{"id":21117,"date":"2024-10-02T00:08:28","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T07:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/politicalhat.com\/?p=21117"},"modified":"2024-10-02T00:08:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T07:08:28","slug":"the-hot-new-science-indigenous-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2024\/10\/02\/the-hot-new-science-indigenous-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hot New Science: Indigenous Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

     One of the more insidious assaults on Western Civilization is the attack on science and scientific expertise. Sometimes this done by a direct assault that not only posits the validity of anti-science \u201cways of knowing<\/a>\u201d and the rights and freedoms<\/a> that allowed scientific innovation to flourish, but also the demand that medicine<\/a> and space<\/a> be \u201cdecolonized\u201d. Other times this is done by subversion of substitution, specifically painting things like mysticism<\/a> and animism<\/a> as \u201cscience\u201d. The incorporation of these non-Western \u201cways of knowing\u201d is a wolf in sheep’s clothing amongst us. And that incorporation is woke<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy drive is to make science a safe, equitable, inclusive space that\u2019s accessible for everyone. The content we teach in chemistry or biochemistry is all in a Western context. I\u2019m trying to work out how we can share the discoveries other people and cultures have made, so science isn\u2019t taught through just one lens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to build a curriculum that creates an accessible experience and builds a sense of belonging in science, technology, engineering and mathematics while respecting cultural perspectives. In Western science, humans are organized at the top of systems, whereas my Indigenous world view has interconnectedness at its centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen teaching chemistry, I try to include an engaging story. For example, what were the thought processes and experiments used to first identity subatomic particles? There are also Indigenous world views on how we perceive the Big Bang that I share. With Naomi Lee, a biochemist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, I co-wrote The Chemistry and Culture Workbook for the Reformed Experimental Activities (REActivities) programme, a redesigned chemistry curriculum with a more student-driven, inclusive approach. It incorporates Indigenous knowledge in chemistry with laboratory experiments to follow along.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside the classroom, I\u2019m interested in finding the unique mentoring styles that serve our students best. The lived experiences I\u2019ve had guide what I share with students and how I bring perspectives to spaces that other people don\u2019t have a chance to share. Maybe I will be able to loosen my DEI and antiracism focus a bit when more faculty members are open-minded, or when the US National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation are allowing more creativity in grants and when lab spaces become more inclusive. For now, there are some places where I will not give a talk because I don\u2019t think they\u2019re inclusive. My work isn\u2019t going to change them; it has to come from a higher institutional level.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"

Pictured: The application of indigenous wisdom?<\/p><\/div>\n

     These anti-Western \u201cways of knowing\u201d aren\u2019t science<\/a> or even reality<\/a>. It is just an attempt to create equity<\/em> by declaring all \u201cways of knowing\u201d equally valid and then raising anti-Western \u201cways\u201d above science in order to achieve an equality of influence and of validity\u2014and the only way contradictory things can be equally valid is if they are equally invalid in their own \u201cway\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     One of the more insidious assaults on Western Civilization is the attack on science and scientific expertise. Sometimes this done by a direct assault that not only posits the validity of anti-science \u201cways of knowing\u201d and the rights and freedoms … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,17],"tags":[77,25,86,48],"class_list":["post-21117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-progressives","tag-derp","tag-higher-ed","tag-science","tag-social-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21118,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21117\/revisions\/21118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}