The Biden Administration’s Demon-Haunted World
By Elizabeth Weiss
President Joe Biden and his administration have effectively destroyed the constitutional barrier between church and state. The object of Biden’s religious favoritism is neither Christianity nor Judaism nor Islam. Instead, on the basis of an unholy alliance of “white guilt,” virtue signaling, and political correctness, Biden has mandated that “indigenous knowledge”—meaning, the religious beliefs of Native American tribes—be treated as objective and scientific, and that it be used to set policies for such agencies as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Unsurprisingly, the consequences—from closing thousands of museum exhibits to blocking fossil fuel projects—are proving disastrous.
On January 27, 2021, shortly after taking office, President Biden published the “Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking.”1 He promised that his administration would make decisions based on evidence, including research based on well-established scientific procedures and peer-reviewed publications. Biden supposedly was committed to using the “best available science and data.” This term “best available science” had been defined, in 2001, by a government-wide set of guidelines provided by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as science that “maximized the quality, objectivity, and integrity of information, including statistical information.”2
Yet, on December 1, 2022, Biden’s administration contradicted itself, issuing the “First-of-a-Kind Indigenous Knowledge Guidance for Federal Agencies.”3 This guidance does not provide a clear definition of “indigenous knowledge,” nor do any of the sources cited therein. However, descriptions of “indigenous knowledge” often include terms such as “spiritual,” “beliefs,” and “spiritual systems.” For instance, one memo states, “Indigenous Knowledge is a body of observations, oral and written knowledge, innovations, practices, and beliefs developed by Tribes and Indigenous Peoples through interaction and experience with the environment.”4 And “It is applied to phenomena across biological, physical, social, cultural, and spiritual systems.”5
In short, “indigenous knowledge” is simply a euphemism for the religious beliefs of Native Americans coupled with stories and claims handed down by tribe members without methods for collecting or verifying data. The new federal guidance tells researchers to “respect different processes and world views” and that “indigenous knowledge” may be “embedded in songs and prayers.”6 Further, the guidance states, “Indigenous people have creation narratives that are tied to places in every region of the United States and beyond” and that these are “essential to spiritual practice.”7 In another guide for federal agencies, the Biden administration declares, “Indigenous Knowledge is a valid form of self-supporting evidence that should be included in federal policy, research, and decision-making, as appropriate.”8 Thus, such agencies as the DOE, EPA, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality are required to take into account religious beliefs before coming to their supposedly “evidence-based” conclusions. In the words of one memo, they must “include Indigenous Knowledge as an aspect of best available science.”9 Following suit, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has promised to use “Indigenous Knowledge” as evidence.10
This is the Biden administration’s attempt to enforce epistemological egalitarianism—that is, the view that all types of “knowing” are equally valid. . . .Indeed, some argue that indigenous beliefs and science are essentially similar. In a piece titled “Teach Indigenous Knowledge alongside Science”—which was published in the now less-than-prestigious journal Science—academics Amanda Black and Jason Tylianakis acknowledge that indigenous groups “lack traditional written communication and thus transmit knowledge within memorable framings, such as stories or myths.”11 They then liken the mythical stories to abstract concepts and scientific models, such as Bohr’s model of the atom.
Of course, any supposed similarities between ideas accepted on faith in the absence of evidence and those resulting from a rigorous, evidence-based verification process are superficial. Although the “Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Indigenous Knowledge” says that both scientific knowledge and indigenous beliefs are based on observations, it provides no examples of the latter based on observations. What’s more, science is not observation alone—it is also testing one’s conclusions in a methodical manner that can be repeated, replicated, or negated, thereby validating or invalidating them. Contradictory evidence, even coming from a different field of science, may invalidate previous scientific conclusions—because all genuine knowledge integrates without contradiction. Finally, science is at its best when data are shared and can be critically examined by peers and reviewers.
But indigenous beliefs, like other faith-based beliefs, are supposed to be treated as unquestionably true and, thus, outside of the realm of validation. According to these guidelines, indigenous beliefs do not depend on other forms of evidence for validation. According to some, contradictory evidence—even between tribes—does not indicate that a given item of “indigenous knowledge” is incorrect. As the authors of one government memo explain, “Indigenous Knowledge and other forms of knowledge do not depend on each other for validation.”12 Further, they state, “In some instances, discrepancies or contradictory data and information may arise. These conflicts do not necessarily indicate that the Indigenous Knowledge or other form of knowledge is in error.”13
In some cases, indigenous beliefs are to be treated as tribal property and are not to be shared, much less scrutinized—even for legal purposes. The administration says that “tribal members and Indigenous People who hold Indigenous Knowledge may be Elders, cultural practitioners, and/or spiritual leaders” and that they may decide that the knowledge is “sensitive, sacred or belongs to certain families or clans.”14 Calls for transparency and sharing certain indigenous beliefs are anathema to many Native American tribal “knowledge holders.” And as attorney Hans Bader has pointed out, the “FDA and CDC could soon employ ‘indigenous’ folk wisdom on par with scientific evidence”; yet the sources of such “wisdom” have often been granted legal immunity from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, making any sort of independent review impossible.15
Indeed, the “Best Practices Guide for Federal Agencies Regarding Tribal and Native Hawaiian Sacred Sites” even counsels tribes on how to thwart FOIA requests, suggesting that they avoid making maps and that they leverage other loopholes to claim disclosure exemptions. When tribes avoid documenting the locations of sacred sites, they can later declare nearly every place sacred. After all, the guidelines state, “Sacred sites may include, but are not limited, to geological features, bodies of water, archaeological sites, burial locations, traditional cultural properties, plant communities and stone and earth structures and may be present on tribal, public, and private lands.”16 Further, “sacred sites are not frozen in time and can evolve with future identification of sacred sites in honor of recent events and spiritual dynamics.”17
The effects extend beyond archaeologists working on “sacred sites” and other earthly matters; indigenous beliefs are impacting research and education about outer space. Consider NASA’s “Educational Activities Weaving NASA Science and Navajo Knowledge” for use in K–12 classrooms.18 Here, interspersed with science, are tales of “holy people” who convened to illuminate the universe by getting a young man to carry the sun. Further, there is talk of the “creation” of the Earth. And it starts with the Navajo statement, “We are the Holy People of the Earth. We are created and placed between our Mother Earth and Father Sky.”19
This all may seem like child’s play, to be ignored—but consider that the Navajo nearly stopped a moon flight on religious grounds. NASA contracted with the private company Astrobotic to facilitate a lunar landing, but so had several private mortuary companies for the purpose of landing cremated human remains on the moon—which the Navajo considered a “desecration.” This led to a meeting with top-level White House administrators and several federal agencies.20 Ultimately, the mission proceeded because the administration lacked legal grounds for forcing the Navajo’s religious views on private contractors.21 Now, Navajo leaders are campaigning to establish just such legal grounds.
Three years before Biden mandated that federal agencies rely on indigenous beliefs, NIH held a traditional medicine summit. If Biden and his administrators ever had any misunderstandings about what to expect from a policy of epistemological egalitarianism, the summit should have disabused them of such misunderstandings. For instance, David Tsosie, a Navajo spokesman, emphasized “how vital it is for researchers to appreciate the importance of prayers, worldviews, and other aspects of culture to help preserve and protect them when working with Tribal communities.”22 He also stated that the Navajo “were given the fundamental law from the Great Spirit, who sanctioned the earth, sky, and sacred mountains with song and prayer.”23 Other Native American presenters at the summit noted that “the Creator gave everyone a spirit” and that “God makes all things possible.”24 Perhaps most troubling was that “Patrick Calf Looking (Blackfeet) told of his experiences with his great-granddaughter’s sickness when he first became involved in the spirit, noting that a healer can be present spiritually rather than physically.”25This is the sort of “medicine” platformed by the nation’s most powerful medical agency and federal employees are forced to treat as on par with the most rigorous science.
In my own field, anthropology, the necessity of including indigenous beliefs has led curators to close Native American museum exhibits and place severe restrictions on the study of skeletal remains. 26 After consultation with “tribal knowledge holders,” many exhibits will reopen with far fewer artifacts on display and far more supernatural tales presented to the public. For example, after five years and $19 million of renovation, the American Museum of Natural History’s Northwest Coast Hall has finally reopened. Guests are now greeted with warning signs on cases that contain “objects of power,” such as the masks of shamans. Many items are no longer on display at all, including, for instance, a bird bone whistle, because it may summon supernatural beings from beyond.27 Behind the scenes, curation regulations warn curators, researchers, and other museum employees of harm from artifacts made with human hair—all must be wary of these items.
Further, many government agencies awarding research grants, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), now require researchers to include indigenous beliefs in their research projects—a stipulation that will no doubt shape their conclusions. For instance, a recent Science article argues that Native Americans rode and domesticated horses prior to European contact.28 This was because remains of horses with DNA matching Spanish horses were found in places where there is no record of Spaniards contacting Native Americans. Why didn’t the researchers conclude, as seems all the more likely, that previously domesticated horses escaped from the Spaniards and that the Native Americans then hunted and ate them, rather than rode them? There is no scientific evidence that Native Americans ever rode or domesticated horses prior to European contact. This, however, did not forestall the researchers from coming to such a conclusion given that oral myths, passed on by tribes, asserted it.
Thus, researchers will increasingly be incentivized to fit their findings with indigenous beliefs. For those who stick to actual evidence, funding will dry up, publishing will be impossible, and their careers will be derailed.