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by revelio 1071 days ago
Seems pretty obvious what it's supposed to mean. Those topics are all selected for compatibility with ideological indoctrination and anti-science thinking.

Basic science like physics and chemistry are a problem for woke authoritarians because you can do experiments in high school labs, and this introduces children to things like standards of evidence, the scientific method, statistical rigor, the idea that some things are universally true and false etc. More importantly it teaches them to think for themselves. Science is at its best when the teacher says "X is true" but then also "and here's why you don't have to take my word for it", which is a powerful introduction to adulthood.

All the replacement topics are united by an inability to do experiments. Instead these fields rely heavily on unvalidated simulations of assumptions. These specific topics are also clearly selected for left wing environmental radicalism e.g. "earth science" means climate change, "infectious diseases" means teaching kids how important and brilliant lockdowns and masks are, "biodiversity" means the importance of not building anything and so on.

Universities are a power base for the left because they strictly teach students to silo themselves and never question professors, especially not those from a different field. High school doesn't teach that mentality to the same degree. If this curriculum does goes through, science will immediately be redefined as "here is what academics say, memorize it, regurgitate in exams, if you do that accurately you're good at science". This is exactly what they want, because if there's one thing that COVID revealed very well it was the rampant fear of those in power of anyone who doesn't define science as blind acceptance of the word of government and academic authorities.

3 comments

You've hit the nail right on the head.

In the late 19th century, New Zealand raised one of the greatest scientists of all time - Ernest Rutherford, a pioneer of atomic and nuclear physics, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. He is often referred to as "the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday".

Now New Zealand is introducing a new science curriculum that has no mention of physics or chemistry! Only last year the NZ government made Maori mythology part of science education.

I see this as another indicator of New Zealand's continued evolution into an impoverished agrarian backwater where social justice ideology is worshipped as the state religion.

I'm Aussie and am fond of New Zealand. It's our next-door neighbour. I enjoyed my brief visits there and found it to be a beautiful country with many good people. Unfortunately, their isolation and naïve idealism has made them complacent as hell about their economic future and their civil liberties.

We face similar regressive forces here in Australia, but I feel they've taken a far stronger hold in New Zealand. My heart breaks.

You could just as easily say the same thing about any change they make to any school curriculum. I've seen my share of school indoctrination, but there's nothing here to suggest this is it.
Can you? Let's say tomorrow they reduced the amount of, I dunno, woodworking class and replaced it with more physics or maths. Those topics are pretty neutral. I'm not sure how anyone could argue it's a form of indoctrination unless you think science is itself an ideology, but clearly, the whole purpose of science is to be the opposite of that.
We all know that removing woodworking = environmentalist agenda. And I dunno what new science topics they're adding but it's probably a cover for something, not teaching force equations to elementary schoolers.
I understand where you're going with this but I always found environmentalists to be quite keen on woodworking tbh, in the sense that they much prefer things made of wood to things made of plastic.
> These specific topics are also clearly selected for left wing environmental radicalism e.g. "earth science" means climate change, "infectious diseases" means teaching kids how important and brilliant lockdowns and masks are, "biodiversity" means the importance of not building anything and so on.

Sounds like the only ideologically bent character in this entire saga is you.

Given the past few years, what exactly do you think terms like earth science or infectious diseases will mean in practice? Not some hypothetical curriculum that might exist in a theoretical universe, but in this one.
My elementary school science class in the early 2000s was mostly earth and plant science, with a unit on viruses too. This seems pretty normal. And in my case, the teacher said that climate change isn't caused by humans.

I have no idea what this little draft means in New Zealand. There's not much to extrapolate from.

Ah right I see.

That sort of thing sounds OK for primary/elementary school. You'd expect science at that level to be focused on soft stuff. Expecting kids of that age to do real experiments or care about the philosophy of science is too much, if you can get them out into the garden and looking at insects and flowers then that's a good start.

I think there's a subtle difference between viruses/bacteria and what government officials mean when they talk about infectious diseases. Obviously any good biology curriculum will cover viruses and bacteria at the microscopic level. But when governments talk about "infectious diseases" what they really mean is the macro scale of epidemiology and other social sciences, because they're constantly being told by rich NGOs that we now live in an age of pandemics, and they think about disease purely through the lens of social policy and enforcement. The response to COVID was widely condemned as un-scientific because link between what academics/civil servants recommended to governments and what was actually scientifically known about viruses was nearly non-existent.

Exactly! Prior to 2020 "infectious diseases" wouldn't even have make it to the list as explicit inclusion. Everyone would have thought it is silly to single the mundane topic out like this. It is as ridiculous now as it was back then, but serves as a perfect giveaway of their agenda. See, they bolted it on as a "fifth" to their "list of four", but couldn't be bothered to fix the numerical :)