A comment by reader Chris Slater called my attention to this article from GeoNet, an organization described as providing “geological hazard information for Aotearoa New Zealand.” It’s also
. . . . sponsored by the New Zealand Government through its agencies: Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake, GNS Science, Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The hazards include volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, and tsunamis. Useful, right? And of course the monitoring is done using scientific methods (see here for earthquakes, for instance), because you must use modern science to make the best predictions.
But this is New Zealand, and so GeoNet had to drag in some indigenous knowledge to satisfy the Zeitgeist; in this case, the addition was arrant superstition. This article, which you can read by clicking on the headline, invokes gods as a cause of earthquakes. It’s all metaphor, of course, but it’s done to satisfy the claim that both kinds of “knowledge” is the optimal mixture for understanding the world.
The subheadline echoes the headline:
The weaving together of different knowledge strands, Mātauranga Māori and western science, strengthens our understanding of our whenua (land) and supports conversations on how we can be better prepared for natural hazard events, such as an Alpine Fault earthquake, together.
Note the assertion that combining indigenous “ways of knowing” with what they persist in calling “western science” (which is no longer western) will make for a better understanding of nature. But Mātauranga Māori doesn’t just include practical knowledge gleaned from trial and error: it also includes superstition, ethics, morality, legend, and religion. And here they bring in the religion.
An excerpt (my bolding)
The Alpine Fault is the longest naturally forming straight line on earth. It marks the meeting of two large tectonic plates and has formed over millions of years, stretching longer, lifting our landscape up out of the ocean, and creating the peaks of Kā Tiritiri o te Moana (Southern Alps) with every large earthquake it generates.
According to Ngāi Tahu creation stories, earthquakes are caused by Rūaumoko, the son of Ranginui (the Sky Father) and his wife Papatūanuku (the Earth Mother). Māori have experienced rū whenua, which means ‘the shaking of the land’ for centuries.
Science tells us that Rūaumoko rumbles the Alpine Fault about every 300 years, and the last time was in 1717. These big earthquakes have been happening for millions of years and the next one is not a case of if, but when. The next large Alpine Fault earthquake will be long and strong and significantly alter the landscape of Te Waipounamu as we know it. Landslides, liquefaction, river changes, flooding, tsunami, and aftershocks are all likely.
A large Alpine Fault earthquake happening in our lifetimes is no doubt a scary thought! However, understanding how our whenua has moved in the past helps us prepare to move with it in the future. While we can’t predict when it will happen, we can work together to be better prepared for it by sharing our mātauranga (knowledge), science, and experiences of past earthquakes and emergencies to raise awareness, build understanding, and strengthen our relationships. The better connected we are beforehand, the easier it will be to support each other during and after a catastrophic event.
This is a hot mess. Dragging in Māori religion not only doesn’t add anything to the prediction of earthquakes, but is likely to confuse students who think that religious mythology is inherent in this prediction. What on earth can it mean to say that “Science tells us that Rūaumoko rumbles the Alpine Fault about every 300 years. . “? That is simply a flat-out lie. The pressures on the tectonic plates makes them slip roughly once every 300 years. It’s not due to the actions of a god who decides to rumble the earth about every 300 years (does he get bored?).
It is a disservice—in fact, an insult—to geologists to add to their science the idea that gods are shaking the earth. It is an embarrassment to New Zealand’s government that they are more or less forced to mix indigenous myths with science to pretend that they can reinforce each other. And that pressure comes from trying to sacralize the indigenous people and satisfy, so they think, are the demands of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. But that treaty says nothing about indigenous ways of knowing being made coequal to modern science.
Yes, indigenous knowledge may be a useful addition to some limited scientific endeavors, but this is not one of them. Get the gods out of geology!
Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “Trump“, came with a short summary: “God wants you to stop projecting your own desires onto him.”
Clearly Mo is a Democrat! But of course, anybody who wishes that Trump had been killed is morally off the rails, though I’ve heard that from a few people.
Rehabilitation robots, first introduced in the 1990s, are just what they sound like – robotics used to aid in regaining function through rehabilitation following an injury. The idea sounds compelling, and the technology has been advancing steadily. But still we have to ask ourselves the question – do they actually help, and what is the evidence? A recent comprehensive meta-analysis and systematic […]
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