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New Zealander here, not that it really matters.
It appears that "...a proposal by a government working group that schools should give the same weight to Maori mythology as they do to science in the classroom" is a misrepresentation. The author of this article has taken up this issue because it appears to fit a political hobby horse of his.
One might read this article and conclude that The Woke Have Done It Again, they have Defied Science and Suggested that Mythology is Just As Important As Darwin.
However, one of the authors of the government working group material has also commented publicly about this and her take casts things in a slightly different light:
"The sentence quoted in the Listener letter as proof of the need to ‘defend’ science was from a section I largely wrote about the strand of the Pūtaiao curriculum that did not have a direct equivalent in the NZC Science learning area, on the history and philosophy of science. The sentence quoted was part of a description of the possible scope of studies of socioscientific issues, from a Māori perspective, by senior secondary students of Pūtaiao. To respond as fearfully as these seven professors, from the top science university in the country, to a single sentence that suggests taking a critical look at the involvement of science in colonisation of Māori, does the public face of science no favours at all. This failure in terms of academic standards explains the strong criticism of the letter that was expressed by the Royal Society as well as many leading scientists and academics (May, 2021)."[1]
Are those crazy (left-wing, out of touch, 'woke') government working groups really Denying Science?
Or did some scientists take something out of context and misunderstand it, then scream that they were being cancelled when other academics expressed disagreement with their ideas?
[1]
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2021.1...
The Scopes trial only settled things in the U.S.; presumably other nations and institutions needed at some point along the way to have their own equivalent. It's sad that New Zealand, normally regarded as a "developed nation" is nearly 100 years behind the U.S.
Scopes originally lost the trial too. It’s hard to see things as firmly settled in the US as well, “God says so” coming from another person’s lips is powerful to a great many people.
You're absolutely right--I had misremembered the outcome of the trial--but it set in motion the idea of separating religion from science education, which now seems obvious to most Americans.
And while the U.S. does have a wide contingent of (mostly uneducated) people as you describe, I could not imagine a serious research institution in the U.S. today recommending giving Biblical creation equal time with science in the public schools; even less, the mobbing of a scientist who objects to it by thousands of his colleagues crying for him to be removed from the National Academy of Sciences--with his provost and the society itself in agreement!
Strange? I wonder if this is an imitative of classic religions (which are fading everywhere) to create a support base for mysticism in general - what next? Astrology?
Who needs science if there is lived experience?