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Art's avatar

“Mr. Judd then goes on to argue that tikanga is not law.”

Mutatis Mutandis, mâtauranga Mâori is not science. To be sure, just about every culture through the ages and across the planet has seen humans interact with their environment. Without such interaction, they would simply have not survived. And survival obviously is paramount for any group of people.

Our traits of intelligence and the ability to institutionalise collective knowledge in multiple ways ensures degrees of survival - to a point. For even here there are many examples of the need to alter our root paradigms over time. There’s ever the interaction of the theoretical and the empirical, the observational and the hypothetical.

Just so, genuine science has by degrees in a specific culture developed. Its plausibility structures are a necessary prerequisite for this to occur moreover. And given its very success in that very culture, it has now become a series of global institutions. This is one of the curious fruits of colonial expansion over the past 300 years, from Europe to the rest of the world. Although clearly this is not the place to rehearse the history of mercantilism and Empire building in general, with its rather mixed blessings. All of us are human beings after all!!

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Ruaridh or Roderick's avatar

David, for some time now you have most usefully (for those who have the benefit of unclosed minds) been commenting on matters of moment that bear upon the future prospects of our nation as one of diversity woven into unity.

What you have said should be on a platform that is widely read.

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