Top academics who are leading a$ 30 million federal effort to “braid” indigenous knowledge into science are ignoring requests for comment. They do n’t want to detail what that actually looks like in practice.
The National Science Foundation gave the University of Massachusetts, Amherst a five-year,$ 30 million give last year, making it the largest offer in the school’s history to create a new global science and technology center where researchers may work to address issues relating to climate change, biodiversity, and changing food systems.
The Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science will take a” transdisciplinary approach” and use” community-based research” to facilitate “place-based studies and projects” while working with 57 indigenous communities at eight international hubs across much of the English-speaking world, according to a 2023 article from the university.
The College Fix’s calls for remarks were never responded to in recent weeks by Jon Woodruff, one of Atalay’s co-principal investigators and professor of regional and climate sciences, nor Sonya Atalay, the center’s vice president of archaeology.
The Fix sought information on how the inclusion of indigenous information with European science actually works, and whether they could give specific examples of how this integration has contributed to or can contribute to the mitigation of climate change or another related issues.
However, some academics are beginning to doubt the accuracy and effectiveness of incorporating so-called indigenous knowledge into contemporary science.
The University of Chicago’s professor professor of evolutionary biology, Jerry Coyne, has been outspoken critics of the connectivity, and he recently called the “achievement of indigenous knowledge on line with current science” “distressing.”
Elizabeth Weiss, a retired professor professor of anthropology and creator of the new book” On the Warpath: My Battles with Indians, Pretendians, and Woke Warriors”, agrees with Coyne.
In a new interview with The College Fix, she stated that” the integration of’indigenous knowledge’ looks like researchers kowtowing to animistic values and performing absurd rituals to maintain access to bones and object choices.
When asked about the degree to which scientists in anthropology and relevant fields truly are embracing the kind of “braiding” proposed by Atalay and the new center at UMass, Weiss said:” However, some scientists in general and anthropologists, especially, are supporting this absurd idea that’ aboriginal knowledge ‘ can help us answer scientific questions”.
Weiss said in an email that this includes engaging in discriminatory practices, such as telling menstruating and pregnant women to avoid handling warrior remains or engaging in discriminatory practices, among others. ” It also means engaging in sage burning, hanging devil’s claw in shelving areas, and covering up ‘ spiritually dangerous’ artifacts, for fear that’ dark forces’ will be summoned”.
Additionally, Weiss said braiding looks like “fitting data to the mythology, rather than using data to come to objective conclusions”.
The Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science is expected to host more than 50 scientists, including “more than 30 of the world’s leading Indigenous natural, environmental and social scientists” representing several indigenous peoples, the UMass website states.
Its stated goal is” connecting Indigenous knowledge with mainstream’ West ‘ sciences in new ways to address some of our time’s most pressing issues.”
According to the article, its director, Atalay, said the center’s “vision is that braided Indigenous and Western methodologies become mainstream in scientific research” and that they are ethically applied by researchers working in an equitable partnership with Indigenous and other communities to address complex scientific issues and provide place-based, community-centered solutions to address the existential threat of climate change and its serious effects on cultural places and food systems.
According to Atalay, the “braiding” of these two methodologies entails the process of” two-eyed seeing”, which was described in an earlier UMass Amherst article regarding Atalay’s work as a means to develop a better, “more rigorous and complete” understanding of the natural world through the integration of different knowledge systems.
According to Atalay, the scientific community has increasingly recognized indigenous knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge as valuable.
” Indigenous knowledge is n’t about going back to the past”, Atalay said. It’s about accepting that indigenous knowledge systems are extremely valuable and rich in information, and it’s foolish to believe that Western knowledge systems are the only or the only approach. If there’s something we can learn from Indigenous peoples that can help us all with this existential threat of climate change, I think that’s essential to further explore, understand, and incorporate”.
According to articles from UMass Amherst, Atalay and the center’s goal is to” Indigenize university science curriculum” and create programming for K-12 students.
When asked about alleged benefits and potential drawbacks to attempts to “braid” indigenous knowledge with science, Weiss wrote,” I cannot think of a single benefit”.
However, she stated,” The drawbacks are multiple, including wasting time and money on this nonsense, often at taxpayers ‘ expense. And, turning a once respected discipline into a farce”.
MORE: Efforts growing to ‘ braid Indigenous knowledge ‘ into science, UChicago biologist warns
IMAGES: From top — National Science Foundation, Elizabeth Weiss, UMass Amherst
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