Discovering Indigenous Science: Implications for Science Education
Gloria Snively
Department of Social and Natural Sciences, University of Victoria
John Corsiglia
Consultant on First Nation’s history and culture, British Columbia
Abstract: Indigenous science relates to both the science knowledge of long-resident, usually oral culture peoples, as well as the science knowledge of all peoples who as participants in culture are affected by the worldview and relativist interests of their home communities. This article explores aspects of multicultural science and pedagogy and describes a rich and well-documented branch of indigenous science known to biologists and ecologists as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Although TEK has been generally inaccessible, educators can now use a burgeoning science-based TEK literature that documents numerous examples of time-proven, ecologically relevant, and cost effective indigenous science. Disputes regarding the universality of the standard scientific account are of critical importance for science educators because the definition of science is a de facto “gatekeeping” device for determining what can be included in a school science curriculum and what cannot. When Western modern science (WMS) is defined as universal it does displace revelation-based knowledge (i.e., creation science); however, it also displaces pragmatic local indigenous knowledge that does not conform with formal aspects of the “standard account.” Thus, in most science classrooms around the globe, Western modern science has been taught at the expense of indigenous knowledge. However, because WMS has been implicated in many of the world’s ecological disasters, and because the traditional wisdom component of TEK is particularly rich in time-tested approaches that foster sustainability and environmental integrity, it is possible that the universalist “gatekeeper” can be seen as increasingly problematic and even counter productive. This paper describes many examples from Canada and around the world of indigenous people’s contributions to science, environmental understanding, and sustainability. The authors argue the view that Western or modern science is just one of many sciences that need to be addressed in the science classroom We conclude by presenting instructional strategies that can help all science learner negotiate border crossings between Western modern science and indigenous science.
INTRODUCTION
One of the intense philosophical debates in education literature focuses on the inclusion of multicultural science in mainstream science education, as evidenced by the number of papers submitted to this and other science education journals. For some, multicultural science is seen as important because it can function as a pedagogical stepping stone — especially for multicultural students of science (Atwater & Riley, 1993; Hodson, 1993; Stanley & Brickhouse, 1994). Certain other science educators who champion modern Western science as the last and greatest of the sciences tend to dismiss multicultural science as faddish or heretical (Good, 1995a, 1995b; Gross & Levitt, 1994; Matthews, 1994; Slezak, 1994; Wolpert, 1993).
Suspending consideration of the intrinsic importance of multicultural science Ogawa (1995) stresses that all science students must work through both individual and indigenous science understandings in the course of constructing their knowledge of modern Western science. Ogawa proposes that every culture has its own science and refers to the science in a given culture as its “indigenous science” (Ogawa, 1995, p.585). Westerners freely acknowledge the existence of indigenous art, music, literature, drama, and political and economic systems in indigenous cultures, but somehow fail to apprehend and appreciate indigenous science. Elkana writes: “Comparative studies of art, religion, ethics, and politics abound; however, there is no discipline called comparative science” (Elkana, 1981, p. 2). Thus, in many educational settings where Western modern science is taught, it is taught at the expense of indigenous science, which may precipitate charges of epistemological hegemony and cultural imperialism.
It would seem that the dispute over how science is to be taught in the classroom turns on how the concepts “science” and “universality” are to be defined. The debate rages over the nature of reality and knowledge, definitions of science, and the so-called universalist vs. relativist positions. Sometimes the debate appears to be at least as culture-centric as it is rational. Replying to a Stanley and Brickhouse (1994) suggestion to include examples of multicultural science in the curriculum, Good (1995a) challenged opponents to be specific with their “few well-chosen examples of sciences from other cultures”:
What are these few well-chosen examples that should be included in our school science curriculum? Additionally, it would be very nice to learn how these examples of neglected “science” should change our understanding of biology, chemistry, physics, and so on. Just what contributions will this neglected science make in modern science’s understanding of nature? (p. 335)
As one example of how far the universalist vs. relativist debate can be pushed, the authors have learned that Richard Dawkins is fond of saying: “there are no relativists at 30,000 feet.” No doubt that without an airplane of conventional description, a person at 30,000 feet is in serious trouble, but when universalists take off and land on vulcanized rubber tires they make use of a material and process reportedly discovered and refined by indigenous Peruvians (Weatherford, 1988, 1991). Without multicultural science contributions enabling airplanes to land and take off, there would be neither airplanes, nor for that matter, universalists at 30,000 feet.
While science educators have been fighting epistemological battles that could effectively limit or expand the scope and purview of science education, events on the ground appear to have overtaken us — working scientists have themselves been involved in wide ranging exploration and reform. Especially during the last 25 years, biologists, ecologists, botanists, geologists, climatologists, astronomers, agriculturists, pharmacologists, and related working scientists have labored to develop approaches that are improving our ability to understand and mitigate the impact of human activity upon the environment. By extending their enquiry into the timeless traditional knowledge and wisdom of long-resident, oral peoples, these scientists have in effect moved the borders of scientific inquiry and formalized a branch of biological and ecological science that has become known as the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), which can be thought of as either the knowledge itself, or as documented ethno-science enriched with analysis and explication provided by natural science specialists. The interested reader can find numerous detailed examples of TEK (Andrews, 1988; Berkes, 1988, 1993; Berkes & Mackenzie, 1978, Inglis, 1993; Warren, 1997; Williams & Baines, 1993). Additionally, the present bibliography provides the reader with a number of specific examples of TEK in Canada and worldwide.
Thus, we face four related questions: First, is science an exclusive invention of Europeans, or have scientific ways of thinking and viable bodies of science knowledge also emerged in other cultures? Second, if WMS is taken to be universal, what is the status of the vast quantities of local knowledge that it subsumes, incorporates,and claims to legitimize? Third, what is the proper role of science educators as leaders in the process of refining and clarifying the current definitions of WMS? And fourth, when viable bodies of useful scientific knowledge emerge in other cultures, how can science educators develop programs that enable all students to cross cultural borders — in this instance, between the culture of Western modern science and the cultures of long-resident indigenous peoples?
Because TEK is being used by scientists to solve important biological and ecological problems and because problems of sustainability are pervasive and of very high interest to students and others, it becomes increasingly important for science educators to introduce students to the perspectives of both WMS and TEK. The availability and varies nature of TEK examples will be useful to proponents of multicultural science (Aikenhead, 1995, 1996; Atwater & Riley, 1993; Bowers, 1993a, 1993b; Hodson, 1993; Ogawa, 1989, 1995; Smith, 1982, 1995; Snively, 1990, 1995; Wright, 1992).
In this article, we argue the view that since Aboriginal cultures have made significant contributions to science, then surely there are different ways of arriving at legitimate knowledge. Without knowledge, there can be no science. Thus, the definition of “science” should be broadened, thereby including TEK as science. The intention is not to demean WMS, but instead to point out a body of scientific literature that provides great potential for enhancing our ability to develop more relevant science education programs.
TERMINOLOGY: WESTERN MODERN SCIENCE, INDIGENOUS SCIENCE, AND TEK
Since the phrases “Western modern science,” “indigenous science,” and “traditional ecological knowledge” all have multiple meanings it will be useful to linger briefly with definitions. For clarity, we shall distinguish between “Western modern science” which is the most dominant science in the world and “indigenous science” which interprets how the world works from a particular cultural perspective. This paper focuses on a subset of indigenous science referred to as “traditional ecological knowledge,” which is both the science of long-resident oral peoples and a biological sciences label for the growing literature which records and explores that knowledge.
What is Science?
As is well known, there are numerous versions of what science is, and of what counts as being scientific. The Latin root, scientia, means knowledge in the broadest possible sense and survives in such words as omniscience and prescience. Terms such as “modern science,” “standard science,” “Western science,” “conventional science,” and “official science” have been in use only since the beginning of the twentieth century. For some, scientific abstractions began with Sumerian astronomy and mathematics; for others, scientific theorizing began with Greek atomism; and for yet others, it began toward the end of the nineteenth century when scientists began to grapple with abstract theoretical propositions — for example, evolution, natural selection, and the kinetic-molecular theory. What confidence could one have in theoretical statements built from or based on unobservable data? Care was taken to develop logically consistent rules outlining how theoretical statements can be derived from observational statements. The intent was to create a single set of rules to guide the practice of theory justification (Duschl, 1994). Science can also refer to conceptual constructs approved by logical empiricism (positivism) which, in addition, has the capacity to carry science beyond the realms of observation and experiment. Also, we have come to refer to WMS as officially sanctioned knowledge which can be thought of as inquiry and investigation that Western governments and courts are prepared to support, acknowledge, and use. Some authors have represented “science” with the acronym WMS, which either means “Western modern science” (Ogawa, 1995) or “white male science” (Pomeroy, 1994). Striving toward comprehensive definitions, certain sociology of science scholars have described WMS as institutionalized in Western Europe and North America as a predominately white male, middle-class Western system of meaning and symbols (Rose, 1994; Simonelli, 1994).
In sharp contrast to the exclusivist definitions of science in the previous paragraph, Ogawa (1995) points science educators toward a broadly inclusive conceptualization of what science is by defining science rather simply as “a rational perceiving of reality” (p.588). The merit of the use of the word “perceiving”gives science a “dynamic nature” and acknowledges that “science can experience a gradual change at any time” (p.588). Another point put forward by Ogawa s that “rational” should be seen in relativistic terms, as discussed in the previous section.
The present WMS philosophical climate would require some reconfiguration if TEK, which takes a generally pragmatic approach, is to be properly received as science. Approaches to science seem to have proceeded along two fundamentally different courses — by the timeless procedure of relying on observation and experiment, and, during this century, by the theoretical examination of queries and assertions. By examining the methodology and logic of assertions, questions, and concept, logical empiricism (positivism) has come to function as a vigorous “gatekeeper” that has certainly succeeded in screening out metaphysical, pseudo-science during this century. In fact, logical empiricism (positivism) may have become so powerful a gatekeeper that even experimental science itself appears to have become diminished. Experiment cannot prove the [absolute] correctness of assertions, it can only help to rank or disconfirm theories. Hacking refers to the general difficulty in Boyd, Gaspar, and Trout (1991):
No field in the philosophy of science is more systematically neglected than experiment. Our grade school teachers may have told us that scientific method is experimental method, but histories of science have become histories of theory. (p.247)
Certainly, we may rejoice that logical empiricism (positivism) has been able to screen out historically destructive pseudo-science by exposing the meaninglessness of its metaphyscics, but there are problems. As poet Robert Frost put it, “Before I built a wall I’d ask what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offense.” As an expression of Western culture (or even as a system of pure, value free, universal truth), WMS must inevitably swim in a sea of cultural assumptions about progress, self-interest, winning/losing, aggressiveness, attitude to time (the purview of meaningful history), and the benefits of immediate advantage as opposed to the importance of long-term consequences.
Until the past two or three decades, the gatekeeper’s performance appears to have been generally celebrated. More recently, however, sociologists of science have been vigorous in identifying implicit values and assumptions that can be said to tacitly structure the gatekeeper’s activities. At the same time, a considerable number of working scientists, no doubt mindful of both the gatekeeper’s power to exclude and the real possibility of worldwide environmental collapse, have set up pragmatic TEK science shops. The fact that working scientists are increasingly acknowledging TEK suggests that there are sound reasons for changing the formal definitions of “science” so as to include such important forms of multicultural science as TEK.
Our position on “science” is closely aligned with that of Ogawa (1989) who prefers Elkana’s (1981) understanding of science, which argues that “every culture has its science,” … “something like its own way of thinking and/or its own worldview” and gives the following definition: “By science, I mean a rational (i.e., purposeful, good, directed) explanation of science of the physical world surrounding man” (p.1437). WE agree with Ogawa (1989) when he asserts that “Western science is only one form of science among the sciences of the world” (p.248). Also, the people living in an indigenous culture itself may not recognize the existence of its own science, hence, it may be transferred from generation to generation merely by invisible or nonformal settings (Ogawa, 1989).
Indigenous Science
According to Ogawa (1995), we must distinguish between two levels of science: individual or personal science and cultural or societal science. He refers to science at the culture or society level as “indigenous science” (p.588).
Although we all participate in indigenous science to a greater or lesser degree, long-resident, oral culture peoples may be thought of as specialists in local indigenous science. Indigenous science, sometimes referred to as ethnoscience, has been described as “the study of systems of knowledge developed by a given culture to classify the objects, activities, and events of its given universe” (Hardesty, 1977). Indigenous science interprets how the local world works through a particular cultural perspective. Expressions of science thinking are abundant throughout indigenous agriculture, astronomy, navigation, mathematics, medical practices, engineering, military science, architecture, and ecology. In addition, processes of science that include rational observation of natural events, classification, and problem solving are woven into all aspects of indigenous cultures. It is both remembered sensory information that is usually transmitted orally in descriptive names and in stories where abstract principles are encapsulated in metaphor (Bowers, 1993a, 1993b; Cruikshank, 1981, 1991; Nelson, 1983).
We may note that indigenous science includes the knowledge of both indigenous expansionist cultures (e.g., the Aztec, Mayan, and Mongolian Empires) as well as the home-based knowledge of long-term resident oral resident peoples (i.e., the Inuit, the Aboriginal people of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, Micronesia, and New Zealand).
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
Although the term TEK came into widespread use in the 1980s, there is no universally accepted definition of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in literature. The term is, by necessity, ambiguous since the words traditional and ecological knowledge are themselves ambiguous. Dictionary etymology shows the Latin roots of “traditional science” to be “knowledge” scientia of the world that is “handed across” or “traded” (from the Latin traduare) across generations of long-resident oral traditional peoples. “Traditional” usually refers to a cultural continuity transmitted in the form of social attitudes, beliefs, principles, and conventions of behavior and practice derived from historical experience. However, as Berkes (1993) points out, “societies change through time, constantly adopting new practices and technologies, and making it difficult to define just how much and what kind of change would affect the labeling of a practice as traditional” (p.3). Because of this, many scholars avoid using the term “traditional.” As well, some purists find the term unacceptable or inappropriate when referring to societies such as native northern groups whose lifestyles have changed considerably over the years. For this reason, some prefer the term “indigenous knowledge” (IK), which helps avoid the debate about tradition, and explicitly puts the emphasis on indigenous people (Berkes, 1993). The term “ecological knowledge” poses definition problems of its own. If ecology is defined narrowly as a branch of biology in the domain of Western science, then strictly speaking there can be no TEK; most traditional peoples are not modern Western scientists. If ecological knowledge is defined broadly to refer to the “knowledge, however acquired, of relationships of living being with one another and with the environment, then the term TEK becomes tenable” (Berkes, 1993, p.3)
TEK generally represents experience acquired over thousands of years of direct human contact with the environment. Although the term TEK only came into widespread use, the practice of TEK is ancient (Berkes, 1993). The science of long-resident peoples differs considerably from group to group depending on locale and is knowledge built up through generations of living in close contact with the land. Figure 1 show one way of attempting to describe TEK within an indigenous science framework and of emphasizing its importance to contemporary environmental issues. Examples of indigenous and TEK science may be accessed through living elders and specialists of various kinds or found in the literature of TEK, anthropology, ethnology, ethnobiology, ethnogeography, ethnohistory, and mythology, as well as in the archived records of traders, missionaries, and government functionaries.
TEK information is sometimes cherished as private or belonging to one family only. Also, in many traditions, oral information may only be shared under particular circumstances, for example, when it is clear that no one intends to use the knowledge for gain.