure point I’m not getting in relation to this conversation. I think in English (a language, as you mention). I’ve learned some basic te reo, it’s very hard for me to think in it, but I know that there are concepts I can understand if I don’t parse them through my English/Western brain. I know people that can think in te reo Māori 🤷♀️ There are lots of people in NZ who value communications about te Ao Māori being done in English, because they don’t speak te reo.
I had a longer comment, which I lost, but it's clear I'm misunderstanding you.
Can we leave it there? Unless you think it's important.
I'd rather read your view on why it was necessary for this inclusion, and what you think of the quality of what was provided and if this has a knock-on effect if it's badly done.
FWIW, I find Nick's interpretation resonates regarding the production. No effort towards quality just inclusion:
My interpretation is that the writer here has imagined they have been transported back several hundred years in time and are now required to explain to some Maori in their own tongue how to wire an electrical circuit (with the requisite parts of course, like a battery and stove). For some reason they decided to use a bunch of myth words to explain it which may have confused the audience somewhat. In my own imagination at this time the locals respond by saying, 'This is very useful, why thank-you for this gift. Now your staying here permanently until we understand how this stuff actually works.'
I’m not sure I do think it was necessary for inclusion (and pretty sure I haven’t said it was necessary, so sorry to belabour the point, but I’m really sick of the whole binary thinking in this debate where people get pushed into certain boxes even for just asking questions). To have an opinion about that I’d need to understand why it was done, and whether is has been done badly as it appears (I can’t think of other reasons). I’ll come back to it later when I have more time.
btw, I’m not taking a position of ‘there are no problems’. The things you’ve been sharing about the education curriculum definitely need scrutiny. It’s more that in this case we have so little to go on.
We do seem to be living in an age of the breakdown of knowledge. I’m not sure how to address that at the same time as integrating Indigenous knowledge into society (something that we desperately need if we are going to transition out of the mess we are in with climate/ecology etc). I think there is a danger here in equating Indigenous ways of knowing with the breakdown of knowledge. Certainly the reactionaries are doing this. The extent to which it is happening in TS debates strikes me as being a function of the polarisation as much as anything, but it’s easy to see why accusations of racism get flung around. It looks like miscommunication to me.
"I asked *you, politely, to explain what you saw as the problem with the chart (that you had just posted as an image). Because I wanted to know what *you thought."
I posted an image because a discussion was beginning, and it might not be obvious to others who had not clicked on Nick the NZer's link in his comment what the discussion was about.
"For those who haven't clicked on Nic the NZer's link:"
As you know, I am fairly consistent in providing opinion and links as part of my commenting style. I don't think posting an image to clarify what the commencing conversation was about required further comment.
"Because I wanted to know what *you thought."
On this thread, I'd provided two extremely wordy comments on my thinking: Here and here and nothing in response?
Instead, you needed to know my thoughts on an image I had provided because I thought the discussion might be enhanced if people did not bother to click through to find out.
Despite referencing that you have you own thoughts on this example more than once, and then being directly asked to provide them for discussion – you have not yet done so.
Does not that strike you as an imbalance when it comes to discussion? The requirement for more and more clarity from one side, when little is offered in return?
there’s no problem with you posting the chart. I was referencing where and why I replied to that comment with my question for you. I wasn’t criticising you for the link
you don’t have to comment further, ever (unless a mod wants something, but that’s not what is happening here)
it’s normal and appropriate for people on TS to ask other people what they think and/or to clarify.
if you don’t want to explain your thinking, then don’t. This only becomes a problem if people keep making arguments and expecting others to mindread, or where they make arguments that are opaque and they won’t clarify. You weren’t doing that, but you did come back to me with challenge about the necessity of saying more, which is why I am still talking about it.
I haven’t read all the comments in this conversation under this one post. Including some of yours. I’ve been too busy. I’m often picking up bits of the conversation from the comment thread in the back end, which I am currently monitoring for moderation reasons.
When I asked you to explain your thinking about the problem with the chart, if you had already done so all you needed to do was point me to those comments. However the two links you just gave me aren’t about the chart, but about the wide discussion. I was asking people to explain what they saw wrong witht the chart.
I’ve already said I will come back to the thread with my own thoughts. Juggling about 5 different things this morning and about to go out the door. The only thing that has really had my attention on TS other than moderation, has been this meta conversation and things that I can reply to simply and easily.
no, I don’t think it’s imbalanced. If you want to know what I think about something, ask. I will answer if I can. Not everyone can do that though, sometimes things get lost. Sometimes my thoughts aren’t useful or interesting. If it feels unfair, then I think more engagement on topic is probably the way to get me to reply rather than us arguing about TS debate culture. However I do like talking about the meta stuff, which is part of why I’m prioritising it (and it’s been an issue generally on TS lately).
I’m away out the door shortly. Will be back this afternoon and this evening no doubt and will endeavour to come back to what I am thinking about the chart 👍
@weka, I don't see this as a counter example. There can be concepts you understand quite well, but do not have the skill to express in te reo, presently. You will likely be able to look up the language and then later express this idea in te reo. Did you need to re-learn this idea however, or was it the idea you knew but didn't know how to express?
It goes deeper than this actually. Imagine somebody comes up with a new idea, one for which there is no expression in any language. How does that come about then? Because it does.
I'm really not keen on this understanding of language and underlying intelligence. One implication could easily be that people are incapable of learning science in te reo, especially because a lot of that te reo is clearly being developed in terms of its english language expression.
Were this the case we should not be teaching any subjects (maybe except Maori culture) in te reo, because its not compatible and stunting learning. Fortunately its clearly not true.
Not sure if we are on the same page in terms of what we are talking about.
There are things that can be understood in te reo that cannot be understood in English. This is a big feature of this debate. It’s not only language, it’s conceptual. The Western mind thinks differently than the Indigenous mind. I’ve had to decolonise my mind in order to understand concepts that are normal to Indigenous peoples. (decolonise in the sense used in the past few decades, not in the current sense).
I don’t think that language is the only way one can think. I can think without language eg when I am meditating, and then translate that into English if I want to think more or tell someone else. But if I am using language then I think in English. Others can think in te reo.
So of course someone can come up with a new concept and then they have to find ways of explaining it. This is common enough. It’s also why spiritual concepts are difficult to explain to rationalists. They’re just different ways of thinking and if there is no shared languages then it’s hard.
Another example of this is women’s reality and trying to explain it to men. Women are bilingual, most men aren’t and don’t even realise they’re not.
(I’ll give you a classic example of Stephen Fry later on).
I still don’t understand what you meant when you said no-one thinks in Māori.
My understanding (from a base science perspective – not an electrician) – is that the earth wire is the safety circuit breaker. In the event of an overload, it grounds the electrical current in the earth – effectively killing the charge (rather than potentially killing people)
The Maori definition used to equate the earth wire with Mauri – implies (or can be read as implying) that this is a source of current, rather than a circuit breaker. Which is exactly the reverse of the way that a circuit, with an earth element, works.
Hence, the rather tongue-in-cheek reference to free electricity.
It seems to me that in trying to "decolonise" whoever is writing stuff like the Maori words for the electricians terms of practice is missing the point majorly.
It leaves Maori open to mockery and in a way it is a form of gas lighting. Of course my opinion of this may be attacked for being racist.
It reminds me of trying to change words like women and mother in midwivery.
Maori don't have to insert themselves in all things European. There mana can stand on its own merits
I know what you are trying to say here but I'm not sure that's it exactly. The earth/ground wire is there to act as a conduit for the electrical flow if there is a fault, so that the electricity goes somewhere else rather than into the human body (which also acts as an earth/grounding wire).
I don't see the use of the term mauri as implying that the earth is the source of electricity, but that it is the container by which power flows back to the planet. Not how I am used to thinking about mauri, but quite interesting.
I also wonder if part of the problem here is trying to take the words literally. Western mind might consider it metaphorically to get to the meaning (although I don't think it is necessarily metaphor either).
I would love to see the background on this chart. I don't have enough understanding of concepts like mauri, tapu, noa to know if it's on point or done badly.
I can see that for Māori, having Māori concepts is useful, even in this situation. I disagree with anker that electricity is a European thing and Māori don't have to insert themselves into it, they have their own mana. Electricity is a phenomena and how we explain that to ourselves depends on language and concepts.
I feel some discomfit with the chart as is, it seems dropped in in isolation, kind of weird. As Incognito said early on, electricity is weird, and there's something jarring about the unclarity of the chart. I can't tell is that's because I don't understand it or if it's because it doesn't make sense.
I've certainly seen many instances of the Western mind struggling to cope with Indigenous concepts, or the way that the Indigenous mind thinks about phenomena. The original article is a good example, full of mistakes and inaccuracies along with unacknowledged bias. More of a concern for me than the chart is the number of people that thought the first article was good and apparently didn't see the problems with it.
Well it is well known that Einstein had an early job at the Swiss patent office. Do let us know which govt department to send the Nobel prize to when the author of the side-note is discovered and its true meaning found.
Thanks, I had visited the site and taken a screenshot intending to link to the original source, but then couldn't upload the image and ended up returning to the article for the URL, and forgot the Worksafe link entirely.
The connection to Godel's incompleteness theory is pretty tenuous here.
That says specifically that there are some statements in a consistent closed system of logic which can not be proven within that system. These statements could however be proven by extending the original with further statements.
A better description of why scientific fields have fuzzy edges is just that there are some limits (usually scale of phenomena) where one field stops and typically hands over to another field. That's the region where the ideas of the field stop being good explanations due to factors relevant at this new scale.
I also recently noticed Leonard Susskind making this same claim, that these things are not related, in one of his lectures.
It is a fascinating dynamic this polarity between science based medicine and the alternative observational based modalities. Personally although I try to keep a foot in both camps it seems to me that more and more people have lost a lot of confidence in the conventional science based community – especially the past few years.
Currently things are a mess. Conventional doctors are largely captured by protocols which ignore the social, mental and spiritual aspects of good health. They routinely fail to examine the whole patient and struggle to offer help where a direct cause and effect are absent.
Equally the alternative community struggles with determinism and repeatability. There is precious little evidence to support their methods on a population basis, even when they might have great success with some individuals.
If both sides were prepared to embrace humility, acknowledge their limits and failures, and listen constructively to each other – we might make some progress. (Much the same could be said of our political domain as well.)
Not to mention the replication crisis (or "P-value crisis"; widespread bad data analysis) throwing many results in the humanities and medicine into doubt
I'm not disagreeing about the failures and weaknesses of current methodologies. I think most people can ascertain the failings. But we should endeavour to improve by adjustment, not accommodation only.
Like most knowledge, the value of Māori knowledge is most valuable when it is used for the purpose intended and in the right context.
Treated as an equal to any other source, it will have its proponents and its detractors, so we should ensure that the detractors will have less to work with than the proponents by providing more than assertion and adoption of what is put forth without critique.
One approach to this problem came from a talk I heard years back. The idea was that we could roughly place the historic societies of the world into three categories.
The Western societies saw the world primarily in material terms. From this we gained determinism, repeatability and all of modern technology.
The Eastern societies tilted more toward the philosophic, giving us a great canon of literature, poetry, and layers of insight and nuance around the human condition and inner psychology. (Us westerners tending to be lamentably unaware of this wonderful legacy)
And finally the Indigenous peoples – lacking for the most part access to science, technology and written languages focused their intellectual energies on what they describe as the spiritual, the non-material, the non-verbal aspects of reality.
Emphatically these are not mutually exclusive descriptions, but I think do describe the very differing intellectual centre of gravities we see between European science and Mātauranga Māori. Each system of thought – as you say – has it’s own context and domain of validity. What I object to is not that these worldviews are different, but that some are setting one against the other – insisting that theirs is the only truth.
Your last paragraph is icing on the cake that is an excellent comment overall.
They are not binary opposites but complementary frameworks, if you like – both/and. The problem with (binary) dualism through the Western lens – either/or – is that it often ranks (and rejects) based on presumed equivalence-equality and it becomes a win-lose competition with only one ‘winner’ that becomes the dominant-supreme accepted paradigm and ‘bench mark’ (and filter).
Of course, there’s heaps more in your comment that I would love to discuss further but perhaps another time …
The last paragraph is completely inconsistent with the call to not have Mātauranga Māori considered 'equal to' western science. That call literally is to insist western science is the only truth.
I just did a page search and your comment is the only one to use the term western science? For you, how is this Taxonomy of scientific knowledge defined?
I use the term with reference to comments like this:
The academics say although indigenous knowledge may play some role in the preservation of local practices and in management and policy – it "falls far short of what can be defined as science itself". They said mātauranga Māori should not be accepted as an equivalent to science, adding "it may help … but it is not science".
You have to ask yourself who are they to define what science is and what it is not? Theirs is indeed a practice to continue the use of western science to delegitimise Mātauranga Māori.
The point I was making is that RL cannot claim Maori insist theirs is only truth when the opposite is true.
So your taxonomy says science and "western science" are identical sets of knowledge? I'm unclear because quite a lot of science was originally produced outside of the west.
Anybody claiming their, body of knowledge, is only containing truth is not doing science of course. You have to at least be open to the possibility that your ideas are untrue in experiment, and of course you remove any ideas you know are not true.
I was asking why Muttonbird feels the need to characterize "the only real way of knowing we have" as specifically "western science", rather than the more inclusive term science. We do after all in NZ happily take knowledge and technology from all corners of the globe as well as all kinds of lineages, time periods, thinkings and practices.
You seem to be taking some kind of issue with what Coyne said in that sentence? Its certainly terse, but are you claiming its untrue?
Agree Muttonbird and it is surprising that it is accepted by those arguing against the Matauranga proposition eg.
What I object to is not that these worldviews are different, but that some are setting one against the other – insisting that theirs is the only truth.
Those of us saying hey taihoa let us not deny or deride Matauranga, Rongoa, Maori world view of water or land have been faced with people have been saying the western view of science is all you need, is the be all and end all. Moving on to a view that unless we know absolutely everything about the Maori world view of water then
a it does not exist, full stop
b if it does exist because we cannot prove or disprove it, using the scientific viewpoint of another culture, it does not exist
This literalist view carried to an extreme means others cannot understand common figures of speech. Our communication becomes plain and the passing of information only, wordplay is non existent, (yet story telling is being sound as a 'new' way of describing from ads to differing opinions), describing beauty, a moment, becomes passe. Of course moments, views and beauty are all in the eye of the beholder and incapable of 'proof'. So the proposition for not being able to describe them scientifically is proved, and not being capable of description, according to western scientific norms, they become non-existent
I made a comment that an opinion column in Stuff needed to have the word 'satire' inserted as well as being an Opinion. I found this sad.
Don't get me wrong I love learning that the strange light is caused by ash/cloud from an eruption but that is not the be all and end all…..colours, thoughts on whether it evokes feelings, messes with perspective are all valid.
"b if it does exist because we cannot prove or disprove it, using the scientific viewpoint of another culture, it does not exist"
This sounds very much like Schrodingers Cat. Something which is both existing (alive) and doesn't exist (is dead) at the same time and we can only find out by examining it (opening the box).
Of course when making this example Erwin was literally making fun of what he was being asked to believe was occurring by other physicists. He made this example up as a idea for which expected no-one could possibly think such a ridiculous thing.
No, that’s not quite accurate. The cat exists in two or more (quantum) states; it never starts/stops existing as such. In any case, it only really applies to quantum systems 🙂
I did have a very witty response to this describing what happens when you put too many entangled quantum systems into the same place at once. Unfortunately it got sucked into a worm-hole and nobody was able to see any of the results of the experiment.
Conventional Drs are their to treat illness/pathology. They have equipment and knowledge that makes them particularly good at this. Very often when pathology is found that needs treatment, they have some form of treatment, which research studies have shown has a …% chance of helping. That's what they do.
Dr's aren't really concerned with good health as such, although public health campaigns and some advice from a GP or specialist, is something they do.
The vast majority of NZders rely on Drs when they sick/unwell. A small number of people may prefer to seek out other health care. But to my knowledge there is very little evidence it works (with the odd exception such as St Johns Wort for mild to moderate depression)
I refer in this piece mainly to the role of tohunga in curing physical ailments, which, before science-based medicine arrived, was based largely on herbal medicine. Some may have even worked, but we don’t know as they were never tested, and they are powerless against ailments that can be cured by scientific innovations like antibiotics or antivirals.
The denigration of indigenous medicine is strong in this haplessly biased piece. The writer also has his facts wrong and I suspect this is a deliberate ploy to push his narrative, as is often the case with many pig-headed closed-minded people who have an axe to grind. Any good (?) points he makes in his piece have to be taken with extreme levels of scepticism and warning.
Western medicine is slowly moving away from its mechanistic foundations of simple lock & key, drug & target biological interactions to more holistic thinking such as systems biology.
Old testing paradigms and dogmas in medicine and clinical trials are approaching their use-by-date to make room for personalised medicine based on validated biomarkers and unique patient profiles, which is ironically similar to what tohunga practised.
that is a superb comment. I've been trying to write a post on the problems with the article (inaccuracies and unacknowledged bias), but this is so much better.
I had in fact noticed a certain kind of hardline from the site author. I think that reflects the fact he's been defending evolutionary science teaching, against recent earth creationists who may prefer a Christian creationist tradition be taught in Science class. This is often reflected in snark that Matauranga Maori is directly creationist.
As a review of my own comment surrounding the original link will show, I was more highlighting that de-colonists are not above characterising policies endorsed and advanced by Maori MPs and leaders, as colonial cultural suppression. Somehow I don't think calling historical acts of sensible Maori governance and leadership, Pakeha oppression, enhances trust in Maori leadership and governance (or even Medicine in this case). I would suggest Willie Jackson is well qualified to make such a judgement about the acts intent, and he does.
The act was repealed in 1962 of course, which didn't concern me in the slightest.
Systems Biology: Hmmm, my actually quite extensive knowledge and understanding of mathematical, statistical and computational systems says, you tend to get out what you put into your model. Maybe that indicates my actual talent for it though.
I didn’t want to take aim at the messenger, because that’s almost always a weak argument at best, but he does have a well-known history as ‘hardliner’. I was more interested in shining a light on the contents and some of the (incorrect) claims in his piece.
It seems that nowadays many things are lumped together and thrown on the maunga called Mt Murray. Sometimes, this is accidental because people are confused, and sometimes it is deliberate in order to confuse people and pull the debate into a quagmire of quarrels about everything and anything under the sun.
Your PoV of systems biology is valid and I’m more than happy to talk about some more, as it is a fascinating area. One of the main differences, a paradigm shift if you like, with ‘old-school’ biology is the integrative function of levels/scales/dimensions, models, and networks. The keyword is “multi”. The (internal) state of a complex biological system is often not know and cannot be known – it is a ‘combination’ of multiple interacting components or ‘players’ in a dynamic process with many spatio-temporal changes – but how it behaves and responds to environmental (external) stimuli is. You throw [something at] it in a computer and something comes out of it, a bit like Conway’s Game of Life that appeared here recently on TS buried in a YT clip about Gödel's incompleteness theorems (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-20-11-2022/#comment-1922132). Fun games in fun times 🙂
Is that claim actually factually wrong? Do you have a counter example. I can't think of any even if its comparing herbal medicine a hundred years ago to modern treatments.
Ok, that's a good example and novel to me. I'm convinced that there are natural treatments which have equivalent performance to certain antiviral treatments.
On the verdict of miss representation however I'm voting not guilty. The statement seems well fortified, and as such a counter example should prove as effective as something which can cure. If you identified a wealth of traditional medicines which cured in alternative (or even the same) areas to medicine I could have been convinced of the Scottish verdict of unproven, though there is another layer of fortification.
The next layer is that its a comparison with traditional medicine practice. Now its entirely possible that tohunga may have developed a practice and tradition where they only advocated treatments they knew worked. Its a lot less plausible that this tradition would have been as effective yet also completely different to scientific medicine however. As the study shows some traditional treatments may be as effective as laboratory developed treatments even when judged by modern medical standards.
As seems to have been understood at the time, contemporary tohunga were not advocating only for treatments known to work at that time. In fact they were understood to be impeding the introduction of modern medicine as well understood by Maori leadership at that time.
In an ongoing discussion about applying the same scientific standards to Matauranga Maori knowledge as to any other bodies of knowledge that is obviously very relevant. I also agree there are also a wealth of examples of western alternative treatments which are being advocated as accepted without scientific validation. Somebody who was more worried about not appearing biased might very well have catalogued some of these to show they were not being unduly unkind about native medicines contemporary effectiveness. But I also see no obligation to do so and it requires more writing which may obfuscate the point considerably.
This contradicts the argument about as well as the first speaker of the debate at post 4 for me.
In contrast, the motion’s opposition consisted entirely of undergraduate students. A speaker from the floor lamented this discrepancy: “Inviting a huge and polarising figure to debate no invited opposition, only students, is just not good enough,” he said. In response the Union’s president, Lara Brown, clarified that although many speakers were invited to argue in opposition, all declined.
Lol. No Debate coming back to bite.
Piece on the Cambridge Union debate "the right to offend". Left wing feminist and philosopher Kathleen Stock wiped the floor with the negatives, who were undergrads (including one who was meant to be on the affirmative, but instead used his time to attack Stock). I agree that lack of an experienced speaker on the other team is a problem, but that is squarely on the genderists who have championed no platforming (including the student speakers). Own goal.
it was almost painful to watch from the pov. Not that they have to be as smart as her, but just completely outclassed in terms of critical thinking. They don't seem to have the ability to think past their own navels. Tbf, i was probably like that at that age, but I wasn't part of a colonising movement either. The adults are failing these young people as much as anything.
the first dude may have harmed his career. He broke the debating rules (prob not such a big deal), but he also defamed Stock very publicly. Not a good look.
Weka, I agree. thanks for posting the Cambridge debate. The lack of critical skills and the only assertions by the first speaker were attacks on Kathleen Stock, shows up how compromised the idea of debate and arguement are but these young academics.
Yes the Tohunga Act 1906 was largely introduced by Maori
"It was introduced by James Carroll" …..
"It was praised by many influential Maori at the time inlcuding Maui Pomare (NZ first Maori Dr) and all four Maori MPS. "
'Here's a quote from an article by three Maori who are able to separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of superstition, ideology, undocumented tradition, morality and religion'
"In short uncritical acceptance of Maori Knowledge is arguably just as patronising as its earlier blanket rejection' – "Na Dr Michael Stevens, Emeritus Professor Atholi Anderson and Professor Te Maire Tau:
This is the site which originally gave me the impression of this Matauranga Maori dispute being about idea laundering and departmental dispute. That quote is from a paper where those authors refute a prior paper which claimed that Maori (actually their ancestors) had discovered the continent of Antarctica.
This is an obviously bunk historical claim and was based on interpreting how early myths were recorded as textually accurate and exact claims.
I interpret Hendy and Wiles own statements about this to be more along the lines of, "we think Auckland University should get the funding it receives including for Matauranga Maori research projects", and I don't interpret it as "I was doing some Matauranga Maori research just yesterday and it taught me this new idea which I have added to my latest paper".
You don't know that Maori navigators didn't discover Antarctica. There were reports of large double-hulled waka with the ability to sail into the wind and visiting the sub-Antarctic islands around the time of the early European navigators so the skills were there and the ability to dress for the tough conditions, so it was an entirely possible event. Many small sailing craft have ventured very far south including an acquitance of mine who unfortunately didn't make it back.
Locally a craft is being built along the lines of the ones described by Cook seen well south of Rakiura.
Yes, this is correct, there is zero documented evidence that Maori (or their East Polynesian ancestors) discovered Antarctica (starting from East Polynesia).
I'm especially confident that pre-Maori navigators didn't sail down to Antarctica on a ship made of human bones circa the 7th century. Your acquaintance ship was vastly superior to anything available around the 7th century which adds to my confidence that this is bunk.
There is a weird paralell thought stream around science in this country.
During the height of the pandemic and the Parliament protests, rightly or wrongly people were condeming the anti vaxers as being science deniers and they and their views were treated with complete derision. We must follow the science and there is so much mis information around yada yada (and for the recored, I did follow what the science was able to tell us re the vaccines etc).
But at the same time, ideas that have no scientific bases eg. the discovery of the Antarctic by Maori and the theories of people like Judith Butler (biological sex is a social construction) are taken as factual truth over which there should be no debate.
We need to be very clear about which ideas have under gone rigourous testing and shown to be verifiable and which ideas haven't.
IMHO it's not just disinformation, is is also a matter of cognitive ability & the Dunning Kruger effect.
Morality is a cognitive skill; it takes time to develop and mature. Kohlberg proposed a useful scale: from children needing firm rules, to adults, and then on to the abstract political and philosophical realm, where most humans simply have no idea what those (we) educated nerds are going on about.
You are incorrect Incognito. I never claimed there wasn't a dental health workforce shortage.
Someone raised it and my response was "Is there a crisis in workforce numbers in dentistry.? I didn't think so"
(in other words before somebody mentioned it I hadn't thought there was). There is an emerging pattern of you picking at me (following on from about three weeks ago when you made personal attacks, which I asked to stop and you apologised for).
It you want to disagree with my arguements that's fine, but if you continue to pick at me, the way you have of late, I will not be replying.
Yes, I do think I am correct, in my approach to your comments.
You never attempted to check & verify the facts yourself because you’d already made up your mind. When others pointed out to you that there is in fact a staff shortage in NZ dental care you argued against it being an issue for the narrative that you were pushing here. Repeatedly.
When one ask a question immediately followed by:
I didn't think so.
It comes across as having answered the question already, with a negation. So, it does not come across as a genuine question.
If you had said something along the lines of this:
I don’t know about this. [present tense]
Then it would be much more like a true genuine question.
The fact that you keep coming back to your personal anecdata also suggests you’re resistant to accepting facts presented by others that don’t suit your own biased narrative.
I’ll keep picking on, or rather unpicking, your comments because evidently too many of your opinions are based on inaccurate information and/or lack the necessary foundation for robust debate, much of which can be avoided by a few simple fact-checks and a little research on Google beforehand. You don’t have to reply to my comments but that won’t get you off the hook.
Not always. Some students are attracted to the subject of Classics for example. I think the marketing of these courses is a bit different to the easy ones which immediately get you a high paying and rewarding job.
Gees what's happening in other people circles with regards to COVID, I know 3 people who have tested positive this week, way more than at any other time in my smallish world, none will report it either if that's still a thing
There seem to be a few new variants out there that are replacing Omicron it seems.
Two new omicron subvariants have become dominant in the United States, raising fears they could fuel yet another surge of COVID-19 infections, according to estimates released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The subvariants — called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1— appear to be among the most adept yet at evading immunity from vaccination and previous infection, and have now overtaken the BA.5 omicron subvariant that has dominated in the U.S. since the summer.
"It's a little bit eerily familiar," says Dr. Jeremy Luban of the University of Massachusetts, who's been tracking variants since the pandemic began.
This great ESR site graphs wastewater testing against reported cases weekly, with incidence at national and local levels. Gives a good sense of mismatch between reporting and incidence for the Eyore-minded.
Go back to full time mask wearing is my advice bwaghorn. Cases are rising at a rapid rate in Australia. It will be only a matter of two to three weeks when it starts to climb rapidly here.
Dropping like flies at my SO's work. A couple more who attended the week before last's super-spreader event and two who worked closely with event attendees.
There's a bit doing the rounds in Queenstown. In a builder's supply last week and watched a builder lamenting that he wasn't going to be ready for settlement at end of month because Covid was going through his crew. Cue polite expedient exit stage left of the group he was in who'd been who'd good gripe up to this guy's turn. Lots of wry smirks on those watching from afar and some of us had to go out to the yard for a bit.
Also a courier outfit that got a bit behind because everyone was 'sick'
Boxes of masks have appeared on counters too, and some wearing them. You don't get as much shit for wearing on now, a least from locals, visitors sometimes have a go but it's mostly having a dig at Queenstown
Entirely anecdata. But, just had a catchup with a wide-spread group of friends – centring on a friend who's been overseas during the whole Covid situation, and just returned – so lots of people from different spheres of her life. Approx 25 people there (outdoors – so much less risk of any infection) – but 5 people who had planned to be there were in isolation because of Covid. So a fairly high percentage affected.
And two days later after your question about covid bwagon, it turns out the nasty flu I have is covid. Tested posted this morning as did my significant other
It’s interesting to see that there is a version of Chris Luxon who might have done better on the right of the Labour Party in a trade or tourism role. Or in a newly created role working with the private sector over climate change. Or perhaps Andrea Vance is gilding the lily too far.
Luxon is trying to keep out ACT and NZ First to the right, but it’s hard to see his genuine self shining through. He can’t genuinely believe in boot camps, but it sells. Did he believe in tax cuts for the wealthy? Maybe to get party donations flowing. He is also politically indebted to the conservative and religious side of the National Party.
Key was ruthless, he waited and allegedly nobbled both English and Brash. But he did an apprenticeship in a shadow finance portfolio and had time in parliament. Key had excellent instincts at attempting to outflank Labour to the left, at least in appearance, and to get himself on the podium as a problem solver, whose mana was seen as equal to Helen Clark’s during to the resolution to the so called ‘anti-smacking’ legislation. Key moved effortlessly between worlds- getting the love from the Queen or the Chinese leadership and also projecting satisfaction at home in a bach. He had no moral absolutes or awkward ties that surfaced. It made it hard for his opponents to pin him down and easy to like. He never attached himself to anything too controversial or disliked.
Luxon may overcome the wobbles, but he was early anointed and has struggled to get out of tricky situations. He’s been pinned down in some unpopular policies, even if they’ve been backed away from. And as a CEO some have pointed out that he has to read the wind a bit less than a trader.
But still the right fancy their chances and as a commentator noted poo-pooing Willis’ chances, any new candidate has to get buy in from all wings of the party, so change may be difficult to secure or unpalatable.
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Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...
A factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...
“You talking about me?”The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Introduction Pickleball, a rapidly growing paddle sport, has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Its blend of tennis, badminton, and table tennis elements has made it a favorite among players of all ages and skill levels. As the sport’s popularity continues to surge, the question on ...
Abstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...
Tinting car windows offers numerous benefits, including enhanced privacy, reduced glare, UV protection, and a more stylish look for your vehicle. However, the cost of window tinting can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you understand how much you can expect to ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell.First published in 2022.The high school’s head girl and ...
Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association.First published in 2018.When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of ...
A poem by Wellington writer Tayi Tibble.Hoki Mai She kisses him goodbye with her eyes still wet and alight from their last swim in the Awatere river. At the train station celebration, she leads the Kapa Haka but her voice keeps breaking under and over itself like waves. ...
A poem from Bill Manhire’s 2017 book of verse Some Things to Place in a Coffin.My World War I Poem Inside each trench, the sound of prayer. Inside each prayer, the sound of digging. Image courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum. ...
There are three books I have wolfed down in one sitting over the last two years. Colleen Maria Lenihan’s gorgeous and sad debut Kōhine, Noelle McCarthy’s memoir Grand about becoming her mother and then unbecoming her, and now Hine Toa, a staunch yet gentle self-portrait by living legend Ngāhuia te ...
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Asia Pacific Report Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States. The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong Australian teddy bear bees are cute and fluffy, but get a look at that massive (unbarbed) stinger! James Dorey Photography Most of us have been stung by a bee and we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Roberts, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Aussie~mobs/FlickrVictor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915. Victor Farr ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Gregory Moore I had the good fortune to care for the sugar gum at The University of Melbourne’s Burnley Gardens in Victoria where I worked for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University Just when we think the price of rentals could not get any worse, this week’s Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare has revealed low-income Australians are facing a housing crisis like ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cally Jetta, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead; College for First Nations, University of Southern Queensland Australian War MemorialAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, as well as sensitive historical information ...
RNZ News Melissa Lee has been ousted from New Zealand’s coalition cabinet and stripped of the Media portfolio, and Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues portfolio in a reshuffle. Climate Change and Revenue Minister Simon Watts will take Lee’s spot in cabinet. Simmonds was a minister outside of cabinet. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University laurello/Shutterstock Some reports and popular books, such as Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth, have argued that extensive areas of Australia’s forests were kept open through frequent burning by ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon framing the demotion of two ministers as the portfolios getting "too complex" is a charitable way of saying they weren't up to the job. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra With Jim Chalmers’s third budget on May 14, Australians will be looking for some more cost-of-living relief – beyond the tax cuts – although they have been warned extra measures will be modest. As ...
Analysis: Melissa Lee has lost the media portfolio and her spot in Cabinet after multiple failed attempts to find solutions for a media industry in crisis. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced Lee would be losing her spot in Cabinet along with her media and communications ministerial portfolio. The job ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Wilmot, Senior Lecturer, Film, Deakin University Among the many Australian who served during the second world war, there is a small group of people whose stories remain largely untold. These are the Muslim men and women who, while small in number, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Saunders, PhD Candidate, University of Canberra There has been much analysis and praise of Justice Michael Lee’s recent judgement in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Channel Ten. Many people were openly relieved to read Lee’s “forensic” and “nuanced” application of law ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathy Gibbs, Program Director for the Bachelor of Education, Griffith University zEdward_Indy/Shutterstock Around one in 20 people has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It’s one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood and often continues into adulthood. ADHD is diagnosed ...
The Fairer Future coalition of anti-poverty groups say Whaikaha must be properly funded going forward, and that to argue that poor financial management of the new Ministry is a red herring by the Prime Minister. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is today congratulating Hon. Paul Goldsmith on his appointment as Minister for Media and Communications and urges him to rule out state intervention in the private media sector. ...
Asia Pacific Report The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence. The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits and quirks of New Zealanders at large. This week: writer and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024, Lauren Groff.The book I wish I’d writtenIf I wish I’d written a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Fechner, Research Fellow, Social Marketing, Griffith University mavo/Shutterstock Imagine having dinner at a restaurant. The menu offers plant-based meat alternatives made mostly from vegetables, mushrooms, legumes and wheat that mimic meat in taste, texture and smell. Despite being given that ...
“Three Strikes is a dead-end policy proposed by a dead-end government. The Three Strikes law ignores the causes of crime, instead just brutalising people already crushed by the cost of living.” ...
By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist An Australian-born judge in Kiribati could well face deportation later this week after a tribunal ruling that he should be removed from his post. The tribunal’s report has just been tabled in the Kiribati Parliament and is due to be debated by MPs ...
With its clear mandate for police use, political nuances, and nuanced public trust, Denmark's insights provide valuable considerations for Australia and New Zealand. ...
Books editor Claire Mabey reviews poet Louise Wallace’s debut novel. A famous poet once said to me that he’s always suspicious when a poet publishes a novel. I never really understood why but maybe it’s something to do with cheating on your first form. Louise Wallace is a poet. She’s ...
For a few months at the turn of the millennium, TrueBliss burned bright as the biggest pop stars in the country. Alex Casey chats to two superfans who still hold the flame. During a humble backyard wedding in Nelson, 1999, one of the cordially invited guests had to excuse themselves ...
How will the recent wave of job cuts impact ethnic diversity in the media? In November last year, I was working a very busy day in the newsroom of a large online news site, interviewing whānau about their concerns over the imminent closure of one of the few puna reo ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ruth Knight, Researcher, Queensland University of Technology Have you ever felt sick at work? Perhaps you had food poisoning or the flu. Your belly hurt, or you felt tired, making it hard to concentrate and be productive. How likely would you be ...
Despite heavy criticism and an ongoing select committee process, the Police Minister says the Government will forge ahead with a ban on gang patches. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Whiting, Lecturer – Creative Industries, University of South Australia Shutterstock Everyone has a favourite band, or a favourite composer, or a favourite song. There is some music which speaks to you, deeply; and other music which might be the current ...
A new survey says ‘outlook not great’ for those charged with building infrastructure, while RMA changes delight farmers and depress environmentalists, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. First RMA changes announced ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olli Hellmann, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waikato Getty Images When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also ...
A leaked document shows the Canterbury/Waitaha arm of health agency Te Whatu Ora is scurrying to save $13.3 million by July. The “financial sustainability target”, which was “allocated” to Waitaha, is consistent with what’s happening in other districts, says Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. ...
A look at the state of the previous government’s affordable housing scheme, and what could come next.Remind me: What’s KiwiBuild again?First announced in 2012, KiwiBuild was a flagship policy of the Labour Party heading into both its 2014 and 2017 election campaigns. With Jacinda Ardern as prime minister, ...
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More good news. Recently we heard how the US is restoring California's second largest river, and here in humble wee NZ we've cleaned up 50K hectares to allow the return of Kiwi to the Capital.
Lessons here how community engagement can be got, mixed stakeholders will sit down, and progress can be made – you start with a proper cause.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/300743552/capital-kiwi-project-to-bring-national-icon-back-to-nations-capital-takes-flight
This is how we will do it. Conceptually-simple, broadly-effective ideas, such as letting the roadsides become un-mown-wildflower-and-herb "gardens" will bring on positive changes to the environment, outer and inner 🙂
But wildflower planting wasn't how they did it.
I covered this on Open Mike yesterday. It was a long term engagement by multigenerational large scale landowners.
In particular to the landowners of the big Terawhiti block, Kinnoull, Meridian, Mill Creek Farms, Papanui Boomrock, Pikarere, many of which have been in families for generations.
Kiwi to call the capital home as huge conservation project comes to fruition | Stuff.co.nz
This is a private protected area larger than Abel Tasman National Park. This kind of project takes years and years to do, so also well done to all the Trustees in particular previous Mayor Kerry Prendergast.
The removal of the dams resulted from protests by First Peoples, yes?
Nothing to do with the cited article at all.
I think you are right – engage the whole community for a goal to benefit all, instead of different sectors pursuing their own profit-oriented targets. It's hard to get all participants to agree on how to attain the goal, of course.
As for California, I'm surprised they have any rivers left after 20 plus years of megadrought. States with historical rights to water from the Colorado river basin will have to alter their positions.
Nature now calls the shots.
Wildflower roadsides benefit all.
Unfortunately in Auckland they attract the attention of Auckland Transport, who insist you remove them.
Not necessarily. We drive past several of them regularly – as long as they are "tidy", not a fire hazard in dry weather, not harboring rodent pests, and not provoking any of the neighbours to draw any of these things to the attention of AT, they will usually stay as they are. AT does not have an army of inspectors, they rely on complaints from the public.
I've done a few now, basically if they're looked after and don't obscure traffic from a driveway you're pretty safe. But all bets are off if someone lays a complaint. Then AT tend to take the easy route and say remove it.
Fair call, it is in response to complaints. But as Cricklewoid says below, when AT get a complaint, there tends to be only one outcome.
In this case, you can't really blame AT – the Auckland bylaw on berms is really clear – they're required to be mown, and landowners are not allowed to plant them.
If there is a complaint – then AT really have no option but to enforce the bylaw.
https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/plans-projects-policies-reports-bylaws/bylaws/Pages/property-maintenance-and-nuisance-bylaw.aspx
You’re right, it just seems silly, that’s all. We don’t own the berms, yet we have to maintain them, and when people plant them out and someone complains AT respond faster than they fill in pot holes🙂🙂
Everything's for sale.
In early June 2014, an Ohio couple who were Mr. Schenck’s star donors shared a meal with Justice Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann. A day later, Gayle Wright, one of the pair, contacted Mr. Schenck, according to an email reviewed by The Times. “Rob, if you want some interesting news please call. No emails,” she wrote.
Mr. Schenck said Mrs. Wright told him that the decision would be favorable to Hobby Lobby, and that Justice Alito had written the majority opinion. Three weeks later, that’s exactly what happened. The court ruled, in a 5-4 vote, that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance covering contraception violated their religious freedoms. The decision would have major implications for birth control access, President Barack Obama’s new health care law
[…]
In interviews and thousands of emails and other records he shared with The Times, Mr. Schenck provided details of the effort he called the “Ministry of Emboldenment.”
Mr. Schenck recruited wealthy donors like Mrs. Wright and her husband, Donald, encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions. He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show.
All the while, he leveraged his connections to raise money for his nonprofit, Faith and Action. Mr. Schenck said he pursued the Hobby Lobby information to cultivate the business’s president, Steve Green, as a donor.
https://archive.ph/u0k4O (nyt)
Recent post regarding the ongoing is Matauranga Maori science discussion. Quite concerning implications discussed of miss-representation of NZ governance history, where an initiative involving Maori political leaders improving health policies by favoring scientific Medicine, is instead recast as colonial oppression of Maori culture.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/11/09/shamanism-makes-comeback-in-new-zealand/
If Mātauranga Māori was considered another source of information for scientific enquiry, such as every other source, then the issue on its reference would be moot.
However, unlike other observational data, or theory or existing understanding, it is not placed under the same critical thinking and testing to identify veracity, and ensure it is still accurate.
As we see in the science curriculum, Mātauranga Māori inclusion also means rewriting the understandings of existing scientific concepts and creating a manufactured hybrid, which is inherently dishonest. I also personally find it disrespectful.
(Eg. DNA = whakapapa, sub-atomic energy links = mauri)
We have had a decades long renaissance of Te Ao Māori.
Adults who have been through Kōhanga Reo, and Kura kaupapa Māori, inclusion of Māori tikanga practices in governmental institutions, increased delivery of and participation in Māori studies at an academic level, as well as the proliferation of many Māori educational providers. Marae renovations, Crown restitutions, Māori produced and broadcasted programmes, on mainstream broadcasting as well as a dedicated channel, open access for all adult NZers to participate and learn etc.
These positive achievements were the result of immense effort and stamina of many Māori, and those who have seen the need for support for such initiatives.
They are unequivocally a valuable taonga for all NZers.
At present we have a lot of people, who have considerable Māori knowledge and understandings that have been taught to them via the above systems. This is particularly true, amongst the academics, politicians, institutional and governmental workers who have absorbed the information that has been delivered so well, that you don't even need to wring from them the standard delivery lines. They leak out, unfortunately often colouring all scenarios with colonisation, and systematic racism, and bigotry.
While all this was taking place, Māori were simultaneously participating in the renaissance and getting on with their lives here and now, like everyone else.
The academic Māori, the political Māori, the environmentally conscious Māori are part of the whole – not the whole. Just as the academic Pakeha, the political Pakeha, the environmentally conscious Pakeha does not represent the whole.
Why is the idea of Māori limited to those who have all taught and learned at the same institutions, and who gain status and remuneration because of their focus? (That is not to imply that either is undeserved, but to point out the fact that their view may be self-limiting.) But it doesn't translate that they speak for all. Would any Pakeha accept this type of wholesale representation?
So, science is a body of knowledge informed by many sources, and Mātauranga Māori is one of them. Scientific knowledge is made robust by testing, and Mātauranga Māori should be treated equally to every other source and subject to the same assessments. If Mātauranga Māori contribute new and valid means of testing and experiments then all well and good.
But what should be avoided, is the idea that it is the mere fact of its existence is evidence of relevance or quality. We know that when tested much of this knowledge is verifiable, ie. navigational prowess, environmental observations. Bring it on. It will proven to be repeatable, or it won't.
I consider any other adoption a patronising view of my Māori culture and the quality of what it has to offer, and so reject it.
Brilliantly stated Molly.
I don't have a problem with learning about Polynesian navigation as a part of science. Our Pacific cultures have a lot of practical knowledge about this part of the world. And it's important for students to see their culture represented.
When it comes to scientific theories though, the ideal is rigorous: testable, measurable models that can be used to make reliable predictions. Preferably underpinned by mathematical logic and basic axioms.
However these models tend to break down when looked at closely. All human knowledge is fuzzy at the edges (e.g. Gödel's incompleteness theorem). This makes the philosophy of science interesting & tricky. Defining "what is science" has been a bone of contention for centuries.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/
Good comment. Gödel's incompleteness theorem seemed like a rather esoteric idea to me until I watched this astonishing clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeQX2HjkcNo&
Thanks. I enjoyed that.
(It's been a while since I watched this channel.)
Something about the aesthetics (and tragedy) of this story brings tears to my eyes.
Thanks for engaging @roblogic by providing a point of discussion.
"However these models tend to break down when looked at closely. All human knowledge is fuzzy at the edges (e.g. Gödel's incompleteness theorem). This makes the philosophy of science interesting & tricky. Defining "what is science" has been a bone of contention for centuries."
I consider scientific knowledge and processes (including testing and methods of proof) to be an ever changing entity.
That's why I can see no need for exceptional admittance of Mātauranga Māori, because it can inform both knowledge and identify needs for necessary changes – but only if proven to be necessary.
A part I didn't add above, is that it is assumed that all Māori have either a racial preference for Mātauranga Māori, or have a colonised view of Mātauranga Māori due to systemic racism.
It seems unfathomable to many, that there may be Māori that have different perspectives. Mātauranga Māori knowledge applied in context and for its intended purpose can enhance understandings and improve experiences. Mātauranga Māori knowledge that applies universally, and can be predicted and repeated to the same level as other current scientific knowledge is the knowledge that belongs in the science curriculums.
There is value in both forms of knowledge.
However, we denigrate the value of the first, when we demand inclusion of it to the second without scientific rigour.
How do you feel about the application of Māori terms such as mauri, to concepts such as sub-atomic energy levels?
I know that Māori academics have written these new interpretations, but I have no doubt there are Pakeha academics you disagree with, and I find this rewriting of Maori concepts into theories that are not part of Te Ao Māori both clumsy and patronising.
Are you comfortable with it, and why?
"How do you feel about the application of Māori terms such as mauri, to concepts such as sub-atomic energy levels?"
Do you have the rest of this definition of Mauri?
Is it in fact compatible with this one?
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/02/10/indigenous-electrical-wiring-in-new-zealand/
I'm not entirely sure but it seems if you disconnect all the wires other than the earth you get free electricity?
I'm quite interested in new knowledge if it gets me free electricity, actually.
"I'm quite interested in new knowledge if it gets me free electricity, actually."
For those who haven't clicked on Nic the NZer's link:
New Zealand Electrical Code of Practice :
Would you mind explaining what you see as the problem there?
Would also be good to have a link for the original source of that chart.
That chart is from the link in 3.1.2.2.1.
The problem is that the Maori column is written almost entirely in English and purports to explain the 'Maori' version has no effing idea how electricity works.
Electricity is effing weird!
so the objection isn't the inclusion of a Māori view, but that it's done badly?
Why is being written in English a problem?
Absolutely, a useful Maori translation would be good, but the implication of the nonsense written is that you can't understand Electricity in 'Maori' (I'm quoting because nobody thinks in Maori).
Being written in English it becomes a mockery of how 'Maori' understand electricity working.
Whereas I think the implication is that many people, including many Māori don’t speak te reo.
What do you mean nobody thinks in Māori? Fluent speakers do.
Beyond that, I’m still not clear what the problem is for people here. I have my own issues with it, but right now I’m more interested that people are reacting against it without a good explanation as to why.
I’d also like to know who wrote it, the process by which it was included. Is it just a really bad take on electricity? Or is there something else going on?
@weka
"…but right now I’m more interested that people are reacting against it without a good explanation as to why."
People have pointed out it is nonsensical.
(I didn't, I thought that fact was obvious.)
So, a list is required?
(For you, weka, because I know your request is likely to be genuine)
This is a safety document – language should be clear, concise and relevant.
So, not only irrelevant – contradictory and confusing.
Not suitable for a safety document that aims to reduce harm.
A direct te reo Maori translation is not a problem.
That is not what this is.
Long term:
People presented with such guff repeatedly will be more likely to develop the notion that Maori inclusion often is:
unclear, rambling and irrelevant. They may also decide it is not fit for purpose (like the example above). In this case, they are right.
Sorry, I’m going to have to be blunt here. This isn’t just you, this is a problem with others too, but this is the ideal opportunity to make this really clear. I know you know this stuff, others do too, so I am unclear why people feel like they don’t have to explain their thinking upfront.
This is a political blog whose purpose includes robust debate. If people want to post something that shocks/annoys etc and simply say ‘this is nonsense’ that’s what Facebook is for. Here we require people to explain what they think and not have to drag it out of them.
None of us can mindread. I have my own problems with the chart, but I don’t know what your and others’ problems were specifically. And that’s what we are here to talk about, the problems with how Mātauranga is being integrated into wider society (and imo, the benefits of that integration).
If you find some commenters disingenuous in asking then just ignore them 👍
Thanks for explaining, I will respond in a different comment.
wanted to add that I was asking what you and Nic thought because I did in fact want to understand the nuances in your thinking and get a better understanding of how people view this issue differently. I’m aware that on TS sometimes people are more interested in using someone’s position against them and/or to point score. We’re trying to change that 😉
We don't know that much about linguistics, however we do know this.
Fluent Maori (any language) speakers do not think in Maori (their language).
We can understand this must be the case from our understanding of multi-lingual people. Reasonably fluent multi-lingual people are already capable of hearing a new concept in one language and then expressing it in an different language. Also people *never* need to re-learn ideas while learning an additional a language. This makes it absolutely clear there is an internal concept and a connected more surface concept of its expression in a language. In fact you don't even need the multi-lingual bit, children when asked to draw a cat are able to transfer the request from the linguistic interpretation, through the cat, to the other surface concept of what a cat looks like.
And just to head off an incorrect counter point. There are occasional concepts which don't have a direct translation in another language. These work the same way, except that there may not be a specific word in the language being spoken.
"Is it just a really bad take on electricity? Or is there something else going on?"
My interpretation is that the writer here has imagined they have been transported back several hundred years in time and are now required to explain to some Maori in their own tongue how to wire an electrical circuit (with the requisite parts of course, like a battery and stove). For some reason they decided to use a bunch of myth words to explain it which may have confused the audience somewhat. In my own imagination at this time the locals respond by saying, 'This is very useful, why thank-you for this gift. Now your staying here permanently until we understand how this stuff actually works.'
not sure I followed that. Are you saying that people can never think in their second language?
@weka
"Sorry, I’m going to have to be blunt here. This isn’t just you, this is a problem with others too, but this is the ideal opportunity to make this really clear. I know you know this stuff, others do too, so I am unclear why people feel like they don’t have to explain their thinking upfront."
I understand your view, but both Nic the NZer and Belladonna gave reasons in their comments. They just didn't preface it with an explanatory introduction.
Is it possible you don't recognise the reasoning in this form? Or, is is that you discount them, and what you are looking for is persuasive reasons?
"Sorry, I’m going to have to be blunt here."
I'm OK with blunt. It often means someone is seeking to understand or be understood. I hope that I've interpreted your comment correctly, and thus made my response relevant.
Molly, sorry, that’s just patronising. I’ve already said to you that I asked because I wanted to know what people’s thinking was. I want to know because I want to understand. I haven’t discounted anyone’s reasoning in this subthread, so I don’t know where you get that from. When I get the chance I will respond to various comments here with my own thinking.
I asked *you, politely, to explain what you saw as the problem with the chart (that you had just posted as an image). Because I wanted to know what *you thought.
Belladonna also shared after I has asked. I understood her reasoning perfectly well. I haven’t discounted it.
Nic gave a brief answer, which wasn’t really an explanation so I asked some questions and now we’re having a conversation based on that.
None of that is out of the ordinary for TS and I’m at a loss as to why I am having to explain this.
"Are you saying that people can never think in their second language?"
People don't even think in their first language. What people actually think in is clearly connected to multiple ways for it to be expressed, including as language (also diagram, picture, written, music, computer code).
ok, that’s some obscure point I’m not getting in relation to this conversation. I think in English (a language, as you mention). I’ve learned some basic te reo, it’s very hard for me to think in it, but I know that there are concepts I can understand if I don’t parse them through my English/Western brain. I know people that can think in te reo Māori 🤷♀️ There are lots of people in NZ who value communications about te Ao Māori being done in English, because they don’t speak te reo.
@weka
I had a longer comment, which I lost, but it's clear I'm misunderstanding you.
Can we leave it there? Unless you think it's important.
I'd rather read your view on why it was necessary for this inclusion, and what you think of the quality of what was provided and if this has a knock-on effect if it's badly done.
FWIW, I find Nick's interpretation resonates regarding the production. No effort towards quality just inclusion:
I’m not sure I do think it was necessary for inclusion (and pretty sure I haven’t said it was necessary, so sorry to belabour the point, but I’m really sick of the whole binary thinking in this debate where people get pushed into certain boxes even for just asking questions). To have an opinion about that I’d need to understand why it was done, and whether is has been done badly as it appears (I can’t think of other reasons). I’ll come back to it later when I have more time.
Molly, I’ve commented further here. Still in the process of thinking it through.
.https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-20-11-2022/#comment-1922396
btw, I’m not taking a position of ‘there are no problems’. The things you’ve been sharing about the education curriculum definitely need scrutiny. It’s more that in this case we have so little to go on.
We do seem to be living in an age of the breakdown of knowledge. I’m not sure how to address that at the same time as integrating Indigenous knowledge into society (something that we desperately need if we are going to transition out of the mess we are in with climate/ecology etc). I think there is a danger here in equating Indigenous ways of knowing with the breakdown of knowledge. Certainly the reactionaries are doing this. The extent to which it is happening in TS debates strikes me as being a function of the polarisation as much as anything, but it’s easy to see why accusations of racism get flung around. It looks like miscommunication to me.
@weka
"
"I asked *you, politely, to explain what you saw as the problem with the chart (that you had just posted as an image). Because I wanted to know what *you thought."
I posted an image because a discussion was beginning, and it might not be obvious to others who had not clicked on Nick the NZer's link in his comment what the discussion was about.
Hence the sentence that prefaced the image:
"For those who haven't clicked on Nic the NZer's link:"
As you know, I am fairly consistent in providing opinion and links as part of my commenting style. I don't think posting an image to clarify what the commencing conversation was about required further comment.
"Because I wanted to know what *you thought."
On this thread, I'd provided two extremely wordy comments on my thinking: Here and here and nothing in response?
Instead, you needed to know my thoughts on an image I had provided because I thought the discussion might be enhanced if people did not bother to click through to find out.
Despite referencing that you have you own thoughts on this example more than once, and then being directly asked to provide them for discussion – you have not yet done so.
Does not that strike you as an imbalance when it comes to discussion? The requirement for more and more clarity from one side, when little is offered in return?
@weka, I don't see this as a counter example. There can be concepts you understand quite well, but do not have the skill to express in te reo, presently. You will likely be able to look up the language and then later express this idea in te reo. Did you need to re-learn this idea however, or was it the idea you knew but didn't know how to express?
It goes deeper than this actually. Imagine somebody comes up with a new idea, one for which there is no expression in any language. How does that come about then? Because it does.
I'm really not keen on this understanding of language and underlying intelligence. One implication could easily be that people are incapable of learning science in te reo, especially because a lot of that te reo is clearly being developed in terms of its english language expression.
Were this the case we should not be teaching any subjects (maybe except Maori culture) in te reo, because its not compatible and stunting learning. Fortunately its clearly not true.
Not sure if we are on the same page in terms of what we are talking about.
There are things that can be understood in te reo that cannot be understood in English. This is a big feature of this debate. It’s not only language, it’s conceptual. The Western mind thinks differently than the Indigenous mind. I’ve had to decolonise my mind in order to understand concepts that are normal to Indigenous peoples. (decolonise in the sense used in the past few decades, not in the current sense).
I don’t think that language is the only way one can think. I can think without language eg when I am meditating, and then translate that into English if I want to think more or tell someone else. But if I am using language then I think in English. Others can think in te reo.
So of course someone can come up with a new concept and then they have to find ways of explaining it. This is common enough. It’s also why spiritual concepts are difficult to explain to rationalists. They’re just different ways of thinking and if there is no shared languages then it’s hard.
Another example of this is women’s reality and trying to explain it to men. Women are bilingual, most men aren’t and don’t even realise they’re not.
(I’ll give you a classic example of Stephen Fry later on).
I still don’t understand what you meant when you said no-one thinks in Māori.
"I still don’t understand what you meant when you said no-one thinks in Māori."
Unfortunately we seem to have stumbled across an idea which can't even be understood in English.
Whenua might have been a better word to describe ground/earth/soil/
My understanding (from a base science perspective – not an electrician) – is that the earth wire is the safety circuit breaker. In the event of an overload, it grounds the electrical current in the earth – effectively killing the charge (rather than potentially killing people)
The Maori definition used to equate the earth wire with Mauri – implies (or can be read as implying) that this is a source of current, rather than a circuit breaker. Which is exactly the reverse of the way that a circuit, with an earth element, works.
Hence, the rather tongue-in-cheek reference to free electricity.
I wonder if it would have been improved if 'Ground' was the reference English term, as it is in 'North America'.
Great clarrification thank you Molly.
It seems to me that in trying to "decolonise" whoever is writing stuff like the Maori words for the electricians terms of practice is missing the point majorly.
It leaves Maori open to mockery and in a way it is a form of gas lighting. Of course my opinion of this may be attacked for being racist.
It reminds me of trying to change words like women and mother in midwivery.
Maori don't have to insert themselves in all things European. There mana can stand on its own merits
I know what you are trying to say here but I'm not sure that's it exactly. The earth/ground wire is there to act as a conduit for the electrical flow if there is a fault, so that the electricity goes somewhere else rather than into the human body (which also acts as an earth/grounding wire).
I don't see the use of the term mauri as implying that the earth is the source of electricity, but that it is the container by which power flows back to the planet. Not how I am used to thinking about mauri, but quite interesting.
I also wonder if part of the problem here is trying to take the words literally. Western mind might consider it metaphorically to get to the meaning (although I don't think it is necessarily metaphor either).
I would love to see the background on this chart. I don't have enough understanding of concepts like mauri, tapu, noa to know if it's on point or done badly.
I can see that for Māori, having Māori concepts is useful, even in this situation. I disagree with anker that electricity is a European thing and Māori don't have to insert themselves into it, they have their own mana. Electricity is a phenomena and how we explain that to ourselves depends on language and concepts.
I feel some discomfit with the chart as is, it seems dropped in in isolation, kind of weird. As Incognito said early on, electricity is weird, and there's something jarring about the unclarity of the chart. I can't tell is that's because I don't understand it or if it's because it doesn't make sense.
I've certainly seen many instances of the Western mind struggling to cope with Indigenous concepts, or the way that the Indigenous mind thinks about phenomena. The original article is a good example, full of mistakes and inaccuracies along with unacknowledged bias. More of a concern for me than the chart is the number of people that thought the first article was good and apparently didn't see the problems with it.
Well it is well known that Einstein had an early job at the Swiss patent office. Do let us know which govt department to send the Nobel prize to when the author of the side-note is discovered and its true meaning found.
More correctly,
NEW ZEALAND
ELECTRICAL CODE OF PRACTICE
FOR
REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE OF
DOMESTIC ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES
BY THE OWNER OF THE APPLIANCE
https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/laws-and-regulations/standards/electricity-standards-and-codes-of-practice/
Thanks, I had visited the site and taken a screenshot intending to link to the original source, but then couldn't upload the image and ended up returning to the article for the URL, and forgot the Worksafe link entirely.
The connection to Godel's incompleteness theory is pretty tenuous here.
That says specifically that there are some statements in a consistent closed system of logic which can not be proven within that system. These statements could however be proven by extending the original with further statements.
A better description of why scientific fields have fuzzy edges is just that there are some limits (usually scale of phenomena) where one field stops and typically hands over to another field. That's the region where the ideas of the field stop being good explanations due to factors relevant at this new scale.
I also recently noticed Leonard Susskind making this same claim, that these things are not related, in one of his lectures.
It is a fascinating dynamic this polarity between science based medicine and the alternative observational based modalities. Personally although I try to keep a foot in both camps it seems to me that more and more people have lost a lot of confidence in the conventional science based community – especially the past few years.
Currently things are a mess. Conventional doctors are largely captured by protocols which ignore the social, mental and spiritual aspects of good health. They routinely fail to examine the whole patient and struggle to offer help where a direct cause and effect are absent.
Equally the alternative community struggles with determinism and repeatability. There is precious little evidence to support their methods on a population basis, even when they might have great success with some individuals.
If both sides were prepared to embrace humility, acknowledge their limits and failures, and listen constructively to each other – we might make some progress. (Much the same could be said of our political domain as well.)
Not to mention the replication crisis (or "P-value crisis"; widespread bad data analysis) throwing many results in the humanities and medicine into doubt
I'm not disagreeing about the failures and weaknesses of current methodologies. I think most people can ascertain the failings. But we should endeavour to improve by adjustment, not accommodation only.
Like most knowledge, the value of Māori knowledge is most valuable when it is used for the purpose intended and in the right context.
Treated as an equal to any other source, it will have its proponents and its detractors, so we should ensure that the detractors will have less to work with than the proponents by providing more than assertion and adoption of what is put forth without critique.
One approach to this problem came from a talk I heard years back. The idea was that we could roughly place the historic societies of the world into three categories.
The Western societies saw the world primarily in material terms. From this we gained determinism, repeatability and all of modern technology.
The Eastern societies tilted more toward the philosophic, giving us a great canon of literature, poetry, and layers of insight and nuance around the human condition and inner psychology. (Us westerners tending to be lamentably unaware of this wonderful legacy)
And finally the Indigenous peoples – lacking for the most part access to science, technology and written languages focused their intellectual energies on what they describe as the spiritual, the non-material, the non-verbal aspects of reality.
Emphatically these are not mutually exclusive descriptions, but I think do describe the very differing intellectual centre of gravities we see between European science and Mātauranga Māori. Each system of thought – as you say – has it’s own context and domain of validity. What I object to is not that these worldviews are different, but that some are setting one against the other – insisting that theirs is the only truth.
Your last paragraph is icing on the cake that is an excellent comment overall.
They are not binary opposites but complementary frameworks, if you like – both/and. The problem with (binary) dualism through the Western lens – either/or – is that it often ranks (and rejects) based on presumed equivalence-equality and it becomes a win-lose competition with only one ‘winner’ that becomes the dominant-supreme accepted paradigm and ‘bench mark’ (and filter).
Of course, there’s heaps more in your comment that I would love to discuss further but perhaps another time …
Keep up the excellent work!
Yeah it's good to see your comments a bit more often RL, appreciate the wisdom in your words
That's the best explanatory framework I've read for what I was inadequately trying to say.
Thanks!
The last paragraph is completely inconsistent with the call to not have Mātauranga Māori considered 'equal to' western science. That call literally is to insist western science is the only truth.
I just did a page search and your comment is the only one to use the term western science? For you, how is this Taxonomy of scientific knowledge defined?
I use the term with reference to comments like this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/447898/university-academics-claim-matauranga-maori-not-science-sparks-controversy
You have to ask yourself who are they to define what science is and what it is not? Theirs is indeed a practice to continue the use of western science to delegitimise Mātauranga Māori.
The point I was making is that RL cannot claim Maori insist theirs is only truth when the opposite is true.
So your taxonomy says science and "western science" are identical sets of knowledge? I'm unclear because quite a lot of science was originally produced outside of the west.
Anybody claiming their, body of knowledge, is only containing truth is not doing science of course. You have to at least be open to the possibility that your ideas are untrue in experiment, and of course you remove any ideas you know are not true.
Coyne said,
Doesn't get plainer than that.
The term Western science refers to lineage and development of thinking/practice, not geography.
I was asking why Muttonbird feels the need to characterize "the only real way of knowing we have" as specifically "western science", rather than the more inclusive term science. We do after all in NZ happily take knowledge and technology from all corners of the globe as well as all kinds of lineages, time periods, thinkings and practices.
You seem to be taking some kind of issue with what Coyne said in that sentence? Its certainly terse, but are you claiming its untrue?
Agree Muttonbird and it is surprising that it is accepted by those arguing against the Matauranga proposition eg.
Those of us saying hey taihoa let us not deny or deride Matauranga, Rongoa, Maori world view of water or land have been faced with people have been saying the western view of science is all you need, is the be all and end all. Moving on to a view that unless we know absolutely everything about the Maori world view of water then
a it does not exist, full stop
b if it does exist because we cannot prove or disprove it, using the scientific viewpoint of another culture, it does not exist
This literalist view carried to an extreme means others cannot understand common figures of speech. Our communication becomes plain and the passing of information only, wordplay is non existent, (yet story telling is being sound as a 'new' way of describing from ads to differing opinions), describing beauty, a moment, becomes passe. Of course moments, views and beauty are all in the eye of the beholder and incapable of 'proof'. So the proposition for not being able to describe them scientifically is proved, and not being capable of description, according to western scientific norms, they become non-existent
I made a comment that an opinion column in Stuff needed to have the word 'satire' inserted as well as being an Opinion. I found this sad.
Don't get me wrong I love learning that the strange light is caused by ash/cloud from an eruption but that is not the be all and end all…..colours, thoughts on whether it evokes feelings, messes with perspective are all valid.
"b if it does exist because we cannot prove or disprove it, using the scientific viewpoint of another culture, it does not exist"
This sounds very much like Schrodingers Cat. Something which is both existing (alive) and doesn't exist (is dead) at the same time and we can only find out by examining it (opening the box).
Of course when making this example Erwin was literally making fun of what he was being asked to believe was occurring by other physicists. He made this example up as a idea for which expected no-one could possibly think such a ridiculous thing.
No, that’s not quite accurate. The cat exists in two or more (quantum) states; it never starts/stops existing as such. In any case, it only really applies to quantum systems 🙂
I did have a very witty response to this describing what happens when you put too many entangled quantum systems into the same place at once. Unfortunately it got sucked into a worm-hole and nobody was able to see any of the results of the experiment.
LOL! The worm-hole-ate-my-home-work is as old as the universe.
Conventional Drs are their to treat illness/pathology. They have equipment and knowledge that makes them particularly good at this. Very often when pathology is found that needs treatment, they have some form of treatment, which research studies have shown has a …% chance of helping. That's what they do.
Dr's aren't really concerned with good health as such, although public health campaigns and some advice from a GP or specialist, is something they do.
The vast majority of NZders rely on Drs when they sick/unwell. A small number of people may prefer to seek out other health care. But to my knowledge there is very little evidence it works (with the odd exception such as St Johns Wort for mild to moderate depression)
The denigration of indigenous medicine is strong in this haplessly biased piece. The writer also has his facts wrong and I suspect this is a deliberate ploy to push his narrative, as is often the case with many pig-headed closed-minded people who have an axe to grind. Any good (?) points he makes in his piece have to be taken with extreme levels of scepticism and warning.
Western medicine is slowly moving away from its mechanistic foundations of simple lock & key, drug & target biological interactions to more holistic thinking such as systems biology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology
Old testing paradigms and dogmas in medicine and clinical trials are approaching their use-by-date to make room for personalised medicine based on validated biomarkers and unique patient profiles, which is ironically similar to what tohunga practised.
that is a superb comment. I've been trying to write a post on the problems with the article (inaccuracies and unacknowledged bias), but this is so much better.
I had in fact noticed a certain kind of hardline from the site author. I think that reflects the fact he's been defending evolutionary science teaching, against recent earth creationists who may prefer a Christian creationist tradition be taught in Science class. This is often reflected in snark that Matauranga Maori is directly creationist.
As a review of my own comment surrounding the original link will show, I was more highlighting that de-colonists are not above characterising policies endorsed and advanced by Maori MPs and leaders, as colonial cultural suppression. Somehow I don't think calling historical acts of sensible Maori governance and leadership, Pakeha oppression, enhances trust in Maori leadership and governance (or even Medicine in this case). I would suggest Willie Jackson is well qualified to make such a judgement about the acts intent, and he does.
The act was repealed in 1962 of course, which didn't concern me in the slightest.
Systems Biology: Hmmm, my actually quite extensive knowledge and understanding of mathematical, statistical and computational systems says, you tend to get out what you put into your model. Maybe that indicates my actual talent for it though.
I didn’t want to take aim at the messenger, because that’s almost always a weak argument at best, but he does have a well-known history as ‘hardliner’. I was more interested in shining a light on the contents and some of the (incorrect) claims in his piece.
It seems that nowadays many things are lumped together and thrown on the maunga called Mt Murray. Sometimes, this is accidental because people are confused, and sometimes it is deliberate in order to confuse people and pull the debate into a quagmire of quarrels about everything and anything under the sun.
Your PoV of systems biology is valid and I’m more than happy to talk about some more, as it is a fascinating area. One of the main differences, a paradigm shift if you like, with ‘old-school’ biology is the integrative function of levels/scales/dimensions, models, and networks. The keyword is “multi”. The (internal) state of a complex biological system is often not know and cannot be known – it is a ‘combination’ of multiple interacting components or ‘players’ in a dynamic process with many spatio-temporal changes – but how it behaves and responds to environmental (external) stimuli is. You throw [something at] it in a computer and something comes out of it, a bit like Conway’s Game of Life that appeared here recently on TS buried in a YT clip about Gödel's incompleteness theorems (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-20-11-2022/#comment-1922132). Fun games in fun times 🙂
Is that claim actually factually wrong? Do you have a counter example. I can't think of any even if its comparing herbal medicine a hundred years ago to modern treatments.
Here’s one example:
Kanuka honey versus aciclovir for the topical treatment of herpes simplex labialis: a randomised controlled trial
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/5/e026201
Let’s see whether this creates any buzzing.
Ok, that's a good example and novel to me. I'm convinced that there are natural treatments which have equivalent performance to certain antiviral treatments.
On the verdict of miss representation however I'm voting not guilty. The statement seems well fortified, and as such a counter example should prove as effective as something which can cure. If you identified a wealth of traditional medicines which cured in alternative (or even the same) areas to medicine I could have been convinced of the Scottish verdict of unproven, though there is another layer of fortification.
The next layer is that its a comparison with traditional medicine practice. Now its entirely possible that tohunga may have developed a practice and tradition where they only advocated treatments they knew worked. Its a lot less plausible that this tradition would have been as effective yet also completely different to scientific medicine however. As the study shows some traditional treatments may be as effective as laboratory developed treatments even when judged by modern medical standards.
As seems to have been understood at the time, contemporary tohunga were not advocating only for treatments known to work at that time. In fact they were understood to be impeding the introduction of modern medicine as well understood by Maori leadership at that time.
In an ongoing discussion about applying the same scientific standards to Matauranga Maori knowledge as to any other bodies of knowledge that is obviously very relevant. I also agree there are also a wealth of examples of western alternative treatments which are being advocated as accepted without scientific validation. Somebody who was more worried about not appearing biased might very well have catalogued some of these to show they were not being unduly unkind about native medicines contemporary effectiveness. But I also see no obligation to do so and it requires more writing which may obfuscate the point considerably.
This contradicts the argument about as well as the first speaker of the debate at post 4 for me.
Lol. No Debate coming back to bite.
Piece on the Cambridge Union debate "the right to offend". Left wing feminist and philosopher Kathleen Stock wiped the floor with the negatives, who were undergrads (including one who was meant to be on the affirmative, but instead used his time to attack Stock). I agree that lack of an experienced speaker on the other team is a problem, but that is squarely on the genderists who have championed no platforming (including the student speakers). Own goal.
https://unherd.com/thepost/kathleen-stock-wins-free-speech-debate-at-cambridge/
None of them will be smarter than Doc Stock.
it was almost painful to watch from the pov. Not that they have to be as smart as her, but just completely outclassed in terms of critical thinking. They don't seem to have the ability to think past their own navels. Tbf, i was probably like that at that age, but I wasn't part of a colonising movement either. The adults are failing these young people as much as anything.
the first dude may have harmed his career. He broke the debating rules (prob not such a big deal), but he also defamed Stock very publicly. Not a good look.
Weka, I agree. thanks for posting the Cambridge debate. The lack of critical skills and the only assertions by the first speaker were attacks on Kathleen Stock, shows up how compromised the idea of debate and arguement are but these young academics.
Great article thanks Nic.
Yes the Tohunga Act 1906 was largely introduced by Maori
"It was introduced by James Carroll" …..
"It was praised by many influential Maori at the time inlcuding Maui Pomare (NZ first Maori Dr) and all four Maori MPS. "
'Here's a quote from an article by three Maori who are able to separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of superstition, ideology, undocumented tradition, morality and religion'
"In short uncritical acceptance of Maori Knowledge is arguably just as patronising as its earlier blanket rejection' – "Na Dr Michael Stevens, Emeritus Professor Atholi Anderson and Professor Te Maire Tau:
This is the site which originally gave me the impression of this Matauranga Maori dispute being about idea laundering and departmental dispute. That quote is from a paper where those authors refute a prior paper which claimed that Maori (actually their ancestors) had discovered the continent of Antarctica.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/10/24/a-sensible-way-to-reconcile-matauranga-maori-and-science/
This is an obviously bunk historical claim and was based on interpreting how early myths were recorded as textually accurate and exact claims.
I interpret Hendy and Wiles own statements about this to be more along the lines of, "we think Auckland University should get the funding it receives including for Matauranga Maori research projects", and I don't interpret it as "I was doing some Matauranga Maori research just yesterday and it taught me this new idea which I have added to my latest paper".
You don't know that Maori navigators didn't discover Antarctica. There were reports of large double-hulled waka with the ability to sail into the wind and visiting the sub-Antarctic islands around the time of the early European navigators so the skills were there and the ability to dress for the tough conditions, so it was an entirely possible event. Many small sailing craft have ventured very far south including an acquitance of mine who unfortunately didn't make it back.
Locally a craft is being built along the lines of the ones described by Cook seen well south of Rakiura.
Adrian, we don't know that Maori navigators didn't discover Antartctica. (personally it doesn't matter to me who did).
But we need actual evidence that it happened if we are going to claim it as a historical scientific fact.
I am sorry to hear about your friend. the Southern oceans are trecherous.
Yes, this is correct, there is zero documented evidence that Maori (or their East Polynesian ancestors) discovered Antarctica (starting from East Polynesia).
I'm especially confident that pre-Maori navigators didn't sail down to Antarctica on a ship made of human bones circa the 7th century. Your acquaintance ship was vastly superior to anything available around the 7th century which adds to my confidence that this is bunk.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/08/11/once-again-did-the-maori-discover-antarctica/
Good thing the original authors decided they weren't really claiming that either, I think.
There is a weird paralell thought stream around science in this country.
During the height of the pandemic and the Parliament protests, rightly or wrongly people were condeming the anti vaxers as being science deniers and they and their views were treated with complete derision. We must follow the science and there is so much mis information around yada yada (and for the recored, I did follow what the science was able to tell us re the vaccines etc).
But at the same time, ideas that have no scientific bases eg. the discovery of the Antarctic by Maori and the theories of people like Judith Butler (biological sex is a social construction) are taken as factual truth over which there should be no debate.
We need to be very clear about which ideas have under gone rigourous testing and shown to be verifiable and which ideas haven't.
IMHO it's not just disinformation, is is also a matter of cognitive ability & the Dunning Kruger effect.
Morality is a cognitive skill; it takes time to develop and mature. Kohlberg proposed a useful scale: from children needing firm rules, to adults, and then on to the abstract political and philosophical realm, where most humans simply have no idea what those (we) educated nerds are going on about.
https://twitter.com/roblogic_/status/1593078562365804544?s=20&t=BCr4JRcIw5uMXUFCv3Jb8w
The irony seems to be lost on you that you didn’t verify your own ideas about NZ dental care workforce.
You are incorrect Incognito. I never claimed there wasn't a dental health workforce shortage.
Someone raised it and my response was "Is there a crisis in workforce numbers in dentistry.? I didn't think so"
(in other words before somebody mentioned it I hadn't thought there was). There is an emerging pattern of you picking at me (following on from about three weeks ago when you made personal attacks, which I asked to stop and you apologised for).
It you want to disagree with my arguements that's fine, but if you continue to pick at me, the way you have of late, I will not be replying.
Yes, I do think I am correct, in my approach to your comments.
You never attempted to check & verify the facts yourself because you’d already made up your mind. When others pointed out to you that there is in fact a staff shortage in NZ dental care you argued against it being an issue for the narrative that you were pushing here. Repeatedly.
When one ask a question immediately followed by:
It comes across as having answered the question already, with a negation. So, it does not come across as a genuine question.
If you had said something along the lines of this:
Then it would be much more like a true genuine question.
The fact that you keep coming back to your personal anecdata also suggests you’re resistant to accepting facts presented by others that don’t suit your own biased narrative.
I’ll keep picking on, or rather unpicking, your comments because evidently too many of your opinions are based on inaccurate information and/or lack the necessary foundation for robust debate, much of which can be avoided by a few simple fact-checks and a little research on Google beforehand. You don’t have to reply to my comments but that won’t get you off the hook.
Not every department at university produces truth. I suspect the marketing department often considers it a handicap actually.
Is Truth = Knowledge?
Not always. Some students are attracted to the subject of Classics for example. I think the marketing of these courses is a bit different to the easy ones which immediately get you a high paying and rewarding job.
Indeed Nic, the ability to produce spin trumps all for the communications dept I imagine
Gees what's happening in other people circles with regards to COVID, I know 3 people who have tested positive this week, way more than at any other time in my smallish world, none will report it either if that's still a thing
I guess if it's in the community it will be spreading in the community. Especially if people aren't taking precautions.
There seem to be a few new variants out there that are replacing Omicron it seems.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/11/1136039817/new-omicron-subvariants-now-dominant-in-the-u-s-raising-fears-of-a-winter-surge
Bwagon I certainly know of cases and although not much is published we appear to be in a third wave.
https://esr-cri.shinyapps.io/wastewater/#region=Wellington&log_or_linear=log&period=allTimeButton
This great ESR site graphs wastewater testing against reported cases weekly, with incidence at national and local levels. Gives a good sense of mismatch between reporting and incidence for the Eyore-minded.
excellent graph tWiggle
Go back to full time mask wearing is my advice bwaghorn. Cases are rising at a rapid rate in Australia. It will be only a matter of two to three weeks when it starts to climb rapidly here.
Dropping like flies at my SO's work. A couple more who attended the week before last's super-spreader event and two who worked closely with event attendees.
Occupants of the 90 household are testing daily.
There's a bit doing the rounds in Queenstown. In a builder's supply last week and watched a builder lamenting that he wasn't going to be ready for settlement at end of month because Covid was going through his crew. Cue polite expedient exit stage left of the group he was in who'd been who'd good gripe up to this guy's turn. Lots of wry smirks on those watching from afar and some of us had to go out to the yard for a bit.
Also a courier outfit that got a bit behind because everyone was 'sick'
Boxes of masks have appeared on counters too, and some wearing them. You don't get as much shit for wearing on now, a least from locals, visitors sometimes have a go but it's mostly having a dig at Queenstown
Entirely anecdata. But, just had a catchup with a wide-spread group of friends – centring on a friend who's been overseas during the whole Covid situation, and just returned – so lots of people from different spheres of her life. Approx 25 people there (outdoors – so much less risk of any infection) – but 5 people who had planned to be there were in isolation because of Covid. So a fairly high percentage affected.
And two days later after your question about covid bwagon, it turns out the nasty flu I have is covid. Tested posted this morning as did my significant other
boom
https://twitter.com/goldengateblond/status/1594146542402740224
The shit show circus act, aka. "Twitter 2.0", aka "Elon's ego trip", aka "Oligarch trashes public discourse", aka "Re-enacting Enron"… finds a new low
https://twitter.com/shoe0nhead/status/1594137056652906496?s=20&t=BCr4JRcIw5uMXUFCv3Jb8w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG–1so0KcA&t=260s
Thread: An excellent piss-take of Elon sycophants & their creepy bootlicky tweets
https://twitter.com/KenTremendous/status/1594019060475273216?s=20&t=BCr4JRcIw5uMXUFCv3Jb8w
https://twitter.com/KenTremendous/status/1594019064292442113?s=20&t=BCr4JRcIw5uMXUFCv3Jb8w
A thousand words.
thread. A sign of our times that this has only just been sorted out. Finally.
https://twitter.com/elizableu/status/1594137408186073089
Meanwhile,
https://twitter.com/PurpleSneakers3/status/1594206741784195072
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/130510216/its-soul-destroying-gps-launch-desperate-campaign-to-save-family-doctors
GPs having to launch a campaign to highlight their soul destroying plight.
where’s Andrew Little
Looks like it's Open Season at the National Party
https://twitter.com/antihobbes/status/1594238000568799233
Next week could be interesting…
I believe that Luxon and his PR minions missed a golden opportunity by labelling them Labour camps. Or would the connotation go too far?
Thread explaining Musk’s strategy.
https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1593970881352826880
And,
😟
https://twitter.com/hellotherexu/status/1594059628446351373
Who is Chris Luxon and does he know?
It’s interesting to see that there is a version of Chris Luxon who might have done better on the right of the Labour Party in a trade or tourism role. Or in a newly created role working with the private sector over climate change. Or perhaps Andrea Vance is gilding the lily too far.
Luxon is trying to keep out ACT and NZ First to the right, but it’s hard to see his genuine self shining through. He can’t genuinely believe in boot camps, but it sells. Did he believe in tax cuts for the wealthy? Maybe to get party donations flowing. He is also politically indebted to the conservative and religious side of the National Party.
Key was ruthless, he waited and allegedly nobbled both English and Brash. But he did an apprenticeship in a shadow finance portfolio and had time in parliament. Key had excellent instincts at attempting to outflank Labour to the left, at least in appearance, and to get himself on the podium as a problem solver, whose mana was seen as equal to Helen Clark’s during to the resolution to the so called ‘anti-smacking’ legislation. Key moved effortlessly between worlds- getting the love from the Queen or the Chinese leadership and also projecting satisfaction at home in a bach. He had no moral absolutes or awkward ties that surfaced. It made it hard for his opponents to pin him down and easy to like. He never attached himself to anything too controversial or disliked.
Luxon may overcome the wobbles, but he was early anointed and has struggled to get out of tricky situations. He’s been pinned down in some unpopular policies, even if they’ve been backed away from. And as a CEO some have pointed out that he has to read the wind a bit less than a trader.
But still the right fancy their chances and as a commentator noted poo-pooing Willis’ chances, any new candidate has to get buy in from all wings of the party, so change may be difficult to secure or unpalatable.