Post by Kiwi Frontline on Aug 7, 2021 15:19:49 GMT 12
Bruce Moon: LET'S BE CLEAR ABOUT SCIENCE
It is reported in “ideasroom” for 1st August 2021 that Professor Stephen May has explained “how mātauranga Māori is a complementary counterweight to the arrogance and insularity of so much European thought.” Now that is a bold and sweeping statement indeed and might even be asserted to display some of the very “arrogance and insularity” he condemns in others.
There may be concepts and knowledge of some value in matauranga Maori and it would be arrogant and insular indeed for anybody to say otherwise without some study – but there are other considerations.
Professor May appropriately refers to the insight of philosopher Karl Popper – who at one stage taught at the University of Canterbury – that an intrinsic property of science is that it is falsifiable, that is to say that it can be replaced by better science as more information becomes available which he proceeds to claim is “simply nonsense”. He goes on to take the example of “scientific racism” which has indeed been falsified which does rather prove Popper’s thesis. So the acid test of matauranga Maori remains: if it is to be accepted as science, is it in principle falsifiable, i.e. shown to be wrong? If not then it cannot be more than a set of ad hoc beliefs, opinions and dogma.
May continues:......
breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2021/08/bruce-moon-lets-be-clear-about-science.html
It is reported in “ideasroom” for 1st August 2021 that Professor Stephen May has explained “how mātauranga Māori is a complementary counterweight to the arrogance and insularity of so much European thought.” Now that is a bold and sweeping statement indeed and might even be asserted to display some of the very “arrogance and insularity” he condemns in others.
There may be concepts and knowledge of some value in matauranga Maori and it would be arrogant and insular indeed for anybody to say otherwise without some study – but there are other considerations.
Professor May appropriately refers to the insight of philosopher Karl Popper – who at one stage taught at the University of Canterbury – that an intrinsic property of science is that it is falsifiable, that is to say that it can be replaced by better science as more information becomes available which he proceeds to claim is “simply nonsense”. He goes on to take the example of “scientific racism” which has indeed been falsified which does rather prove Popper’s thesis. So the acid test of matauranga Maori remains: if it is to be accepted as science, is it in principle falsifiable, i.e. shown to be wrong? If not then it cannot be more than a set of ad hoc beliefs, opinions and dogma.
May continues:......
breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2021/08/bruce-moon-lets-be-clear-about-science.html