The seven professors who wrote a letter to the Editor of the New Zealand Listener (Clements et al., 2021) present themselves as ‘defenders’ of science, but how valid, really, is this claim? Three of the authors published an earlier version of the letter, which also used the term ‘defence of science’ in its title (Corballis et al., 2019; May, 2021). This title phrase ‘defence of science’ implies these scholars believe science is under attack; indeed, the main point of both letters is to issue a warning that science is being attacked by Mātauranga Māori, or by those who advance the claims of Mātauranga Māori. The publication of these claims in the Listener has whipped up a media frenzy and heated public debate reminiscent of a ‘moral panic’ (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009). In response, strong disapproval of the letter’s content was expressed in a statement by the Vice-Chancellor of the university where all these professors are either working or emeritus (Freshwater, 2021), and an open letter signed by more than 2,000 academics and others declared that Mātauranga Māori definitely IS science (Sowman-Lund, 2021). This editorial digs below the surface of this rhetoric, to examine what is really going on in this debate, and why it matters.