Decolonizing the Natural Sciences: A Critique of the Colonial Foundations of Western Scientific Authority

While many other academic disciplines are starting to address their colonial legacies, the natural sciences have remained largely exempt from similar scrutiny, while concurrently housing some of the most problematic systems and pedagogical dogma. This paper offers a critical review of Western scientific culture through a decolonial and relational epistemological lens. This critique identifies structural patterns in scientific practice that reflect extractive, possessive, and anthropocentric assumptions including taxonomic naming that functions as intellectual appropriation, "discovery" paradigms that deny natural existence, and publication gatekeeping that excludes important scientific discoveries if challenging to institutional anthropocentric positions. The paper demonstrates alternative models of inquiry grounded in reciprocity, agency, and consent. These examples reveal how knowledge emerges from conditions of trust and relational accountability rather than extractive procedure and examination. Rather than proposing reforms to colonial institutions, the paper suggests building separate infrastructures that bypass Western scientific gatekeeping entirely. This work challenges the field to move toward recognition of agency and intelligence throughout the living world, and urges scientists to meet the world where its at and to observe with curiosity, to communicate and listen, and to be humble in the presence of the magnificent universe. The future of scientific inquiry is asking questions that life is willing to answer through relationships of reciprocity rather than domination.