The anthropological fascination and appreciation for indigenous knowledge has successfully penetrated the popular imagination in recent years. It is now common to find sympathetic references to traditional ecological and cultural wisdom in miscellaneous media, from movies to children's storybooks, from alternative medicine propaganda to New Age religious teachings. Similar to other public trends, the remaking of IK has followed the lead set by advances in scientific research. IK has become incorporated into the research programmes of academic disciplines spanning the social and life sciences, leading some authors to suggest that IK studies deserve to be recognised as a burgeoning interdisciplinary field of research offering many new and exciting theoretical, practical, and ethical insights. Scientists, politicians, activists and others have stated that this intellectual heritage is valuable and relevant for the modern westernised world and urge that it be documented, preserved, utilised, and integrated with scientific knowledge. Despite the mounting accolades, the attitudes of the scientific community towards IK are still marked by considerable ambiguity, scepticism, contention, and debate. The opinions of the 'experts' diverge rather widely in regards to the definition, epistemology, methodology, separation from global science, codification, contextualisation, sustainability, contemporary importance, jurisprudence, and rhetorical representation of IK. I would argue that such cognitive dissonance is actually a sign of strength, rather than weakness, because it reflects the current lively and dynamic state of IK research and the active attempts of scientists to understand better this complex phenomenon. The present essay contributes to this debate by providing some genealogical perspective of the evolution of scientific representations of IK during approximately the last half century.