Richard Dawkins attacks NZ over Maori ‘ways of knowing’

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has hit out at the NZ government for proposing to teach Maori mythology as equal to modern science.

Richard Dawkins has attacked the NZ government for its proposal to introduce matauranga Maori into the education curriculum.

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has hit out at the New Zealand government for proposing to teach traditional Maori mythology as equal to modern science.

The government of the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern proposed adding Matauranga Maori, or “Ways of Knowing” to the science curriculum, sparking a bitter row. The proposal was put forward by the ministry of education, led at the time by Chris Hipkins, who succeeded Ardern after her shock resignation in January.

In a letter to The Spectator, Dawkins, who has recently returned from a speaking tour of New Zealand, attacked the policy of equating Maori knowledge and religious beliefs, which date back to the 13th century and include creationism, with modern science.

Dawkins defended New Zealand scientists who had opposed the plan and faced censure and allegations of racism. A number of fellows at the New Zealand Royal Society, including Garth Cooper, a medal-winning biochemistry professor at the University of Auckland who is of Maori descent, resigned from the society last year.

The proposal was put forward by the Ministry of Education, led at the time by Chris Hipkins, now NZ PM. Picture: Getty Images.

Seven professors, including Cooper, wrote a letter titled “In defence of science” to the New Zealand Listener in 2021, acknowledging that Matauranga Maori should be taught in schools but should not be equated with modern science. The letter said that indigenous knowledge and beliefs were “critical for the preservation and perpetuation of culture and local practices” but that “in the discovery of empirical, universal truths, it falls far short of what we can define as science itself”.

Five Royal Society members reportedly complained that the letter had caused them “untold harm and hurt”.

“Perhaps the most disagreeable aspect of this sorry affair is the climate of fear,” Dawkins wrote, attacking the New Zealand government for “self-righteous virtue signalling”.

“New Zealand children will be taught the true wonder of DNA, while being simultaneously confused by the doctrine that all life throbs with a vital force conferred by the Earth Mother and the Sky Father,” he wrote. “Origin myths are haunting and poetic, but they belong elsewhere in the curriculum.”

The government has taken several steps to incorporate indigenous beliefs into government policy over recent years. In 2017, the Ardern administration granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River, closing one of New Zealand’s longest-running court battles. The Maori had campaigned for more than a century to secure legal protection for the river, and the ruling prompted other countries to grant legal rights to natural treasures.

Dawkins is a long-term critic of Matauranga Maori. In a 2021 letter to the Royal Society of New Zealand, he wrote: “Science classes are emphatically not the right place to teach scientific falsehoods. Creationism is still bollocks even if it is indigenous bollocks.”

The Times