In claiming that The People do not have anything that could remotely be called a science, what most people would have in mind for science is something that comes close to what Aldous Huxley writes about in his essay “Beliefs” when he refers to the scientist as selecting “from the whole of experience only those elements which can be weighed, measured, numbered, or which lend themselves in any other way to mathematical treatment.” Huxley goes on to point out that by this technique of simplification and abstraction from experience, science has succeeded in understanding and dominating the physical environment.
When it comes to the notion that reality lies in what can be “weighed, measured, and numbered the uncompromising scientific attitude is best expressed by an autobiographical remark attributed to the psychologist Hans Eysenck: “The fact that my mother did not love me is not important, because such a thing cannot be measured. It is very difficult to see how a mother affects her child. If it cannot be tested, it does not exist”.
The point of Huxley's essay happens to be that within this act of abstraction, science does not consider “the intuitions of value and significance,... love, beauty, mystical ecstasy...” found in reality. The problem arises when the scientific picture of the world is taken for the whole of reality
If Huxley's definition is what most people mean by science, then it is probably true that Indigenous people do not possess a science. After all, why should people whose philosophy speaks of relationship, the primacy of direct experience, and the interconnectedness of all things ever wish to divorce themselves from their world and fragment their experience though such acts of abstraction? If there were to be an Indigenous science then it would deal not in abstraction, weighing, and measuring; but in relationship, holism, quality, and value.
Huxley's definition of science captures, I believe, what many scientists think that their discipline should be. But there are other definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, employs a wider scope:
(b) “...the distinction to be drawn between the theoretical perception of a truth and moral conviction.
These definitions do come closer to the spirit of Indigenous science even if that shade of fragmentation and abstraction remains, with science being distinguished as a “branch,” or separable part, of a much greater tree of knowledge, or in that one should take pains to distinguish science from moral convictions. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that any science must be concerned with “truths” that form a “body,” and that it should deal in “observed facts” and their systematic classification. Without integration and cohesion, what would distinguish science from a random collection of facts, observations, and recipes? Furthermore, a science also demands general laws and trustworthy methods for discovering truths.
I believe that Indigenous science does, to a greater and lesser extent, conform to the various aspects of these definitions—if not to all of them. As a science, it is a disciplined approach to understanding and knowing, or rather, to the processes of coming to understanding and knowing. It has supporting metaphysics about the nature of reality, deals in systems of relationship, is concerned with the energies and processes within the universe, and provides a coherent scheme and basis for action. On the other hand, it is not possible to separate Indigenous science from other areas of life such as ethics, spirituality, metaphysics, social order, ceremony, and a variety of other aspects of daily existence. Thus it can never be a “branch” or a “department” of knowledge, but rather remains inseparable from the cohesive whole, from a way of being and of coming-to-knowing.
Until now I have been asking if Indigenous science is truly a science, and in so doing I have assumed that only one yardstick exists that provides a standard set of definitions—Western science. But this is not to question whether Indigenous science exists in its own right, but to enquire how it measures up to Western science. As far as Indigenous people are concerned, there is no need for them to justify their spirituality, their traditions, or their science by reference to anything external to their society. Indigenous science does not need to explain itself to anyone. It has no need to compare or authenticate itself against the standard of Western science. Because it may not always accord with the dictionary definitions of science does not mean that it is not a valid discipline and way of knowing in its own right.
This book is intended to be a bridge and to provide people with a way of seeing things slightly differently. It may be that after reading it people will begin to look at their own culture from a new perspective and, in turn, develop a new sensitivity to the traditions and worldviews of Native Americans. While Indigenous science needs no justification outside itself, there may be some value in comparing the two sciences. Let us explore where their similarities and differences actually lie.
A good starting point for this comparison would be to begin with Western science and see to what extent it actually measures up to some of those definitions given above, as an objective, dispassionate, systematic, and integrated discipline. Over the past few decades historians and philosophers of science have been trying to sort out what scientists actually do as opposed to what they claim to do. Well-known names in this field include the philosophers of science Sir Karl Popper, Paul Feyerabend, and Thomas Kuhn.
It is generally accepted that the major difference between science and superstitions or folktales is that the former is based upon reason, objective observation, and well-designed experimentation. In superstition, or pseudoscience, practitioners can believe more or less in anything they want to; while a true science is guided and arbitrated by nature. For example, a scientific theory is supposed to stand or fall according to the results of a single critical experiment, and no amount of belief or wishing can ever change this state of affairs. Scientists pride themselves on their honesty, integrity, and courage in facing new facts, even when they challenge their most cherished theories.
All this sounds very noble, and there are a number of instances in science—or at least there are supposed to be—where a theory has indeed stood or fallen on the basis of a crucial experiment. Generally, however, things are not that dramatic, or that clear-cut, for experiments and interpretations always take place within a context of assumptions, ideas, and beliefs, and there are strong personal and social motivations that influence what a person does and sees.
To take an extreme example, go back to the announcement of the discovery of cold fusion made on March 28,1989. On that day Martin Fleischman and B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and, quite independently, Steven Jones of Brigham Young University, also in Utah, claimed that they had discovered a way of creating nuclear fusion, at room temperature—fusion in a test-tube. While Steven Jones did not measure any energy output during the supposed fusion—the reaction itself was identified by the detection of elementary particles—Pons and Fleischman spoke of producing a considerable quantity of heat and hailed their discovery as promising cheap and manageable energy for the whole world.
For the purposes of this chapter, the interesting thing about cold fusion is not whether it works, but the sociological upheaval its announcement produced within the scientific community, an upheaval in which scientists on both sides exhibited their true colors, which were far from being those of calm, dispassionate, detached, and rational investigators.
To begin with, the majority of scientists, without really taking time to investigate the claims in detail, rejected them out of hand; some heaped scorn on the putative discoverers. The reasons for this reaction are fairly complex. To begin with, the idea of cold fusion seemed absurd, for it totally violated the directions in which conventional fusion experts had been working for decades. Nuclear fusion, most scientists believed, must involve very high temperatures and tricky problems of containment, and this spells elaborate equipment, massive budgets, and large international teams. It was supposedly impossible to create fusion with a minimal budget and inside a test-tube.
The initial scientific reaction therefore was based not so much upon the objective examination of the experimental evidence but on the conviction that cold fusion simply could not happen. There was really no need to examine the claims in detail, for no one was willing to take them seriously.
To be fair, very few people had a chance to examine Pons and Fleischman's evidence firsthand, for rather than being willing to disseminate their results freely and allow other scientists to visit their laboratory, as the orthodox model of science suggests, Fleischman and Pons became reclusive, and, with the exception of a few scientific friends, most people found it increasingly difficult to discover exactly how the two scientists had done their experiments. Thus began the rather ludicrous process of scientists trying to guess what had happened in Fleischman and Pons's test-tube, and then, based on these guesses, setting up careful experiments to prove that these guesses would not work!
There were other reasons why the scientific community rejected this claim so rapidly, including the fact that the announcement came from the Midwest and appeared to fly in the face of the authority of the great eastern universities. While it was perfectly all right to do science in a minor university, properly speaking, this should only be done by following the lead of one of the major U.S. teams. If you were going to challenge the authority of some of the big names in the field—and their grant-pulling ability—then you had to expect them to band together and slap you down.
Other researchers felt that the purity of science had been contaminated by Pons and Fleischman, and to a lesser extent by Steven Jones, particularly by the very public way in which the announcements had been made. Because of this, the players involved had to be publicly discredited, and so words like “charlatans” and “liars” were heard at scientific conventions in connection with Pons and Fleischman.
Yet there were two other smaller camps. One consisted of supporters who were willing to believe the claim, and another was made up of those who were prepared to remain openminded. It is hard to guess the motives of the strongest supporters. Some may have felt that they had genuine scientific insights about what was going on; others may have had a need to believe in something like cold fusion and what it promised for the world; and still others may have wanted to defy the authority of big names, organized science, and the power of the major universities, to associate themselves with the scientific underdogs, or to simply enjoy a good fight.
On all sides the motivations that underlay the early reactions to cold fusion—the flurry of announcements, press releases, lectures, meetings, conferences, and scientific papers—were personal and emotional based upon the beliefs and value systems of the players.
An initial reason for rejecting cold fusion had been its apparent theoretical impossibility. If this were so then the phenomenon simply could not take place and therefore the experimental results that had been reported had to be either mistaken or possibly even faked. However, as the days went on, the logic of this argument became particularly confusing. Theoreticians love a challenge, and some of them adopt the maxim that whatever can be conceived of in the imagination will probably occur. So pretty soon several of them, some of them quite competent, began to play around with novel ideas and generated theories that showed that cold fusion was not only perfectly possible but seemingly inevitable! What had been a scientific absurdity one day became, a few weeks later, a theoretical commonplace. So experimental scientists were faced with theoreticians who had proved that, under the correct experimental conditions, cold fusion must inevitably follow from the nature of certain collective and cooperative effects, while others, equally categorically, demonstrated that it was a physical impossibility.
And as to the experiments themselves? They proved to be extraordinarily difficult to carry out, with some experimenters confirming cold fusion and others discrediting the whole affair. One thing the affair did make clear, to me at least, was that in the age of space travel, virtual reality, and the supercomputer one of the most common devices in everyone's life—the electrolytic battery (generically the same thing we have in our cars)—is far from being well understood. Indeed, getting one to run through its paces in the laboratory remains a black art. Since many of the processes involved in cold fusion are analogous to what happens in a car battery, getting them to work, or getting them not to work, as the case may be—required more of art and intuition than all those definitions about dispassionate quantitative investigation would lead us to believe.
But this is something that many organic chemists have always known, that performing experiments involves a craft and art of careful observation, sensitivity, intuition, experience, and a sixth-sense “feel” for the materials involved. At times, being an experimenter is closer to being a master chef than to a mechanic or a dispassionate computer. And, far from all experiments being reproducible, as the definitions of science suggest, it is well known that some individuals can get a particular experiment to work, while others never will. Hence, the very basis of science, its objective, repeatable, quantitative observations and experiments, is an unattainable ideal, for the way scientists are able to design experiments and carry them out is influenced in so many subtle ways by their feelings and sensitivity to the complex universe around them.
The sociological lessons of cold fusion tell us that if a new phenomenon falls within the current scientific paradigm, then it becomes relatively easy for it to be considered objectively, but when it falls outside, or in some way offends the beliefs and values of influential scientists, it becomes very difficult for anyone to take it seriously. The real issue is not so much whether a particular observation is valid but how it accords with the beliefs, values, aspirations, and worldview of the influential majority of scientists.
If this is true, then the ground becomes shaky under science's appeal to objectivity and its stance in opposition to the mere beliefs of superstitions and pseudosciences. And what about a truly scientific theory standing or falling by a single experiment? The very fact that such a crucial experiment would be performed in the first place is the result of our current scientific paradigm; one that suggests that we should be looking at nature in that particular way in the first place. The experiment asks a precise kind of question, one that assumes only a limited number of possible answers. In other words, the very context in which the experiment is devised presupposes to some extent the range of answers that will be given, each of these answers having meaning within the current scientific context. What a specific experiment will never do is to produce results that are totally out of context or point in radically different directions. If we dangle a fishing line from a boat we may or may not catch fish, but we certainly can't expect to pull in eagles, butterflies, or squirrels!
In other words, observations, experiments, and interpretations are always made from within the confines of a particular paradigm. And while a crucial experiment may help science to decide between two rival theories within that particular paradigm, it will never be able, by itself, to overturn that paradigm. An experiment can never do this because the very motivation to do the experiment in the first place and the language in which its results will be discussed are all aspects of the paradigm itself.
The only way paradigms can be overthrown is not through a particular crucial experiment but by an overall change of thinking, and by the accumulation of new possibilities and puzzling anomalies. Only then, when the time is right and people's thinking has already begun to change, will a crucial experiment be possible. Newton's physics, for example, was never overturned by any experiment. The anomalies that had been discovered at the end of the last century, such as in the motion of the planet Mercury and the failure to detect the effects of the ether on the velocity of light, could all be explained from within Newtonian physics. It was not a crucial experiment that overthrew Newton in favor of Einstein, or, for that matter Ptolemy in favor of Copernicus. Rather, new ways of thinking seemed more in tune with the times and therefore more attractive, aesthetic, unifying, and appealing. It was only then, when the scientific community was willing to entertain a radically different form of thinking, that crucial experiments became possible.
The discussion above seems to indicate that the way science is practiced does not really conform to either the dictionary definitions or the popular conception of an abstract, idealized, and value-free pursuit of pure truth. The fact is that Western science, and the way we pursue it, is a product of our valuesystem and our worldview. Societies with other values and other worldviews may choose to carry out their science in radically different ways.
Of course, the criticism could be leveled that in choosing to base my discussion around the example of cold fusion I have deliberately picked out an example of poor science or bad scientists; and that to criticize the goals and ethics of science in terms of its deficient practitioners is like condemning the values of a religion on the basis of the prejudices and excesses of some of its followers.
But the fact remains that, for us in the West, science is not a religion and lays no claim to transcendental truth. It has been established as a strictly human enterprise and does not exist apart from the scientists who practice it—with all their idiosyncrasies, values, beliefs, shortcomings, and fallings from grace. The fact of the matter is that a pure, “ideal” science no more exists than does a pure, ideal human being. If we accept the abstract ideals and dictionary definitions of science as the yardstick against which true sciences are to be measured, then Western science in its day-to-day operations does not always measure up to its own exemplar.
And this, I think, is how it should be. For it is the way of the West to constantly abstract and idealize, to seek to compare and to measure, to look at things in terms of good and bad, better or worse. Thus, what had its origins in a desire to understand, acknowledge, and seek a relationship with all of nature became transformed into a monolithic search for objective truths. In this transformation Western science began to lose its individual, human face and became swept up into the vast, expensive, and complicated bureaucracy of knowledge.
The point of this chapter is not so much to criticize Western science for not measuring up to its abstract and rather grandiose ideals, but rather to drop our obsession with these ideals and comparisons and suggest that Indigenous science presents a valid understanding of nature in its own right. It may be profitable to explore the differences and similarities of these two scientific approaches—Western and Indigenous. While in many cases there is a direct correspondence, some things are emphasized in one science that seem to be missing in the other. The chart below outlines what I take to be the characteristics of Western and of Indigenous science.
Let us now explore some of the similarities and differences in greater detail.
Keeping in mind that what people do in practice does not always measure up to their ideals, the fact remains that Western science is generally characterized by careful, repeated observation and the collection of data. This, in turn, requires a high degree of technology and the development of a conceptual framework that allows scientists to identify and isolate what is to be observed and studied.
Very careful and painstaking observation is also emphasized in Native science and is part of the coming-to-knowing process of every Indigenous person. One can think of the careful observations made of birds, animals, insects, plants, roots, fungi, etc. A study of rocks, crystals, wood, and other materials has enabled Indigenous people to use them in the construction of various tools and objects. In the case of ancient astronomical observations, even though the telescope had not been developed, the building of observatories and the recording of observations reached a high degree of sophistication.
For observations to be of use they must be recorded and passed on. In the case of Western science this is done through textbooks, scientific papers, lectures, and student apprenticeships. While many Indigenous peoples do use writing systems, knowledge is generally passed on through markings on rocks, mnemonics, songs, ceremonies, practices, artifacts, and such things as earthworks. In particular, much knowledge about the world is enfolded within traditional stories.
Physical science in the West is associated with the birth of the experiment at the hands of Galileo. Galileo's first experiments are seen as having transformed the scientist from a passive observer into one involved in an active engagement of nature, an engagement in which the scientist selects and isolates an aspect of the world which can then be observed in a repeatable way. Experiments are designed to exclude or control external influences and to emphasize a few key variables, or conditions, which can then be studied in a repeatable fashion. In its extreme form one finds echoes of Hans Eysenck's dictum “if it cannot be measured, it does not exist”.
Recently, this experimental philosophy has come under attack for its association with a certain dominant or even “paternalistic” attitude toward nature, the sort of thing that is contained in Francis Bacon's dictum that we should put nature on the rack and force her to reveal her secrets. The poet and philosopher Goethe had pointed out the artificial nature of scientific experiments for, in their retreat from the fullness of phenomena, they have the effect of isolating and tricking nature. So while experiment is the key to Western science it has also been criticized as being artificial, as increasing our sense of distance from nature, and possibly even leading to a fundamental distortion in the way we relate to the world.
Within Indigenous science there does not seem to be that same deliberate attempt to move beyond observation by setting constraints on nature. Indeed, from within its holistic viewpoint in which everything is connected to everything else, experiment would have to take on a new role. In this sense, Indigenous science fails to meet one of the most important criteria within the current Western definition of science.
However, there may be a sort of experimentation that is of an inward nature—an experimentation of the mind, so to speak. In a holistic world in which each part enfolds the whole, it becomes possible to enter into the inscape of the smallest insect, plant, or leaf and zoom outward into the whole universe. Sa'ke'j Henderson has suggested that the People's relationship with plants, animals, rocks, and trees serves them as a sort of electron microscope. By entering into direct relationship with the animals and the Keepers of the animals, The People were able to gain access to the knowledge they have about the world. Native people, Henderson would say, not only have knowledge that comes from direct experience, but access to the knowledge of the birds, insects, animals, rocks, and trees. This sort of process of knowing allows one to enter directly into the perception of nature at many scales and levels.
The mystical traditions of the East stress the employment of instrumentation, experimentation, and observation in their meditative and mystical practices. Within the mystical traditions these disciplines are considered to be scientific precisely because they are disciplined and reproducible. There is a codified body of practices that will lead to predictable and well-defined results. In this approach, internal observation is used in an objective way to gain direct insights into the ways we engage the world and the nature of its realities.
I believe that analogies can be drawn between these contemplative practices of the East and the observational/experimental approaches of Indigenous science. So, while Indigenous science does not employ experiment in the Western scientific sense, it does employ a disciplined approach to merging horizons with the inner reality of the world and revealing its different levels of process.
Prediction is given the highest value in the physical sciences. Indeed, it has become the crucial test of any theory; for it is not sufficient to explain a wide range of phenomena—one must also be able to predict some new effect that can then be tested. Prediction is also tied to the philosopher Karl Popper's notion of falsifiability as being the ultimate test of a proper scientific theory. According to Popper, to be called scientific a theory must be constructed in such a way that its predictions are capable of being falsified in a crucial experiment. Theories that cannot be falsified in any direct way belong to superstitions and pseudoscience. (Followers of Popper include psychoanalysis and astrology as examples of such nonfalsifiable pseudosciences.)
However, other thinkers, such as Paul Feyerabend and David Bohm, do not go along with this current fashion for predictability and suggest that understanding is the true criterion of science. The current emphasis on prediction, in their opinion, has become an obsession and, by itself, does not lead to understanding. Indeed, in some cases it simply confirms what is in effect a closed system of thought.
While Native scientists have concerned themselves with prediction, this comes about within a different metaphysics. Prediction does not so much involve something new in the future but a celebration of return and renewal. What we take for prediction could, in the case of Indigenous science, be closer to an expression of the harmonies and relationships between things. Within Mayan science, for example, great emphasis was placed upon the wheels of time and upon the exact dates of eclipses and planetary movements.
The concept of what, within Western science, would be called prediction is profoundly different within a metaphysics that is not based upon the notion of causality. Indigenous science deals with connection, harmony, and relationship rather than with the mechanical influence of forces on bodies. Thus, if we try to apply that concept of prediction, it would be something arising out of pattern and relationship, out of one thing being contained within another.
There is also a sense in which dreams can have a predictive quality or, to put it another way, in which the dreamer is not confined to a single present but can move back and forth along the curve of time. A dreamer may see the strangers who will arrive at camp several days into the future, or may discover where game is to be found on the following day. This ability to anticipate the future does not arise, as within Western science, from casual deductions based upon knowledge of the present—for example, applying the laws of planetary motion to predict the occurrence of an eclipse—rather, it appears to be a form of direct connection to knowledge. Such a connection can be made in many ways; in dreams, ceremonies, or by means of a bone held in the hand, for that bone connects to the Keeper of that particular animal.
The idea of prediction within the West is based upon the premise of the linear flow of time and upon the absolute separation of present from future; thus, the very notion of prediction arises from the Western ability to separate or abstract itself from events and project them into an imaginary future. But in a society that views time as a circle there is never that sense of separation, nor is there a need to seek control over the world through scientific prediction. To use the example of the Hopi worldview, future events exist within the realm of the manifesting, that realm of subjectivity that includes the mental as well. Thus, prediction would not so much mean the ability to see into the future from the past, but rather a concern with that edge of manifesting where things pass from one world into another.
As we saw above, our scientific obsession with prediction is ultimately based on the illusion of control. The dream goes that if science can describe a system according to some theory or model, and if it can predict the outcome of particular effects, then it becomes possible to control nature. This desire for control has come under particular attack from feminists who see it as the direct outcome of a paternalistic attitude toward nature. Ecologists are also uneasy with the belief that more and more science can be used to solve the world's outstanding problems by exerting ever more control.
Native science, for its part, is concerned with relationship, harmony, and balance in the movement of the sun, moon, and planets; the sequence of seasons; the arrival of the Thunder Birds in spring; the Four Winds; the movements of game; and the fertility of the land. Scientific control of these phenomena would imply a distancing and separation from them. The use of ceremony and renewal within Native tradition involves a different metaphysics. Ceremonies are held to ensure success in hunting, or in planting corn. In these ceremonies direct participation within natural processes is called for, along with acts of obligation and sacrifice. To hold a ceremony in order that the sun will rise tomorrow is different from the desire to seek a way of controlling, or exerting force, over the sun's movements.
Although it could not be said to be a form of control in the Western sense of the word, Indigenous peoples are also able to make use of certain processes in order to bring about desired effects. Indeed, the bringing about of effects, or entering into relationship with them, is very important. Examples include the ability to heal and to extract diseases from the body, or to negotiate with clouds in order to produce rain. Songs could also be thought of as processes, or scientific instruments, that bring about certain effects. And if Indigenous science is not so concerned with control, it is definitely occupied with the idea of power or energy. For, in order for a person to move within a world of powers, spirits, and energies, it is very important to have a map, to be able to enter into relationships with the surrounding energies and to have knowledge of the sources of power.
Western science is strongly associated with the search for objective, independent truth, while, at the same time placing a lower value on subjective experience. Science aims to be valuefree in this regard; that is, it seeks eternal truths that are independent of particular social and religious contexts.
In Native science, however, stress is laid upon direct subjective experience and upon closeness to nature. The powers, energies, and spirits of the world are personified to the extent that it is possible to enter into direct relationship with these elements and negotiate pacts, compacts, and ways of living together with them. If objectivity implies the ability to abstract and distance oneself from nature, then this is definitely missing within Indigenous science. In its place, however, stand consistency, integration, harmony, and balance.
The vision of Western science rests on the notion of the uniformity of nature and its law. The current perception of the universe occurs in terms of a hierarchy of laws built on the foundation at the most fundamental level. Mathematical elegance, simplicity, and beauty are considered to be a feature of the universe and its laws. Complexity is a secondary effect that emerged out of the primordial simplicity of the big bang through a series of chance processes called “symmetry breaking.” What is considered to be preeminent about the univerrse could perhaps be classified as the general, the abstract, the repeatable, the context-independent, and the all-embracing. By contrast the individual, the idiosyncratic, and the singular event are considered to be of less importance, or as being particular and superficial cases of something deeper and more embracing.
While Native science also stresses harmony and balance, it nevertheless gives importance to diversity, as well as to the particular event—to the dream and vision, to a unique phenomenon, and to the experience of each individual. Indigenous science accepts the rich complexity of life and the natural world as being the essence of the cosmos. Relationships and renewable alliances take the place of fixed laws, and Indigenous science accepts the possibility that chance and the unexpected can enter and disturb any scheme. Thus, the circle is left open and chance, as represented by the clown, the trickster, and gambling games, occupies an important role.
Western science emphasizes theoretical models, simplified conceptual frameworks in which one particular aspect of natural phenomena can be studied through reason and experiment. By means of experiments, scientists seek to test their models against the behavior of the natural world. To take one example, a gas such as oxygen is assumed to be composed of an enormous number of rapidly moving molecules. One of the earliest models of a gas pictured the molecules as moving dots, independent, structureless, and of negligible volume. Based upon this model, scientists worked out relationships between the temperature of a gas and its volume, and could also predict how a change of pressure would effect the volume of a gas. These relationships and predictions were confirmed experimentally. With more accurate experiments, small deviations between experiment and the model were discovered, and it became necessary to add refinements to the model to allow for the actual, very small, size of the molecules and their weak interactions. In this way, by progressively refining its model, science pictures itself as moving even closer to the truth about a particular aspect of nature.
While approaching nature through conceptual models involves simplification, abstraction, fragmentation, objectivity, and distancing, it also allows the power of abstract mental representation, logic, reason, and focused application to be brought to bear upon particular phenomena.
Although Indigenous science is not normally concerned with abstraction and simplification, it nevertheless, possesses a strong component of representation. Thus, traditional practices and teachings revolve around symbols, numbers, geometric shapes, special objects, etc., that evoke the flavor of a mental model. As an example, the circle of the tepee and the sacred hoop becomes a model for the earth, for the life of a person, and for the movement of time. Other symbols, or “models” deal with the heavens and with various forces of nature. However, the relationship between the symbol and nature is quite different from that between a Western scientific model and nature.
Within Indigenous science a particular symbol is not an abstraction or a reflection of reality, that a model within Western science is. Rather, it is something that permits direct connection with the energies, spirits, and animating power of nature. There is the sense that, like a holograph, a symbol and object can enfold the whole of reality. Thus, the sacred hoop does not have a single interpretation, or level of meaning, as does the molecular model of a gas; instead, it contains and reflects a multiplicity of meanings.
Many of the symbols found in the Indigenous science of the Americas (the tree, four sacred directions, fire, serpent, bear, rock, sacred plants, sacred animals, worlds within worlds, etc.), are shared by Indigenous peoples across the earth and are found in records left by the peoples of prehistoric times. The psychologist Carl Jung associated these with archetypes of the collective unconscious, but to the Native mind they are not metaphors, images, representations, or archetypes. Rather, they are the reality itself. There really is a bear, a rock, a sacred direction. Their reality is undeniable and can be experienced directly within the world. Jungls archetypes are too limited, too literal, and too impoverished to account for the vitality of Native American imagery.
Indigenous symbols act to unify, for they correlate whole groups of experiences and practices. In this light it is interesting to ask to what extent concepts like space, time, causality, force, matter, and energy provide the integrating features of our own thought and could be taken to be the symbols or archetypes of the Western mind.
Within the science of the Middle Ages, as within certain Eastern philosophies, one can find the idea of “as above, so below,” that is, the universe repeating and enfolding itself at every level. A human being is a “model” or representation of the entire cosmos. But this should not be taken to mean that a human being is a model of the cosmos in the sense that a plastic toy is a model of an airplane. Rather, the human being enfolds the cosmos and within the order of body and mind can be found the cosmic order. Likewise, as human beings work at transformation and coming-to-knowing they are affecting the entire universe.
Similar ideas exist within the science of Indigenous peoples. A striking example comes from the Maori people of what is today called New Zealand. Their marai, or community dwelling house, is a microcosm of the cosmos. To our eyes the house is packed with symbolism; in terms of the numbers of wooden supports, location of windows, decoration, and so on. But it might be truer to say that these are not representations or metaphors of the universe, but rather that the universe is contained within the marai.
In a similar way the wooden houses of the Haida people with their special arrangements of seats are a model, in the deepest sense, of the structure of their society, which to our eyes appears to be extremely hierarchical. Other models, or microcosms within the macrocosm, would be the longhouses of the Iroquoian people, the hogans of the Navahos, and the tepees of the plains peoples. In each case the dwelling place becomes an expression or a manifestation or a place of containment for a whole cosmology that includes society and the individual.
Western science is firmly based in the belief of causality—the idea that everything that takes place is the direct result of particular causes, and that a given cause will produce a specific effect. While Newton himself was willing to accept the possibility of “occult forces” and a mysterious action-at-a-distance, the science that bears his name is wedded to the notion that all causes are of physical origin—involving impacts, pushes, pulls, or the action of electrical, mechanical, and gravitational fields and forces. A science that is not based upon causality appears unthinkable.
But not all the world's philosophies view causality in the same way. The notion of causation is a cornerstone of Buddhist thought, for the second of the Four Noble Truths is the understanding of the origin of suffering that lies in causation. But this Buddhist notion of causation transcends the more limited scientific notions involving the outcome of a purely mechanical applications of force. Similarly, Carl Jung and the physicist Wolfgang Pauli introduced the notion of patterns within the universe arising from what they called synchronicity or “an acausal connecting principle”.
Native science also acknowledges the importance of cause, but the inner nature of these causes appears to be substantially different from those considered in the West. Some causes involve the action of spirits or energies, an idea that has no counterpart in modern physics but may well be closer to the ideas of Newton, Kepler, and the alchemists. Jung's idea of synchronicity may also have some resonance in Native science, as does the medieval notion of correspondences, and “as above, so below”.
Western science is characterized by its reliance on instruments such as telescopes, microscopes, thermometers, and X-rays to extend the normal human senses. However, Anab Whitehouse, the Sufi scholar, has pointed out to me that instruments and their careful preparation are also spoken of in the esoteric or mystical sciences. Thus, the Sufis teach that “the mirror of the heart” is an instrument that must be carefully cleaned and polished if it is to reflect Allah's light. The Buddhists seek to prepare the mind as an instrument of scientific investigation by freeing it from confusion and attachment. The instruments of mind and body can then be used for careful, disciplined and repeatable experimentation and observation.
Something similar may apply in Native science. We have already seen how knowledge goes beyond what can be apprehended through the normal senses by entering into alliances with the various plants and animals. In addition, ceremonies and practices such as fasting, acts of sacrifice, dancing, ingestion of various preparations, dreams, and visions all serve to refine the instruments of perception and allow direct contact with extended realms of reality During certain healing ceremonies it seems to be possible to obtain direct perception of the nature and location of a disease within the body
Indigenous science also makes use of technological instruments. For example, the Cherokee people utilize crystals in many different ways. One is in the preparation of medicine where sunlight is guided through the crystal and onto the preparation to potentiate its power.
The Blackfoot people have their medicine wheels, which are treated with great respect and importance. Archaeologists have advanced a variety of theories as to the purpose of these patterns of rocks but their true meaning can probably only be found in the heads and hearts of the Blackfoot people. Certainly it seems that a single explanation—that they are astronomical devices, for example—is far too simplistic. However, in their arrangements of stones many of them do acknowledge the patterns and harmonies of earth and sky. Medicine wheels are built at powerful sites and seem to have the power to focus or concentrate. In other words, they have a technological role to play within the Blackfoot application of Indigenous science. Indeed, Leroy Little Bear and I have half-joked that just as Western physicists build gigantic circles in the landscape—elementary particle accelerators—to carry out experiments on the ultimate nature of matter, so can cosmological investigations can be performed with the Blackfoot medicine wheels. So maybe we should apply for a major scientific grant to build an even larger medicine wheel!
Technology is not simply the offshoot of Western science, it is often the spur that pushes science forward, for each new technological advance provides the means for further experimentation. Pure research in solid state physics gave rise to the transistor, which, through further refinements, made highspeed computers a possibility. In turn, the computer's ability to carry out complex simulations and solve complicated nonlinear differential equations made possible the new scientific approaches known as chaos theory and fractals.
In the West, technology is tied to notions of progress and the belief that “more is better.” Some scientists contend that the difficulties we face today involving energy, sickness, social violence, and ecological damage will eventually be solved by better science and improved technologies. The psychologist Hans Eysenck takes this belief in the power of science to extremes:
We know quite enough about botany, agriculture, and physics to make sure of a very good living for everybody who is on earth at the moment, but what stands in our way is our lack of knowledge of psychology Why are there warring factions in Yugoslavia? Why is the Russian communist experiment failing. Why do we have strikes? These are all real problems which we are incapable of solving because we lack scientific knowledge of them. I hope that in two hundred years' time psychology will be an adequate science to deal with these difficulties.
A belief in the need for constant progress and change, along with the accumulation of wealth and material resources, is generally absent from Indigenous societies, which place more emphasis upon balance, harmony, and the circular passage of time. Social value and personal prestige are gained in other ways, and people sometimes appear conservative about adopting new technologies. In addition, those technologies that have been developed, or adopted, generally tend to be used in ways that do not disrupt the particular environment and way of life.
This is not to say that there have not been striking technological advances within Turtle Island. The Clovis spear point was one of the first and most far-reaching pieces of advanced technology in the prehistoric world. The Olmec people appear to have used compasses one thousand years before the Chinese. Haida and birchbark canoes indicate deep knowledge of materials and design. Systems of farming, the working of artifacts, the design and building of great earthworks in the southeastern United States, as well as the temples and cities of Central America all imply considerable technological support. But these changes have generally come about within an environment of balance and do not represent “advances” in the sense of being a forward movement and a split and separation from tradition.
At one level, Western science has struggled to free itself from the confines of established religion. Nevertheless, the writings of the greatest scientists from Newton and Kepler to Einstein and Planck are all profoundly spiritual. God is constantly invoked as the final arbiter of nature and scientific truth. Important notions of beauty, elegance, simplicity, harmony, and uniformity within scientific descriptions of the universe may have similar religious roots. Science's goal of ultimate law and ultimate level also reflects the prevailing notion in the West of a single, unified deity.
Native science is also profoundly spiritual. Indeed, there is no division between science and spirituality for every act and every plant and animal is sacred. Yet this is a spirituality, that is capable of supporting the diversity, subtlety, and complexity within nature. Rather than seeking a single, most fundamental ground, the Native mind prefers to dance among the everchanging movements of a living, subtle nature. Harmony and balance must accommodate change and the activities of the trickster.
In seeking its objectivity and freedom from subjective values Western science has cut itself free from pursuits such as art, religion, etc. In this way Western thought has become profoundly fragmented. Scientists also feel that their discoveries are, in a sense, absolute truths that are beyond moral values. They are neither good nor bad and their potential use lies outside the province of science. The result of this fragmentation is a knowledge that is divided into a number of specialized compartments, along with such by-products as an accelerating technology, ecological damage, alienation, high-tech medicine, etc. Science itself has become divided into a number of specialized branches of study. By contrast, Native science cannot be separated from spirituality, art, ceremony, and the whole social order. Every action is a spiritual act and has its effect on nature and the individual.
Fragmentation also arises through the power of analysis. In Western science, systems are understood by taking them apart in the laboratory, separating them into their various components, and then studying these individual components. In turn, these components are broken down into yet smaller entities. Just as natural systems can be physically analyzed, they are similarly analyzed in thought. They are abstracted and broken down into relationships between logically simpler parts.
Contrast this view with the importance of context within Indigenous science. For example, in Indigenous science the healing power of a plant should not be studied simply in terms of some molecular component that acts on cells in the human body according to a particular mechanism; rather, the plant becomes enveloped within ceremony and story: The plant possesses a spirit. It may only be collected and used in a certain way. Within Indigenous science the whole meaning of the plant, and of healing, can only be understood within a wide, multilevel context. Meaning is always context-dependent, rather than absolute and context-free as in Western science. However, the idea of a context-dependent meaning and interpretation is now being forced on Western science as well by the quantum theory.
Western science seeks understanding through a clear, consistent, and unique explanation, with reference to models and systems of laws. In turn this explanation should be reducible to laws that operate at an even more fundamental level. By contrast, Native science works with a multiplicity of symbols, images, and stories. There is no single, unique reading to a story, but rather many enfolded and interpenetrating levels, none of which needs be thought of as being more fundamental than any other. Understanding comes from a direct experience of the dance between these levels of meaning.
In this sense, understanding within Indigenous science has something in common with Niels Bohr's notion of complementarity. Bohr's complementarity states that a single consistent description will never exhaust the meaning of what is happening at the quantum level. Rather, what is required are a number of complementary mutually contradictory descriptions. An electron is described as being both delocalized and wavelike, but also localized and particlelike. Likewise, the meaning of a traditional story depends upon a variety of contexts and can be unfolded in a variety of ways.
Western science prides itself on having gained its freedom from the authority that was once held by the church and the ancient philosophers. Nature is said to be the final arbiter of truth. As the physicist Richard Feynman put it, “Nature cannot be fooled.” But in practice the scientific establishment is itself highly authoritarian in that it determines what is considered an acceptable and proper topic for study, and what lies outside the pale. The scientific establishment carries tremendous weight, and while theories can be overthrown and replaced within the range of a particular paradigm, it is very difficult for any approach that seriously challenges the limits of the current paradigm to get a fair hearing.
Native science gains its authority partly through the society and its Elders and partly through direct experience, dreams, visions, and the voices of animals and plants. But really, authority is the wrong word to use, for it is alien to most Indigenous American societies for any person or office to set rules, give orders, direct the lives of others, or claim that authority personified by an individual speaks for the society as a whole. Authority, if we are to use that word in the context of Native science, resides in individuals and their direct experience rather than in some social establishment.
Western science seeks ultimate truth, for it believes in a rational universe that can be understood by experimentation and reason. The truths of this science are founded upon observation and experimentation carried out within the context of particular theories and hypotheses using the methods of induction and deduction. While the metaphysics of this approach has been much debated, as far as the everyday working scientist is concerned, scientific truth can be reached through careful experimentation.
Truth in Native science is of a very different order. Truths are not value-free but depend upon tradition and social and spiritual sanctions. Dreams and visions are systems of validation. Truth is contained within origin and migration stories, songs and ceremonies. And the source of truth is found in nature and in the direct experience of individuals through dreams and visions; conversations with rocks, trees, and animals; and patient observation of the world around them.
Unlike Western science, the importance of the landscape, and specific places in it, is a characteristic of all Indigenous science. A mound, rock, medicine wheel, river, or tree may be of deep significance to a people. Even the language spoken by a people arises out of the land they live in and and of the “map in the head” they all carry.
Within Indigenous science there is an association of spirit or energy with particular places, and it is important to visit these places and carry out ceremonies there. Fasts and vision quests are carried out on particular hilltops. At other locations, medicine wheels can be found whose alignments connect to movements and harmonies within the sky. There are rock markings and paintings all over the Americas. The Ojibwaj people, for example, appear to have taken young people to these sites in order to impart their sacred teachings. In some places the rock teachings were protected by a layer of grass or moss that was removed only during the period of teaching. There may also be a connection between the power of certain sites and the historical voyages and migrations carried out by The People.
This idea of the significance of place and the energies associated with it is common to Indigenous sciences all over the world. Certainly it must have been present in megalithic Europe. In Australia one finds the dream tracks, or songlines, made by the Ancestors when they walked the land. And, recalling that time is neither linear nor an arrow, we should realize that this time of the dreaming of the Australian Aborigines is not something that exists only in an absolute past, nor should dreaming be associated with our Western sense of what a dream is.
The notions of landscape have also been explored by Ren6 Dubois. Paul Devereux has told me that in his own recent book Symbolic Landscapes: The Dreamtime Earth and Avebury's Open Secret. He maintains that the landscape of Avebury in England was created in megalithic times as a sort of dream landscape, or expression of numinous power.
Within Turtle Island something similar may lie in the creation of the straight roads, that can be found all over the continent, particularly in Chaco Canyon. Chaco Canyon also contains a host of observation points, containing worked rocks whereby, at certain significant times of the year, sunlight or moonlight is channeled through the rocks, into a cavern, and onto a geometrical marking on a wall. Anna Sofaer, who discovered the first of these channels—associated with the Sun Dagger markings in the Chaco Canyon—has since formed the Solstice Project to carry out careful research into this phenomenon, involving, among other things, computer simulations of orientations of buildings and sites within the canyon and their correlation with astronomical events.
Sofaer pointed out to me how not only observation stations but whole towns and important buildings were laid out to correspond to the orientation of the rising sun on these significant dates. Minute by minute the sun's light would move across the canyon, touching these markings in turn. “It must have been like a great fireworks display,” she said.
Indigenous science often expresses the deep connection between the landscape and the whole cosmos. The People's role in this connection is to maintain a sense of harmony and balance. Thus, I have heard it said that some of the great migrations and voyages were undertaken to maintain balance within the earth.
Western science does not appear to have a corresponding concept. Certainly there are universities and research centers where initiation and coming-to-knowing is practiced, but these learning centers could have been built almost anywhere, and their locations were determined more by economic considerations—nearness to cities, the presence of outstanding researchers, etc.—than by consideration of the land itself. There are, however, major pieces of scientific equipment, such as observatories and elementary particle accelerators—our megalithic records for the distant future, as it were—that are built at specific geographical locations. But the notion of sacred space and the significance of the earth in sacred terms is missing in Western science.
In several Native traditions a person is pictured as walking on a road through life. Certain steps along that path are marked by ceremonies, visions, dreams, fasts, or initiations. In the Midewiwin society of the Ojibwaj, coming-to-knowing involves a series of degrees of initiation, with each of the four Earth Degrees involving extensive training and the knowledge of special ceremonies. So while coming-to-knowing is generally based upon personal experience and dreams and visions, it can also come, in particular with the Ojibwaj people, though special training and learning of songs, ceremonies, stories, and the interpretation of the meaning of scrolls, petroglyphs, and so on. And following each stage of initiation there are ceremonies of acknowledgment and recognition.
The preparation for knowledge in Western science follows a similar rigorous system of learning, grades, initiation, and ceremonial acceptance. Reaching the higher, graduate grades generally requires special study under a professor and the production of a special piece of work such as a thesis.
In addition to the formal degrees of Western initiation there is also a more subtle and informal process in which a special vocabulary, formal language, practices, and paradigms are acquired. The scientifically initiated are immediately recognized by the special language they speak!
A special vocabulary of verb tenses andlor other language forms are also a feature of Indigenous languages. However, a Western initiate is judged competent simply on the basis of accumulated knowledge and practice, for there is no need for sanction to come independently from dreams, visions, or spirits.
Cosmology—the study of the nature and origin of the universe, of “all that is”—is one of the foundation stones of Western science. Cosmological conceptions also play a vital role within Native science. Cosmology is intimately connected to the origins and the great migrations of peoples; to calendars, sacred cycles, sacred mathematics, and Indigenous notions of time. Cosmology is not abstracted as a particular branch of Indigenous science but is fully integrated into the unity of nature and of all living things, the harmony between the world of spirits and the manifest, the special names and roles of plants and animals and the life-path of each individual. Indigenous cosmology provides a set of values, social integration, and validation for The People. It is a way of life, a relationship to the natural world, a deeper reason for ceremonies and daily practice, a foundation for song, art, and artifact.
It is difficult to imagine a branch of science not leaning in some way on mathematics. In the nineteenth century it was said that “mathematics is the handmaid of science” and, in the context of quantum theory, Heisenberg claimed that “the truth lies in the mathematics.” It has also been maintained that mathematical beauty is connected to mathematical truth and that “God is a mathematician.” Today's scientific theories have reached such a high degree of abstraction that they are guided as much by mathematical considerations as they are by physical intuition.
Sacred mathematics is an important part of Indigenous science, and this has been discussed in previous chapters. Sacred mathematics revolves around the importance of number and its relation to spirit and cosmology, special symbols and shapes, and the ability to carry out surveying measurements and the laying out of buildings in particular geometrical arrangements. Sacred mathematics is concerned with the renewal of harmony between earth and sky.
A system of mathematics generally presupposes some form of symbolic, abstract representation. Indeed, representation is essential in Western science with its formulas, chemical equations, symbolic models, and computer simulations.
It is often assumed that, leaving aside the Mayans and Aztecs of Central America, writing did not exist in North America until the advent of the Europeans. There is, however, evidence of elaborate and very early representational systems, including those of the Ojibwaj, Mic Maq, and many other groups, that can be found recorded on rocks, birchbark, wood panels, talking sticks, as well as in other systems such as wampum belts. In the case of the Mic Maq writing, I have been told that it did not attempt to represent the spoken language but served more in the nature of formulas of thought.
In Native science The People have a strong personal connection and relationship to every aspect of the natural world—to rocks, plants, animals, and stars. In a cosmology in which every human action has repercussions within the natural world, The People learn to treat everything with respect and accept their obligations to renew the harmony of the cosmos and maintain the balance of nature.
The traditional Western view of science is that life had its origins as an accident on a particular planet, at the edge of a star system, within a vast, impersonal universe.* Human consciousness together with our perception of the cosmos represents the end result of fortuitous chance processes related to evolution. At the official level, the scientist's first duty is to truth, and considerations of the nature and value of life enter only at the realm of what can be observed and measured. However, it is certainly true to say that many individual. scientists often have a mystical sense of direct connection and. communion with nature.
Ceremony plays a significant role in Native science. Ceremonies are associated with acts of renewal, healing, and relationship to particular forms of knowledge. The use of ceremony focuses the mind and creates a sacred space in which knowledge can be discussed.
There is little evidence of ceremonies in Western science, other than the superficial formality of thesis defense, seminars, and the conferring of degrees and awards. However, ceremony is of central significance within Western religion which, many centuries ago, separated from the sciences and arts.
Today many people in the West who feel a sense of loss and lack of connection with the earth and cosmos are attempting to invent or revive ceremonies. Following the writings of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung there has been an attempt to “invent” a mythology for the end of the twentieth century. To my mind at least, these attempts feel artificial, unconvincing, and are sometimes downright embarrassing. Our technological, industrial society is truly without tradition. In so many ways we have lost our connection to the earth, and, for many people, contemporary drama, art, literature, and music simply do not speak to the need for meaning. It is difficult to know where we, as a people, can walk, since we do not know where we stand.
Elders are held in high regard within Native science as the repositories of wisdom and special knowledge. Older Western scientists may also be respected, but more for their reputation and charismatic aura than for their present abilities. Indeed, in the West, scientists are generally regarded as being in their prime between their late twenties and thirties. Older scientists are sometimes judged as fit only for philosophical musing and popular public lectures. They are also often seen as a barrier to advancement by the young.
While Native science respects the wisdom of its Elders, Western science seeks to overthrow the ideas of the previous generation, although this is generally done in limited ways so that the major paradigms of science persist from generation to generation. Nevertheless, the battle between father and son continues with every generation. It will be interesting to see if, and how, this social paradigm changes as more women enter into the scientific mainstream.
The animation of nature and the energies or spirits that reside in plants, animals, rocks, and trees are characteristic of Native science. The acknowledgment of powers and the renewal of alliances through a variety of ceremonies also play a key role in Native science.
This notion of spirit, or numinous energy, is missing in Western science. However, the studies of alchemy, astrology, and natural magic were taken quite seriously by a number of scientists at the time of Newton. Their origins can be traced partly to Arabic mystics, scientists, and alchemists. Within this framework are found notions similar to those within Indigenous science, such as hidden forces, animate nature, and the parallel reflections between the purification of the individual and the harmonious workings of nature.
Dreams and visions are held to be of key importance in Native science. A young person may go on a vision quest. A healer may receive sanction through a vision. In many groups knowledge and initiation come through dreams. The world of dreams is particularly real and of deep significance. Initiation by dreams is also characteristic of some Eastern traditions and ways to knowledge.
At first sight there is no parallel to this belief within Western science. However, in the lives of many scientists the dream or vision has played a major role in leading to a significant discovery. The self-taught mathematician S. Ramanujan, who astounded the mathematical world in the 1910s with his brilliant and original theorems, spoke of receiving them directly from a goddess without the need for intervening steps of reason and proof. In many other instances a theorem or scientific advance has appeared directly in dreams, visions, or through sudden acts of insight without the need for mathematical and logical reasoning. Within the Western worldview, such dreams are interpreted on a psychological basis as arising within the unconscious and as having nothing to do with external spirits or direct contact with a transcendent reality.
The idea of “a map in the head” is often spoken of by Native people. This map is more than a mere geographical representation of a given area, for it is a multidimensional combination of time and space, the sacred and profane, history and origin, animals and spirits. It is richly textured, both as the physical actuality of the land and as a living metaphor.
While the notion of a theory as being a “map of the world” is used in Western science, our maps tend to be relatively impoverished in their connotations and hold little in the way of social value. By contrast, Native maps contain spiritual and social values. They bind people to each other and to their past and they are magical and sacred. The world of Native maps is endless and its connection to Native science is profound. Indeed, one could hazard the speculation that to a great extent the map is the science, while, by contrast, within the West it is said by philosophers that “the map is not the territory”.
The notion of a path is present in both Western physics and Native science. Indeed, within the context of the theory of relativity, paths have an almost numinous quality for the physicist. The idea of a path is also important in Native science, where it is pictured as the Earth Walk, the Good Red Road, the trail through a landscape, and an ancient journey undertaken by The People. To the Australian Aborigines, paths begin in Dream Time; they are synonymous with the creation of the landscape and species, they are eternally present, they are songs and stories, and they are the physical and spiritual links bet ween different groups of people.
In Western physics, the path, or trajectory, of a body through space and time is a key concept. To Aristotle each body strove along its path to attain its own special place. Galileo and Newton, however, introduced the notion of inertia, whereby an undisturbed body persists in moving along its own trajectory. Deviation from that path was always the result of a force or field. With Einstein the notion of a trajectory, now called a geodesic, became even more subtle, for the force of gravity had been eliminated in favor of a curved geometry. His notion was that every star and planet moved along its own special geodesic, essentially because there was no other way it could possibly move. This now stands as the dominant concept in relativity. Thus, the idea of the “right path” becomes the image in which the motions of bodies are to be understood. Indeed, it is almost possible to remove all mention of forces and think of physics only in terms of paths.
Native science resonates with this notion of a “right path,” yet the idea of necessity or inevitability is missing in Native science; or rather, it has a different flavor. All that happens is the result of the operation and alliances of spirits, or as some peoples would put it, the Creator. Moreover, it is necessary to perpetuate these relationships and alliances through cere-monies, songs, and personal sacrifice. So the path in Native science is not mechanically predetermined but is a path of participation, in which all living things must play their role.
The whole field of transformation and reality in Indigenous science is so subtle that it is again given a chapter to itself, chapter 11.
Indigenous science must be judged on its own grounds. It offers a valuable way of coming-to-knowing, and one that represents a tradition of disciplined thought, observation, and experience that stretches back hundreds and thousands of years. While it is true that a number of striking similarities exist between Indigenous and Western science, what is perhaps more interesting is their differences. Each society can approach the world in its own way, for the cosmos has unending richness and subtlety. We need a new spirit of openness and tolerance so that the peoples of the world can come together to listen and dialogue, each respecting the other's way of living and envisioning a new and harmonious relationship for the cosmos, the planet, and all of its creatures.
* More recent theories suggest that the molecules of life were originally formed on the surfaces of interstellar dust that fills our galaxy.