“Indigenous knowledge” includes pagan superstition and “discredited pseudoscience,” but the Biden administration wants federal scientific and regulatory agencies to use it, as a sop to progressive Native American activists. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
The White House ordered the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal regulatory agency, to expand its use of “Indigenous Knowledge” on Monday, as part of a last-minute push in the federal government to embrace what scientists call pseudoscience.
The agency, according to a press release, signed a formal memorandum of understanding with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium to “advance Indigenous Knowledge” and “achieve strong climate resilience for our tribal nations.” The agreement will impact at least 35 accredited universities and “empower our tribal colleges and universities to be leaders in the ongoing response to climate change.”
“Indigenous Knowledge” is a discredited belief system posting that native-born peoples possess an innate understanding of how the universe works. While scientists have referred to its ideas as “dangerous” and a rejection of the scientific method, those criticisms have not stopped the Biden administration from ordering the federal government to consider “Indigenous Knowledge” when implementing rules and regulations.
President Joe Biden issued a memo in November 2022 that directed more than two dozen federal agencies to apply “Indigenous Knowledge” to “decision making, research, and policies.” The memo called on agencies to speak with “spiritual leaders” and reject “methodological dogma.”
NOAA’s language in its announcement echoes Biden’s guidance. The agency contrasts “Indigenous Knowledge” with “western science,” although it declined to define either term….NOAA…is hardly the first agency to embrace “Indigenous Knowledge.” The FDA and CDC in February finalized revisions to their scientific integrity guidelines to include “Indigenous Knowledge.”
Similarly, the National Science Foundation is financing a $30 million effort to combine primitive superstition with science, a “federally funded effort to braid” indigenous knowledge into science.
The push to use “indigenous knowledge” is based partly on false assumptions, such as the stereotype that Indian tribes are “stewards of the environment” who share unique insight on how to preserve it. As a pro-science web site explains, that “isn’t really the case, as Native Americans engaged in several practices, among them overhunting of bison and overburning of the prairie and woodlands (the latter also was done to facilitate hunting).”
Federal health agencies are already wasting millions of dollars on “indigenous knowledge.”
The Biden administration has hosted “indigenous knowledge” seminars that warned scientists against “disrespecting” spirits.
In December 2022, the Biden administration released guidance designed to promote the use of indigenous knowledge and beliefs in federal agencies’ decisions, but also to give tribes more control over the public release of their indigenous knowledge. After the administration illegally withheld records about its policies on “indigenous knowledge,” it was sued in court. The lawsuit triggered the release of records that reveal a desire by some insiders to restrict the free flow of information.
