Mackey Moana: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 A number of Labour members are very keen to speak on the preamble to the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill. It is very important legislation. 
The Royal Society is an institution in New Zealand as my colleague Charles Chauvel pointed out. From my perspective as a member of the Royal Society I believe that the legislation is very important. Many people have referred to the legislation as breaking new ground or being a great stride forward. In fact at its most basic sense the legislation is actually going back to the very first roots of the Royal Society when it was first formed in the United Kingdom. 
The Royal Society was formed in the 17th century in the United Kingdom and the Enlightenment followed very quickly after. The Enlightenment brought together not just scientists but artists philosophers and people from all walks of life who had an interest in learning and discovering. They all came together and there was no distinction between those who wanted to study biology or physics or to learn how the universe worked and those who wanted to understand how humans interacted in that world how the human influence interacted with the physical world and how the physical world interacted with human existence. 
Over the course of the last 200 or 300 years we have seen within the community of the Royal Society a parting of the ways between people who were very much all together in the same kind of culture and very much together with the same common goal of human enlightenment. Here we find ourselves. 
As a scientist I absolutely acknowledge that science is very hierarchical. The minute someone enters the science field he or she learns there is a pecking order. Just as people in Europe tell jokes about the Belgians there are people in science who tell jokes about people who have certain degrees. It is quite a culture shock go into the science field and realise that not all degrees are created equal in science. There is a pecking order. When one comes up through that culture one very much accepts that. It is partly because scientists are very proud of their qualifications. They are very proud to be part of a community that contributes so much not only to the economy and education of their country but also to the progression of human achievement and the human race. That is really where that culture comes from. 
Bringing the humanities into the Royal Society will in no way dilute the mission of the Royal Society. It will in no way alter its path. The legislation is not a massive step forward; it is going back to the very roots of the creation of the organisation when philosophers humanitarians and social scientists worked alongside their companions. That is very important. 
We saw in the climate change debate that we cannot separate the physical world studies to understand the physical world and the patterns that occur in that world from human involvement human interaction and human influence. In the same light we cannot separate how human thought and attitude will impact on scientific progress. I think of the genetic modification debate as a classic example of where science was on one page and the public was on another page. We cannot separate the two. For a long time we have been doing that. For a long time they have existed very separately from each other. 
I congratulate the Otago University on the work being done there. When my colleague David Shearer and I visited the University of Otago we saw that it was doing a lot of what is called multidisciplinary work where it was bringing together not just social scientists but economists lawyers and pure scientists. For example one of the projects the university was doing was about renewable energy. Everyone thinks renewable energy is great but can anyone think of a single renewable energy project that did not have massive public opposition in the community in which it was based? 
We have a disconnect between scientists doing a lot of work in an area that is incredibly important not only to our economy but also to our environment. They are doing the work for all the right reasons. They know that when people are asked abstractly in a survey whether they think we should have more renewable energy they say yes but then wind turbines or tidal turbines are put in and suddenly the local community reacts in a very different way and in a way that is not anticipated. That can significantly slow down progress. Work is being done at the Otago University on that issue. The work asks what is missing—and this is very relevant for politicians when we push these policies—and where the disconnect is between— 
Allan Peachey 
: It’s not a disconnect. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is a disconnect. The work asks where the disconnect is and where science is not taking people along with it and vice versa. The Royal Society’s bringing together the two disciplines is another step along the path of recognising that the two cannot exist separately from each other. 
I will go back to the discovery of New Zealand by the English. The Royal Society supported Captain Cook’s journey to the Pacific to observe the transit of Venus. The crew that was on board the  
Endeavour  
was very representative of what one would have seen in the Enlightenment. There was a variety of people in the crew not just pure scientists. That was very much the way the Royal Society operated. It is nice to see that the Royal Society is going back to its roots in that respect and that it is valuing the work the humanities provides and the aspect it brings. 
It is also very important for the humanities to be able to benefit as Allan Peachey said although I do not 
think I would be quite so dismissive of the social scientists in the humanities as he is. It is very good also for the humanities to be able to benefit from scientific methods and scientific disciplines. That is an area where I think we could get more young people interested in science. Science is seen by a lot of students in schools as something they just do not want to do. There is a bit of stigma about science. Students either like science or they do not; it is not one of those grey areas. If we were able to introduce far more scientific methods and far more scientific disciplines into the everyday teaching of a lot of humanities subjects which are popular with a number of students then even if the students do not go on to do pure science qualifications just the development of those skills and the ability to critically analyse information and data would be of enormous importance. Sometimes people who are doing a science degree do not realise the skills they pick up along the way in terms of the ability to read research. 
As members of the House will know we get sent endless amounts of research. I come back to what Allan Peachey said when he criticised a lot of the work that was being done in the education area. The way science works is not that we will only ever get one opinion because there is a right or a wrong. Science is about the reduction of doubt; it is not about the elimination of doubt. Maybe in the scientific community that fact has been dumbed down a little bit for public consumption in order to say that science can give an absolute answer of yes or no. Those who study science are taught that it is about the reduction of doubt and that there will always be competing interests and opinions. Those who study science put together those interests and opinions and look at the entire body of work. 
I do not know what particular research Allan Peachey was talking about but I know that some very very good education research is going on. I know that it follows very very strict scientific disciplines in terms of the way the analysis is carried out. There is also some very bad research across the board in every single area. I have to say to those people who say that climate change is not real that some of that research is the dodgiest research I have ever read in terms of following scientific discipline. The research is not peer reviewed because the researchers know it would not stand up to a peer review. 
Maybe if we could get more of the scientific discipline taught through the humanities in our schools we would get critical thinking into a lot more of our young people even if they do not go on to do pure science subjects. That is important particularly as one of my colleagues pointed out earlier as we lose science advisers who were critically important in terms of making sure that primary school teachers who did not have a background in science had access to the information they needed to be able to engage the youngsters who were interested in that area. We have lost those science advisers because the Government cut their funding in the Budget. They have gone. The Government said it might bring back science advisers next year. It is too late. They have gone overseas. The science advisers were people who were in very high demand around the world. They have now left. They have been picked up by other people. Our schools and science in our schools will be poorer for that. We do not need any kind of research to tell us that. We on this side of the Chamber know that the value those people added to science education in our schools was invaluable. It was one of the reasons why we do particularly well in science in international tests. It will be interesting to see how much that success continues with the national standards because we have ascertained that national standards are not based on evidence at all but based on political rhetoric which is one of the tragic things about politics.