Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JaneHM – the University of New South Wales, the home university of Chris Turney, leader of the Ship of Fools expedition which got stuck in the Antarctic ice, has just forbidden lecturers from teaching anthropological historical facts which might offend Australia’s indigenous community.
University bans ‘inappropriate’ scientific data about the arrival of humans in Australia because it is offensive to Aboriginals who believe they have been here ‘forever’
- UNSW lecturers told to not teach date Indigenous people arrived in Australia
- The language guidelines were sent out staff and approved by a working group
- Told more appropriate is that Indigenous Australians here ‘since the Dreaming’
Science lecturers at the University of New South Wales have been told to stop telling students that Indigenous people’s arrived in Australia 40,000 years ago.
In a letter sent to staff the lecturers were told that it is ‘inappropriate’ to teach dates and they should say Aboriginals have been here ‘since the beginning of the Dreamings’ because that is what indigenous people believe.
A set of classroom guidelines were circulated in the science faculty this month which alerted the scientists to the existing language advice, according to The Weekend Australian.
…
The guidelines say teaching a date for the arrival of Indigenous people ‘tends to lend support to migration theories and anthropological assumptions.’
…
Maybe we’ve all been unfair to Chris Turney.
Perhaps Turney got into trouble, because he was never taught that Antarctic pack ice can be dangerous to ships, because learning there is lots of floating ice around Antarctica would upset climate activists, who are utterly convinced it has all melted away.
Unfortunately “leftie claptrap” and “climate change” are concepts with virtually 100% overlap.
So basically they’re promoting another form of creationism … which is quite logical, because creationism rules out the possibility that natural variation could have caused the evolution of complex lifeforms and so states “a being must have caused it”, and the climate cult similarly rules are the possibility that natural variation could have caused all the complexity we see in climate and says “beings must have caused it”.
So, there is an internal consistency to their lunacy.
Those people are clearly incompetent Marxists. Do they expect all of the students they don’t want to ‘offend’ to be running on as few neurons as themselves and not notice the inconsistencies?
The logical corollary to their ruling is that they also can’t teach evolution. That pretty much means that they have to cull most of biology back to sometime before Darwin. While Darwin is given a great deal of credit, perhaps rightfully, it clear from the history of science that others were coming to similar conclusions based on consideration of the increasing data from observations of the natural world. Thus those clues also have to be removed if they don’t want students to draw too many logical conclusions.
Do you think the school has the political power to force a name change of one of Australia’s major cities?
This makes me think of a video made by some government agency showing the daily life of a small group of remote peoples the Amazon rainforest who still live as they have for hundreds or thousands of years. From the film it was apparent that they do strange things to their bodies to differentiate themselves from other tribes and they spend most of their time gathering food.
The video was filmed by a small group who came to spend a few days with the tribe. The narrator explained that the location of such peoples was a closely guarded secret, to protect their culture from modern contamination. As he faced the camera expounding how they needed to be protected so they could continue in live as they wanted, every person of the tribe was turned away, watching the small airplane that brought the officials run down an open stretch, take off, and disappear into the blue. Maybe he never heard the song with the chorus line ‘how you gonna keep them down on the farm once they …’ .
”>>it is ‘inappropriate’ to teach dates and they should say Aboriginals have been here ‘since the beginning of the Dreamings’ because that is what indigenous people believe.”<<
Garbage. Modern Aboriginals believe the same things everyone else does. I've heard them say it with my own ears countless times before. 40 thousand years this and 60 thousand years that. Is the Uni now telling these people that they ''should'' or ''can'' or ''are entitled'' to only believe and hear ancient beliefs? Nauseating stuff indeed!
Dreamtime is there version of creationism. Perhaps UNSW is also going to ban mentioning anything in science subjects referring to more than 6,500 years ago since it may offend Jews and Christians.
This is not new. See
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/bradshaws/australia_kimberley.php
A huge fight broke out a decade ago when these petroglyphs were dated (by a wasp nest over weathered glyphs).
The only way anyone could arrive there 28,000 BP was over open ocean, implying navigation skills at that time of a level not seen since the sea-peoples later.
These glyphs have a remarkable stylism like Lake Chad, Africa, with bracelets and hair patterns.
The British Empire alway likes to promote tribalism where such navigation skill is frowned upon. Australia is getting Royal treatment indeed. You see, no one before Cooke, let alone dark skinned, could have possibly crossed open ocean. Heyerdahl proved that wrong. The Kimberleys hit a major Royal nerve.
Note how Prince Charles likes to dance in grass skirts at remote islands.
Today look at the tribes called “extinction rebellion”, or Greta’s rabble. Note the Royal support they get.
This is not just a proliticaly-correct left-wing “thing”, but an imperial strategy. Not sure if J.Peterson quite gets that, being in the Royal Dominion of Canada,
No matter what it is, it’s always the fault of the British with you.
WOKE Alert!!!
I bet the Aborigines don’t give a monkeys.
I should think that any Abo who signs up for a science degree probably wants to learn what science has to offer, they do not want a special cut-down PC version of science. They will have direct line their own cultural beliefs and maybe want to learn other ways of interpreting stuff.
You would be correct.
What will happen next is a mob of smarties will claim they don’t want to talk about the colonization of Australia because they find it offensive and the university will find itself in the middle of a double standard.
A few years back, there was a big to do about how Native Americans were all upset over sports teams using Indian themes. At least that’s what all the big named liberals were telling us.
Problem was, when anyone went out and talked to actual Native Americans, not just the ones the media named as “leaders”, most of them couldn’t care less.
I don’t believe there are any monkeys in Australia, so the Aborigines couldn’t give them anything.
So, if science lecturers can tell students to lie about science facts, couldn’t science lectures lie about another science field like climate change?
Eric Worrall says Brett Lackey of Daly Mail says someone at The Australian says that the UNSW says that in some classroom guidelines it says…
What a steaming pile of bs. Really Eric? This is what you’re trying to pass off as journalism?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7194759/amp/University-staff-tell-students-Indigenous-people-Australia-dreamings.html
If you have an issue take it up with Brett Lackey he is the journalist you dropkick.
Lackey? is that his name, or occupation?
Apologies if this not an original comment.
Apparently its an advisory for the subject to be treated with care.
It is reported with quotes in The Australian, [paywalled].
A few years back I attended a lecture given by the Museum of Sydney about the Chinese Silk Roads.
The lecturer chose this topic because it did not jump on the toes of those in the audience who believed the
Earth was created, complete with geological and fossil records, at about 3500 BC.
There was no effort to explain that these trading routes predated 3500 BC.
This is a tricky area as the group of 8 universities in Australia are dragged screaming, to setting out a code of conduct for their administrations, that prevents victimisation of academics on the grounds of free speech and fair comment.
As Patrick MJD pointed out above, with Dr Ridd, another example is running at UWA, where,surprise surprise, the directive has come down that we must look at the French Report seriously.
This is no beat up.
There are important principles at stake, freedom of association,speech, religion,the curtailment of illigitimate corporate power, in these cases wielded by government funded universities.
This site sits under the constitutional right to free speech of the USA, something not yet afforded in OZ.
You will not be shut down or de platformed.
Thats all we Aussies want of our unis.
We will likely never have free speech as a law in Australia it just doesn’t work with the way our laws are framed, they say what you can not do not what you can. You also have no right of association in Australia because that area has never been given up by the States to the Commonwealth and hence why things like the bikie gangs law are state by state. The only rights we are actually given come under the Human Rights Act because the Commonwealth signed into that and that does infer rights.
However none of that has anything to do with the topic. The truth and facts are easily defended under law in Australia which in theory is what universities should be doing, and why with stupid actions like they have taken they put themselves at risk.
Consider this:
The Big Bang was the literal Mother of all Quantum Events. From that first (potential) moment the Quantum Waveform Evolved wherein EVERY POSSIBLE QUANTUM STATE IS REPRESENTED over potential time…just waiting for an OBSERVER to evolve within the waveform itself to make the observation that COLLAPSED the BIG BANG waveform out of the quantum potential field and into a physical reality.
That first observer might have COLLAPSED the quantum waveform into reality shortly after you were born creating YOUR world when your potential nervous system in the quantum potential field achieved the ability to make field collapsing observations.
Or that first Observer might have been Jacob when he fought an angel (quantum waveform?) about 6000 years ago…a waveform complete with dinosaur bones and vast deposits of coal and oil…and a 13 Billion year chain of evidence in cosmic and geologic measurements.
It didn’t matter how nearly impossible the properties of this solar system and earth were…the quantum field just had to be possible…and it had to contain the emergence of an OBSERVER to collapse the field into reality.
This is the only scenario that explains to me the nearly impossible hundteds of thousands of extremely unlikely predisposing conditions that had to occur on earth over the (potential) eons for life to exist on Earth..
This hypothesis also explains the Fermi Paradox…Earth was where the QUANTUM FIELD COLLAPSING Von Neumann OBSERVATION EVENT OCCURRED. Sentient Life (with Von Neumann Observers in it) likely exists nowhere else but here on Earth.
Once again, Loydo decides to attack the man rather than deal with the issue.
I guess you are still upset over being embarrassed over and over again.
Another Irony gold medal to add to your collection.
Fascinating, pointing out that one is using an ad-hominem is itself an ad-hominem.
Once again, Loydo demonstrates that he doesn’t have a clue as to what ad hominem means.
Then again, he doesn’t understand any of the other terms he mis-uses on a regular basis either.
I’m not familiar with Australian journalism (nor which outlets are more reliable), but you can read the story at https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/indigenous-arrival-has-no-date-dons-told/news-story/f3c3a28637afd33b1c090ba0ec74202b. It’s a little more nuanced, although still bizarre. I found the following statement interesting: “One scientist said most academics got on with their work and did their best to ignore such documents.”
There’s also the following bizarre statement: “Last year a UNSW science faculty research centre said the First People “arrived soon after 50,000 years ago, effectively forever, given that modern human populations only moved out of Africa 50,000-55,000 years ago”.” I guess the five orders of magnitude difference between 50k years and the approximately 5 billion year age of the Earth doesn’t matter. (Not to mention the infinite difference between 50k years and “effectively forever”, whatever that means.)
Really clever graphic, perhaps we should have a proper attribution underneath. What is written on the corner is illegible at this scale.
In the early 1970s my employer started to develop the new uranium mine, the big one, at Ranger One in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Already there were local aborigine families and settlements and a few pastoralists running cattle.
On the advice of senior anthropologists, from the start we attempted to document the sacred sites and their histories and the Rainbow Serpent folklore and similar. We were warned that there was not a great deal of authentic history kept in the minds of the then generations. We were warned of an impending invasion of academic anthropologists, especially from Canberra, each of which had his/her own ideas about confections suitable for planting in aboriginal minds and growing on to be regarded as the Bible for evermore. Despite our small effort -it was not our speciality – the academic flood happened and history now records a lot of synthetic nonsense.
I was there one time with some senior aborigines and a couple of anthropologists, one of whom was reporting some recent age dating putting ochres in rock paintings as 4,000 years old. At the time, this was the oldest date so far reported for any aboriginal artefact in Australia, IIRC. None of us, locals included, had any idea that the cave markings might be of this great age. It follows that there is no genuine link that now says that paintings or artifacts in general up to 15,000 years old were known are known, to aboriginal people. They are no more than aboriginal people repeating what academics told them to say.
Do you, dear reader, have any written or oral history of your antecedents and what they were doing 15,000 years ago?
There is much soft evidence that most, if not all, of the aborigines of today have no or very little authentic or supportable information older than a couple of generations ago. In our consultants’ questioning in the 1970s, next to nothing of substance was revealed. Of course, this conclusion relates only to those people at that time and place. But I doubt that other sources were much richer than our lean pickings. I remember leader Big Bill Niedjie laughing at a sacred site designation on an official map, saying it was no more than a place to go when you felt like catching a flying fox for a meal. And many more dismissive stories like this.
They seemed to remember about as much of their past as you or I do. In the absence of a written aboriginal language, that seems to amount to not much.
That means that there is little cause for concern about this academic censorship raised by the article above. These clever academics are proposing to censor nothing more than their academic colleagues invented a few decades ago. The worm has turned.
This is written by the original Geoff Sherrington who has been using my genuine name since the earliest days of WUWT. An imposter has been taking my name in vain. We squash such slugs. Geoff
Have a look at the link above to the Bradshaw petroglyphs, some definitely dated to 28,000BP in the Kimberleys. The controversy centers on open-ocean navigation at that time or even much earlier.
This is a huge discussion in itself.
The Aussie academics are following orders from Oxford, the self proclaimed center for anthropology, a key part of imperial strateg to keep Australia depopulated, underdeveloped, and green.
See
https://cecaust.com.au/policies/energy-resources/mineral-resources
There are human sites about the same age in the western Solomons (Buka) so, yes the ancestors of Papuans/Aboriginals were capable of ocean navigation at that time.
It is perhaps more doubtful 45-50,000 years ago. The first crossing to Australia may have been accidental.
However the very early colonization of Australia less than 10,000 years after leaving Africa and the virtual absence of contemporary finds in South Asia suggests a mobile coastal population that had acquired some water crossing capacity very early (the ice-age coasts are of course now under the sea).
Thanks for that first hand account. Abos are a pretty carefree lot, hard to imaging them retaining much in terms of an oral tradition without it constantly changing at every retelling.
Academics force feeding them a “culture” , most of it invented after seeing a few bones and a streak of ocre painted on a wall, seems more probable to me.
Geoff
Whilst in general agreeing that references at university level (if true 3 hand news) of aboriginals having been in Australia forever is poor education. I think you need to look at recent evidence. If nothing else, it seems to suggest that the arrival of humans to Australia is indeterminate – somewhere between 30,000 to 120,000 years ago
https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/science/human-evolution/the-spread-of-people-to-australia/
Over the last few decades, a significant number of archaeological sites dated at more than 30,000 years old have been discovered. By this time all of Australia, including the arid centre and Tasmania, was occupied. The drowning of many coastal sites by rising sea levels has destroyed what would have been the earliest occupation sites.
Recently published dates of 120,000 years ago for the site of Moyjil in Warrnambool, Victoria, offer intriguing possibilities of much earlier occupation (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 2018). The site contains remains of shellfish, crabs and fish in what may be a ‘midden’, but definitive proof of human occupation is lacking and investigations are ongoing.
40,000 or 120,000 it does not really change anything and especially regards what is being discussed.
How humiliating for the UNSW to suggest this set of rules. No one anywhere is exempt from being offended, however, facts are facts and there is no point in trying to hide them. No one will ever be able to place Aborigine inhabitation of Australia, so please tell me how they may be offended if an actual date of habitation may be verified.
Being that this is treating a racial group as simple minded children that need to be sheltered from the hash truths of reality, I would think that the response of the group being so treated would be offense at being so treated or complete contemp for the the people suggesting it as necessary or desirable.
Not offending people at Universities does seem to be spreading
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/06/21/uc-santa-cruz-will-remove-offensive-bells-from-campus/
Tell people they have a right to not be offended, and they’ll go find something to be offended by.
I find the offended to be most often the most offensive.
There are suggestions that the human race made Australia before ‘out of Africa’.
So clearly the science is not settled.
But the first peoples may not have been those living here for tens of thousands of years.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/find-australia-hints-very-early-human-exit-africa?utm_source=sciencemagazine&utm_medium=facebook-text&utm_campaign=africexit-14224
Yeah, not credible based on evidence. “Lucy” is much older, by millions of years, and was found in what is now Northern Kenya.
I’m curious about the idea of ‘not offending indigenous peoples’ beliefs.
What do they believe about nuclear physics. Did they believe in quarks, and if not is NSW going to tell their physics profs that talking about quarks is ‘inappropriate’?
How about mathematics. Did they have the concept of concept of ‘0’, irrational numbers? If they didn’t will NSW forbid math profs form discussing the subjects?
Try telling the greens about He3 fusion, and mind that their feelings are not disturbed.
The extinction-rebellion crowd are a modern form of “indigenous” tribe, synthetically created by the very same imperialists who designated their colonial indigenous peoples to remain undeveloped while they looted resources and land. Imagine today Australians to be so designated, green, undeveloped, de-populated, while globalized corps. loot abundant natural resources.
Those Australians include Dravidians as well as Europeans who got one-way transportation.
The aboriginal people only had a basic numbering system usually 0 to 15 depending on dialect as they are hunter gatherer . They had no wheel discovery and hence no Pi or irrationals as they would hardly have time to sit around and study maths in such a harsh enviroment. They do have extensive lists of toys, weapons, medicine, resins, poisons, traps and the like which are useful to survival many of which are unique and very complicated and they survived where you and I would die even today with our knowledge.
They told me if I voted for Trump, Young Earth Creationists would take over education.
They were right.
But wait, there’s more:
https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/indigenous-terminology
“Indigenous Terminology
(The information on this page was adapted from “Using the right words: appropriate terminology for Indigenous Australian studies”, in Teaching the Teachers: Indigenous Australian Studies for Primary Pre-Service Teacher Education, School of Teacher Education, University of New South Wales, 1996.)”
I was offended just reading it 🙂
This latest episode recalls the Mungo Man DNA debacle. Here is a precis:
1st DNA analysis establishes there is no genetic evidence to connect Mungo man with modern inhabitants of the region.
No-one thinks anything of this for some time until someone realises that this implies that modern inhabitants may have replaced Mungo!
The establishment becomes concerned that if this fact is allowed to stand, it potentially weakens the whole justice case for modern day persons.
A second DNA analysis is hastily performed. This time it establishes that Mungo is genetically connected to the modern day inhabitants. The previous finding is held to be discredited.
Under the pretext of not offending the newly established current relatives of Mungo, further access to genetic material is then locked away forever so that no-one can test the new claim (or the previous claim).
The prevention of further scientific research into the issue, including replication of results, is a classic case of post-modern science.
Another question to add to the “Who gets to decide and why” list
“Who gets to decide what’s offensive and why?
How much is the “appropriate” amount of sea ice? Who gets to decide and why?
What is the “appropriate” amount of CO2? Who gets to decide and why?
What is the “appropriate” global average temperature? Who gets to decide and why?
What is the “appropriate” sea level for the planet? Who gets to decide and why?
These neoMarxist have no problems insulting people…or lying when convenient (to just about everyone).
They just think that stupid people like the aborigines can’t handle the truth…and to prove how extremely virtuous they are, these socialists insist on treating the aborigines with polite condescension…a common practice of benevolent overlords everywhere.
Muslims get the same treatment. The very virtuous socialists understand and sanctify the longstanding cultural practices of Islam… where ACTUAL brutal patriarchal authoritarianism is universally practiced…but don’t worry, those stupid Muslim women are used to it and wouldn’t understand being treated like anything but the rightful possession of abusive men. That’s perfectly understandable, and besides, lots of Muslims hate America too.
Christians are free game for ridicule of course…except occasionally the pro-communist Jesuit Pope and his pedophile minions when he treats the seriousness of the manufactured Climate Crisis correctly.
Anything but the truth to gain and hold onto illegitimate power…and their oh so perfect virtue.
History is one long horrible story of the benevolent brutal actions of people like today’s Marxists in their quest to obliterate individual freedoms everywhere.
These are the VERY people the US Founding Fathers had in mind when they crafted the Constitution based on the supremacy of the individual.
40,000 years? Bollocks!
As we educated folks know, The World was created 4004 BC on Sunday, October 23:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology
(I really hope /sarc isn’t needed…….)
I presume the next edict will be to stop all mention of evolution because there may be some Creationists in Australia who would be offended.
Or it would be if Creationists held the same stature with Progressives as (rich) Scientologists from Hollywood.
Of course , teaching the truth is BAD !
You are not allowed to hear the truth because you might be offended by it. How extraordinarily patronizing and racist is that?
Yes it would seem that UNSW still believe that native Australians are too primitive and ignorant to understand science, and are stuck in the dark ages like Europe in the 14th century.
Imagine if a conservative organisation suggested this, the left including UNSW, would be screaming RACISTS!
You can’t handle the truth!
( I just felt compelled to say that)
What happened to science being an unadulterated pursuit of truth?
To paraphrase Dr. Millet above,
They can’t handle the truth.
We can’t say what the facts are because that would contradict their beliefs??
Is that all indigenous peoples beliefs or just this one belief of the Australian aboriginals?
Because I’d hate to see how they’d teach the Etoro tribes beliefs.