from: Indigenizing the University: Diverse Perspectives

edited by Frances Widdoson, Frontier Center for Public Policy

2021, pp. 199-214

10

Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? A Response

to Gorelick

Massimo Pigliucci

T here has been much debate of late about alternative ways of doing
science, particularly within the delicate context of Indigenous practices
in Canada, Australia, and other countries around the world. Some
authors have called for the integration of what they refer to as traditional
ecological knowledge into university science education curricula (Snively and
Corsiglia 2000); others have made an even broader call pertinent to science in
general (Michie 2002). Some have suggested that not just science education, but
science proper, will benefit from the integration of Indigenous methods,
especially when it comes to practical applications (Johnson et al. 2016).
The debate is often understandably emotional, as it is set against the
background of the lingering aftermath of colonialism (Williams and Chrisman
2013), and within the broader issue of multiculturalism (Race 2015) and the
productive coexistence of different traditions within a given society. It is also
often framed in terms of pseudoscience (Pigliucci and Boudry 2013), with
(some) critics of Indigenous approaches dismissively labelling the latter as
pseudoscientific, and defenders of such approaches striving to show that they
represent legitimate alternatives to what is often characterized as “Western”
science.
Given the complexity and sensitivity of the issue, let me be clear up front
on what I will and will not do here. I will not engage in any discussion of the
general merits of governmental actions to integrate Indigenous knowledge into
higher education curricula, since presumably those merits will vary from case
to case, and at any rate I am neither a political scientist nor a socio-political
philosopher. I will certainly not engage on the merits of Indigenous grievances
vis-a-vis the aftermath of colonial policies, as I am generally sympathetic with
such grievances but, again, think they need to be assessed case by case by the
interested parties. I will, however, comment on the specific issue of the
scientific or pseudoscientific status of certain claims made on behalf of
Indigenous knowledge that pertains to my proper domain of expertise, i.e.,
biology. I will, also, comment on the general issue of the distinction between
200 Massimo Pigliucci

science and pseudoscience, what in philosophy is known as the demarcation

problem, qua professional philosopher of science.
To keep the discussion focused, I have been asked to respond to a specific
article on Indigenous science vs. pseudoscience, authored by biologist Root
Gorelick (this volume), which I take to be broadly representative of the debate
at hand. Gorelick attempts to frame both Indigenous and Western science
within a Bayesian framework (Peterson 2017), from which he claims that any
difference between the two approaches is the result of them having different
priors, asking different questions, and sometimes using different data, thus
ending up making different predictions about distinct phenomena. I will argue,
in a nutshell, that there is no such thing as Indigenous or Western science, but
only science tout court, which either works or fails to work, regardless of whether
it is being carried out by Indigenous or Western scientists. I will also suggest
that some Indigenous knowledge is, indeed, sound and scientifically useful,
while other aspects of it fall closer to the pseudoscientific end of the spectrum.

Prologue: Science vs. Pseudoscience

The problem of demarcating science from pseudoscience (and, more generally,

non-science) was arguably put on the philosophical map by none other than
Socrates. The Charmides1 is a strange early Platonic dialogue, and scholars are
not even sure what the subject matter of the dialogue actually is. Nonetheless,
there is a small section of it that is pertinent to our inquiry, in which Socrates
takes a comment by one of his interlocutors as a reason to explore the relation
between science and medicine. This in turn leads him to ask how “a wise man”
might distinguish good from bad medicine, a doctor from a quack. (As usual,
this is not really a dialogue so much as Socrates—who does most of the
talking—pursuing a point with the assistance of a willing interlocutor who
simply nods along the way):

(Socrates) Let us consider the matter in this way. If the wise man or
any other man wants to distinguish the true physician from the false,
how will he proceed? . . . He who would inquire into the nature of
medicine must test it in health and disease, which are the sphere of
medicine, and not in what is extraneous and is not its sphere?

(Other guy) True.

(Socrates) And he who wishes to make a fair test of the physician as

a physician will test him in what relates to these?
 Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? 201

(Other guy) He will.

(Socrates) He will consider whether what he says is true, and whether

what he does is right, in relation to health and disease?

(Other guy) He will.

(Socrates) But can anyone pursue the inquiry into either unless he has
a knowledge of medicine?

(Other guy) He cannot.

(Socrates) No one at all, it would seem, except the physician can have
this knowledge—and therefore not the wise man. He would have to
be a physician as well as a wise man.

(Other guy) Very true.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem of expertise (to which Socrates, by the way,
does not have a solution): it would seem that the only way to assess whether an
expert is in fact an expert is to be an expert oneself. On the positive side, this
is what justifies peer review in science: if I wish to write a paper, say, on
quantum mechanics or on evolutionary theory, I need to submit it to the
(usually anonymous) review of several scientists whose specialty is quantum
mechanics or evolutionary theory. The idea is not that experts are infallible, but
rather that they are the best (often the only) people qualified to make a
judgment on technical matters.
On the negative side, it would seem that if I think (and I do) that mystic
Deepak Chopra, say, talks nonsense when he tells people about quantum
mechanical elixirs of youth, I would first have to be an expert in quantum
mysticism. But the problem is that quantum mysticism is (I think) quackery,
and that therefore there is no such thing as an “expert” on quantum mysticism.
This despite the fact that quantum mechanics is one of the best-established
scientific theories of all time (then again, I’m not an expert in quantum
mechanics ...).
This is why the demarcation problem is a tough nut to crack, and that is
why philosophical analysis becomes helpful. In modern times, the philosopher
who got the discussion going on this is Karl Popper, who thought he had
arrived at a neat solution: falsifiability (Shea 2018). He reckoned that—contra
202 Massimo Pigliucci

popular understanding—science does not make progress by proving its

theories correct, since it is far too easy to selectively accumulate data that are
favourable to one’s pre-established views. Rather, for Popper, science
progresses by eliminating one bad theory after another, because once a notion
has been proven to be false, it will stay that way. He concluded that what
distinguishes science from pseudoscience is the (potential) falsifiability of
scientific hypotheses, and the inability of pseudoscientific notions to be
subjected to the falsifiability test.
For instance: Einstein’s theory of general relativity survived a crucial test
back in 1919, when one of its most extraordinary predictions—that light is bent
by the presence of gravitational masses—was spectacularly confirmed during a
total eclipse of the sun.2 This did not prove that the theory is true, but it showed
that it was falsifiable and, therefore, good science.
By contrast, Popper thought that Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxist
theories of history are unfalsifiable in principle; they are so vague that no
empirical test could ever show them to be incorrect, if they are incorrect. The
point is subtle but crucial. Popper did not argue that those theories are, in fact,
wrong, only that one couldn’t possibly know if they were, and they should not,
therefore, be classed as good science.
It’s a neat distinction—a bit too neat, unfortunately. Plenty of
philosophers after Popper (e.g., Laudan 1983) have pointed out that a number
of pseudoscientific notions are, in fact, eminently falsifiable, and have been
shown to be false: astrology, for instance (Carlson 1985). Conversely, some
notions that are even currently considered to be scientific, are also—at least
temporarily—unfalsifiable (e.g., string theory in physics: Hossenfelder 2018).
For a number of years, it looked like philosophers had given up on tackling
the demarcation problem, until a new collection of essays (Pigliucci and Boudry
2013) showcased fresh thinking on the matter, and new solutions to the issue.
Briefly, the consensus now seems to be that there is no sharp demarcation
between science and pseudoscience, in the fashion Popper imagined. That’s not
because there is no difference, nor because we do not understand the
distinction to be made. We know that astrology is pseudoscience and
astronomy isn’t. Rather, concepts such as science, pseudoscience, and the like
are complex and inherently fuzzy, meaning that their boundaries are not sharp.
Consequently, it is not possible to provide simple definitions in terms of a small
set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions.3
Instead, as Wittgenstein (1958, 69) argued, we form increasingly accurate
mental images of such concepts because instances that fall into them are
connected by a “family resemblance”: all the sciences share a general similarity
to all other sciences, even though no single criterion can pick it up exactly; and
 Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? 203

all pseudoscience share a general similarity to all other pseudosciences, in the

same manner. It’s like the resemblance between members of a biological family.
You can tell that certain people are more likely to be related to each other
(sisters, father and daughter, and so on) because they generally look more
similar among themselves than any of them looks like a random stranger.
The upshot is that today we think of science-pseudoscience as a complex
landscape, a continuum where some things are clearly and firmly within science
territory (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology), some are clearly and firmly within
pseudoscience territory (e.g., astrology, creationism, anti-vaxx). Yet others are
somewhere in between, poised to become full sciences if they mature, or to
spiral down into pseudosciences if they fail (e.g., the search for extraterrestrial
intelligence, evolutionary psychology, certain areas of the social sciences). This
is why one needs to carefully argue, case by case, about whether a given notion
is pseudoscientific or not.
Which brings me to the task at hand, as Gorelick maintains that
Indigenous biology is a different way of doing science, and I am not quite
convinced. Let us now turn to the meat of the matter, so to speak.

The Problems with Gorelick’s Case for Indigenous Biology

I will now extract the main points from Gorelick’s article and comment on
them from the perspective of a scientist and philosopher of science, following
the same organization as his paper: general pronouncements about the issue at
hand; the nature of science; the nature of Indigenous science; “myths” about
both Western and Indigenous science; and the reason why Indigenous science
is (allegedly) comparable to, or even better than, its Western counterpart.

(i) The Broad Picture

Gorelick states that far from being pseudoscience, Indigenous science is as

sophisticated and nuanced as Western science. That is hard to believe at face
value, if one thinks of just a few of the many accomplishments of science (I
refuse to label it “Western” and will do so only when Gorelick does): deep
knowledge of the structure of reality, down to quarks; discovery of the
existence of billions of galaxies in a vast universe; knowledge of millions of
species of living organisms on Earth; ability to send spacecraft outside the solar
system and put human beings on the moon, to name just a few. So far as I
know, there is nothing comparable in any Indigenous science.
But let us not take my word for it and examine instead Gorelick’s own
examples. He tells us that there were more Iroquois and Cherokee in North
204 Massimo Pigliucci

America in the 1700s than people of European descent, and then immediately
adds that “counting population numbers is itself a very European and
essentialist thing to do, with many Indigenous peoples considering each
individual to be unique.” I’m not sure what sense of “essentialist” Gorelick is
referring to, but more importantly, there simply is no contradiction in thinking
that each individual is unique and yet being interested in broad statistics about
human populations. It is one of many false dichotomies Gorelick engages in.
We are told that “In many practical ways, North American (Turtle Island)
sciences have surpassed Western sciences. For example, much more is known
about elusive Greenland sharks … by Inuit fishers than Westerners.
Undoubtedly, this has something to do with actually seeing and living among
sharks, rather than sitting in front of computers and gene sequencers.”
Gorelick’s claim here rests on a fallacy of equivocation. First, he qualifies
his statement by saying that it concerns “practical ways,” and yet goes on to
compare Inuit local knowledge of shark behaviour (which is indubitably
valuable) to gene sequencing—an altogether different kind of knowledge that
is simply in an entirely separate category than the previous one. Indeed, there
is no inconsistency in saying both that the Inuit have more first-hand
knowledge of local shark behaviour and that, at the same time, scientists have
better knowledge of shark biology and genetics in general. Moreover, Inuit
knowledge does not qualify as “science” by any standard understanding of the
word: science isn’t just local knowledge. My local knowledge of the New York
subway system, I wager, is far superior to Gorelick’s. But that doesn’t mean
that I am doing subway science. Science is an overarching attempt to develop
theories that describe the world, and to validate, improve, or reject such
theories on the basis of systematic observation and/or controlled experiments.
Science concerns itself with far broader horizons than local knowledge, and
moreover is strictly limited to naturalistic explanations (because they are the
only non-arbitrary explanations available).
Which brings me to another of Gorelick’s pronouncements: “Indigenous
people all around the world believe that plants talk to one another. While this
may sound like a metaphor, plant roots not only emit chemicals to talk among
themselves and recognize kin, but their roots can also emit acoustic signals that
neighbouring roots hear and respond to.”
That plants (and animals, for that matter) communicate is a well-known
scientific fact, but do they “talk”? Here, Gorelick sets himself up for plausible
deniability. If one takes him to say that Indigenous people literally think that
plants talk, then one could easily show that such a claim is either empirically
false or threads on another instance of equivocation, where “talk” is simply
taken to mean “communicate.” But “talk,” when applied to humans, very
 Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? 205

specifically means communicate by means of language, and human beings are

likely the only living organisms on the planet capable of language (Laland 2017),
and certainly plants aren’t. Of course, since Gorelick used the ambiguous
phrase “this may sound like a metaphor,” he could simply retreat to the
unobjectionable position that Indigenous people speak of plants “talking” only
in metaphorical terms. Well, which one is it?
The first section of the paper concludes with Gorelick affirming that
Western science is not a single unified thing, which is true, and quite well
understood in philosophy (e.g., Dupré 1993). In fact, science is best
characterized as a Wittgensteinian family-resemblance concept, as discussed
above. But what evidence does Gorelick bring up to back up his claim? The
fact is that European and American biologists differ on whether natural
selection or genetic drift is more important in the course of evolution. The
reference is to a genuine scientific debate. While it is true that the originators
of the debate, Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright (Provine 2001), were
respectively British and American, there have been plenty of people on both
sides of the Atlantic arguing either position. Moreover, disagreeing about a
specific aspect of a particular scientific theory simply does not make for the
existence of different sciences, not any more than disagreeing on a referee call
during a tennis match means that people are playing different games.

(ii) What is Science?

Here, Gorelick begins by stating that he considers anything Bayesian in the

broad term to be science. This is another example of a suitably vague statement.
While Bayesianism is indeed a valid form of philosophy of science (Chalmers
2013), much hinges on how broadly the term is going to be deployed, and
Gorelick nowhere provides any useful detail about his claim.
Bayes’ theorem is a well-established tool in the theory of probability
(Bernardo and Smith 1994), but it is hardly the beginning and end of what it
means to do science. For instance, the fundamental Bayesian equation
incorporates probabilities of the observed data given a certain theory, without
telling us anything at all about what counts as a theory and why, or how to
determine whether the data are germane to the theory or not. Those aren’t small
details; they get to crucial aspects of what science is.
Gorelick then moves on to propose an analogy between the difference
between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry and the (corresponding,
presumably) difference between Western and Indigenous science. The idea is
that both are valid ways of knowing, beginning with different axioms. Well, yes,
but what is at stake is precisely the soundness (truth) of the axioms, which very
206 Massimo Pigliucci

much affects the (logical) validity of the different approaches. Gorelick has to
do the work to establish such soundness; he cannot take it for granted, on
penalty of begging the question.
He says, correctly, that not all Western science is experimental or
reductionist, some of it is observational (as in, for instance, astronomy, or
paleontology). But observational science is still in the business of formulating
and testing naturalistic theories about how the world works, so the question is
whether Indigenous science does something analogous or not. So far the
answer is negative, as all the examples Gorelick brings up are first-hand
knowledge of local systems. Such knowledge is, again, indubitably useful, but
is no different in kind from the local knowledge accumulated by Western
botanists and zoologists over centuries in Europe and other parts of the world.
So far, then, we have that Indigenous science either is not science (it’s local
knowledge) or is no different from its “Western” counterpart. If there are
important differences, it is at the level of abstraction and theoretical treatment,
and it is there that the issue of pseudoscience is most likely to arise.
In another sudden shift, Gorelick then tells us that “both science and
religion are in the business of providing explanations of observed
phenomenon.” Why are we now talking about religion, though? And no,
science and religion are most certainly not in the same business, as scientists
invoke natural explanations for the phenomena they observe, while religions
invoke the supernatural, mystical, or transcendental. This is not even close to
being the same thing. Indeed, I would argue that religions only give the
appearance of explanation, but that in fact such “explanations” are
epistemically empty. To say that something happens because it is God’s will, or
because it is in God’s character, or because God has a plan, is to use fancy
words to cover our ignorance of why that something happens. Unless we can
specify exactly how and why God does what it does, we are providing no
explanation whatsoever, only a story.
Near the end of the same section, Gorelick engages again in equivocation.
He says that Indigenous scientists make testable predictions—for instance, in
the case of subsistence fishers and hunters, who use their knowledge of local
fauna to fish and hunt. But that’s far too broad to be counted as science as it is
historically and philosophically understood. By that token, any human being
who makes a successful prediction, based on past experience, about anything,
is a “scientist.” If we want to redefine the term so broadly we can of course do
it, but then this isn’t what university departments of science, and university
courses on science, teach, and we should be clear about that.
 Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? 207

(iii) The Nature of Indigenous Science

This is the section of Gorelick’s paper where we get closest to the crucial issue
of whether and in what respect Indigenous science is different from the
Western variety. We are told that most Indigenous scientists include a spiritual
component in their understanding of the world: “Western [science] is
formulated to study and analyze objectively learned facts to predict and assert
control over the forces of nature, while … Native [science] is oriented toward
the synthesis of information gathered from interaction with the natural and
spiritual worlds, so as to accommodate and live in harmony with natural
principles” (quoting Kawagley 1995).
Well, there goes the clearest example so far of a difference between the
two. Science, as it has been understood ever since Galileo, but arguably—in its
embryonic form—all the way back to the Presocratics, explicitly rejects
spiritual, mystical, supernatural or transcendental explanations. It does so,
contra popular opinion, not because it is inherently atheistic, but simply
because there is no reliable empirical evidence of the transcendental, and—
most importantly—including spiritual components into scientific explanations
adds nothing to the explanations themselves. If I say, for instance, that objects
falling on Earth accelerate in a fashion described by Newton’s equations, and
then add “and that’s because this is how God wanted it,” the addition does not
augment the explanation in any way. Objects follow the law of gravity, period.
It is a separate (and as yet unresolved) question why the law of gravity is the
way it is. But invoking transcendental entities that “wanted” it that way is
superfluous, and if presented as “scientific” it actually makes the notion
pseudoscientific. In this sense, that kind of Indigenous science is
pseudoscientific—not as accumulated knowledge of local systems by people
who have lived for a long time in certain areas, but as a theoretical
understanding of the world that relies on the spiritual.
Gorelick then slips again into equivocation, when he quotes Brown (1975):
“[many working western scientists erroneously] assume that there are kinds of
science that do not have a belief component or cultural context, a point rejected
by philosophers such as Feyerabend … The objection to spiritualism is merely
an excuse to denigrate traditional knowledge; the real issue is resource
management power and legitimacy.”
Feyerabend was certainly correct that science has a belief component and
that it is affected by the cultural context, though he was notorious for pushing
a good point way beyond reasonableness, thus undermining his own efforts
(Pigliucci 2016). But it is a false equivalency to then imply that all beliefs and
cultural contexts are just as arbitrary or unjustified. One of the hallmarks of
208 Massimo Pigliucci

modern science is precisely its attempt—through inclusive systems of peer

review—to overcome the beliefs and cultural biases of individual scientists
(Longino 1990). From Gorelick’s description, it seems instead that Indigenous
scientists wish to move exactly in the opposite direction, toward the privileging
of their own beliefs and cultural context.
We are then told that a major distinction between Indigenous and Western
science is that the latter attempts to describe things in a way that is independent
of the observer, i.e., objectively, while the former rejects such a distinction.
Gorelick comments that the only alleged exception within Western science is
quantum mechanics, where the “observer” is very much part of the system.
This is a common misconception of quantum mechanics, as “observer” in that
context does not refer to a human or any kind of conscious being, but simply
to the presence of any measurement apparatus. Anyone familiar with quantum
mechanics will tell you that physicists very much strive to make the results of
their experiments, and the formulation of their theories, as independent of the
vagaries of individual psychologies as possible, and they certainly firmly reject
any kind of invocation of a spiritual dimension while carrying out their job.
Regardless, this is indeed a fairly sharp distinction, and further reinforces the
conclusion that Indigenous science is simply not science.
Indeed, by the end of that section, Gorelick himself seems to agree:
“Because Indigenous science is not necessarily well defined, maybe it makes
sense to be less ambitious and instead define Traditional Ecological Knowledge
(TEK). However, TEK is also usually not defined or is vaguely defined … One
definition of Traditional Ecological Knowledge is ‘the sum of the data and ideas
acquired by a human group on its environment resulting from the group’s use
and occupation of a specific region over many generations’” (Mailhot 1994). I
have no objection whatsoever to characterizing Indigenous science as
traditional ecological knowledge, and indeed I would agree that, as such, it is
valuable.

(iv) Myths about Indigenous and Western Science

Gorelick then discusses what he considers to be a number of myths about both

Indigenous and Western science, where he makes some crucial, and very
revealing, mistakes. Quite naturally, he objects to Indigenous science being
characterized as mythology or folklore, which he sees as little better than the
derogatory term pseudoscience. But his reasons for such objection are rather
strange.
First, we are told that Indigenous science should be taught side by side
with Western science for the same reason that, say, we teach students in physics
 Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? 209

classes about different interpretations of quantum mechanics, or about

different mechanisms of evolution. But this idea is exactly analogous to the
flawed argument used by purveyors of creationism to demand equal time
between their “theory” and the teaching of evolution. It simply begs the
question to state outright that creationism (or Indigenous science) is “just like”
different interpretations of quantum mechanics, since that is precisely what is
at issue here. Moreover, to say that “if we train students to think critically, they
should be able to decide for themselves what is sense versus nonsense, science
versus pseudoscience” is a pretty basic misunderstanding of pedagogy. Yes,
eventually we want students to be able to tell the difference on their own, but to
throw a bunch of stuff at them as if it were all the same, without giving them
the proper analytical tools and introducing them gradually to the issues, is
simply unconscionable. By the same token, why not present both astronomy
and astrology and let the students decide whether galaxies exist or whether they
should consult horoscopes? Not all ideas are equally worth being taught, and it
is the educator’s responsibility to sift the useful from the distracting. Some call
this indoctrination; others refer to it as sound teaching pedagogy.
Gorelick then proceeds with another series of false analogies. We are told
that Western medicine long believed that mercury cured syphilis, which is “not
different” from contemporary medical practices like chemotherapy and
chiropractics. “Not different” how? Medieval alchemy has nothing whatsoever
to do with modern medicine, and while chemotherapy is highly effective against
certain kinds of cancer, chiropractics is often considered at least a borderline
pseudoscience, and some of its techniques are positively dangerous (Ernst and
Gilbey 2010). That Gorelick does not seem to be able to tell the difference is
worrisome to say the least.
Moreover, he goes on to label Newton’s theory of gravity “occult,” which
certainly would surprise any practicing physicist; he calls ecological successions
a “myth,” which, again, would stun a professional biologist; he says that
ecosystems are “metaphorical” constructs and tells us that competition as a
force in biological evolution is “mythical.” I have no idea where Gorelick gets
these notions, but they seem to me to reflect a profound misunderstanding of
both physics and biology.
Things become even stranger when we are told that “Gould and Lewontin
mocked the explanation for the short front limbs on Tyrannosaurus, which
were purportedly used by a male to titillate a female during copulation,
forgetting for the moment how heteronormative this image is.” To begin with,
since dinosaurs were not mammals, and therefore had no breasts, I’m not sure
what sort of titillation we are talking about here. But, more revealingly, what on
earth does “heteronormativity” have to do with it? The latter is a cultural
210 Massimo Pigliucci

construct that is deployed in the context of certain interactions among modern

human beings. To project it on the study of the behaviours of animals that have
been dead for 65 million years is bizarre. Science is in the business of describing
things, not making ethical prescriptions.

(v) Two Worlds of Knowledge?

Finally, Gorelick makes his concluding pitch for not just the equivalence, but
even the superiority, of Indigenous science. First, we are told that the two are
complementary because Indigenous knowledge is at the local scale while
Western science concerns itself with the broad picture. This is true, as I said
above, and knowledge of local systems accumulated over centuries or millennia
or trial and error is indeed useful.
Gorelick then proceeds to tell his readers that he has learned a lot from
Indigenous science, which I do not doubt. But, surprisingly, one of the things
he did not know, as a trained botanist, is why the sugary sap of maple trees
flows in a specialized system called the xylem (the sapwood) and not in a
distinct system, called the phloem (inner bark). This is rather puzzling, since
there is no mystery here. Xylem and phloem are two vascular systems in plants,
which evolved (by natural selection) for different functions and, accordingly,
have different functional characteristics. The xylem is a tubular structure
efficient at transporting water, while the phloem, also tubular, is dedicated to
the movement of nutrients. Xylem is not made of living tissue at maturity (i.e.,
it’s a passive vessel), in contrast to phloem (because moving nutrients requires
energy, so the tubular cells have to be alive). There is no mystery here.
Moreover, when Gorelick explains what he learned from Indigenous
science about xylem and phloem, it becomes apparent that he is not talking at
all about the mechanisms and functions at play: “Indigenous science tells us
that the time to tap trees is when the squirrels start chewing on the buds, often
coming back the following morning.” That may very well be true in those
particular geographical areas. But it represents a simple example of practical
knowledge based on the correlation between two events (squirrels chewing on
buds and the best time to tap the tree for human beings). It has no explanatory
power whatsoever in terms of why the sap goes through one vascular system
rather than the other. None.
Gorelick thinks that Western science is “jargon laden,” and he doesn’t care
much for statistical analyses: “Maybe Western scientists should not be so
intensively taught high-falutin’ statistics, which are always jargon laden, but
complement this with training in drawing useful graphs and cartoons and
writing metaphor-filled poetry.” High-falutin’ statistics? Metaphor-filled
 Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? 211

poetry? One simply wants to shake one’s head in disbelief and walk away. But
we can’t do that, because the future of generations of students, and therefore
of the entire nation, is at stake here.

Concluding Remarks

To the extent that Gorelick’s paper is a fair representation of the arguments

being advanced for the inclusion of Indigenous science in university curricula,
it broadly, but not entirely, fails.
Gorelick is right when he construes Indigenous knowledge as a type of
local knowledge, which can and should be incorporated in a scientific treatment
of whatever pertinent subject matter, and of which students should be made
aware. My guess is that the pertinent type of knowledge will almost exclusively
have to do with the local fauna and flora, as well as with the possible health
benefits of plant extracts and the like. I seriously doubt that Indigenous physics,
for instance, has anything of relevance to add to Western physics, but I will let
the physicists assess that (see Trefil, this volume).
Where Gorelick goes horribly wrong is in creating a false equivalency
between Indigenous and Western science: the two are simply not comparable,
in terms of amount of accumulated knowledge, level of detail, and—most
crucially—methodology. When Gorelick says that Western medicine is
questionable because it originally derived from alchemy, he is, ironically,
missing precisely what the difference is between the two cultural traditions.
Much of Indigenous knowledge has not yet made that transition from
mysticism to naturalism, a transition that Western science made during the
scientific revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
So is Indigenous knowledge pseudoscience? Some of it certainly seems to
qualify, while other bits are, as mentioned above, examples of perfectly sound
local knowledge accumulated over time by means of trial and error. To the
extent that Indigenous science invokes the mystical, transcendental, or
supernatural, it is not sound science, and it should not be taught as such in
university curricula. It can, and should, be taught in classes in cultural studies,
comparative anthropology, and similar areas, because it is a relevant aspect of
human culture. But science it is not, and to pretend otherwise in order not to
hurt some people’s sensibilities would be a disservice to the very idea of reason
and the teaching mission of the university.
212 Massimo Pigliucci

Notes:

1. The full text of the Charmides is available here:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/charmides.html, accessed on May 29,
2018.
2. A brief history and explanation of the 1919 confirmation of Einstein’s
theory can be found here:
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201605/physicshistory.cfm,
accessed on May 29, 2018.
3. Sharp definitions based on necessary and sufficient conditions abound in
logic and mathematics. For instance, triangles are defined as those
geometrical figures whose sum of the internal angles amounts to 180. To
have that characteristic is necessary in order to be a triangle (if a figure
does not have it, it is not a triangle) and it is sufficient in order to reach
the same conclusion (if a figure does have it, then it certainly is a
triangle).
 Is Indigenous Science Pseudoscience? 213

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