Cargo cult science is a phrase describing
practices that have the semblance of being
scientific, but do not in fact follow the
scientific method.
The term was first used by physicist Richard
Feynman during his 1974 commencement address
at the California Institute of Technology.Cargo
cults are religious practices that have appeared
in many traditional tribal societies in the
wake of interaction with technologically advanced
cultures.
They focus on obtaining the material wealth
(the "cargo") of the advanced culture by imitating
the actions they believe cause the appearance
of cargo: by building landing strips, mock
aircraft, mock radios, and the like.
Similarly, although cargo cult sciences employ
the trappings of the scientific method, like
an airplane with no motor, they fail to deliver
anything of value.
== Feynman's speech ==
The speech is widely posted, and Feynman adapted
it in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.
Feynman based the phrase on a concept in anthropology,
the cargo cult, which describes how some pre-industrialized
cultures interpreted technologically sophisticated
visitors as religious or supernatural figures
who brought boons of cargo.
Later, in an effort to call for a second visit
the natives would develop and engage in complex
religious rituals, mirroring the previously
observed behavior of the visitors manipulating
their machines but without understanding the
true nature of those tasks.
Just as cargo cultists create mock airports
that fail to produce airplanes, cargo cult
scientists conduct flawed research that superficially
resembles the scientific method, but which
fails to produce scientifically useful results.
The following is an excerpt from a speech
(taken from the book).
In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of
people.
During the war they saw airplanes land with
lots of good materials, and they want the
same thing to happen now.
So they've arranged to imitate things like
runways, to put fires along the sides of the
runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to
sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head
like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking
out like antennas—he's the controller—and
they wait for the airplanes to land.
They're doing everything right.
The form is perfect.
It looks exactly the way it looked before.
But it doesn't work.
No airplanes land.
So I call these things cargo cult science,
because they follow all the apparent precepts
and forms of scientific investigation, but
they're missing something essential, because
the planes don't land.
Feynman cautioned that to avoid becoming cargo
cult scientists, researchers must avoid fooling
themselves, be willing to question and doubt
their own theories and their own results,
and investigate possible flaws in a theory
or an experiment.
He recommended that researchers adopt an unusually
high level of honesty which is rarely encountered
in everyday life, and gave examples from advertising,
politics, and psychology to illustrate the
everyday dishonesty which should be unacceptable
in science.
Feynman cautioned,
We've learned from experience that the truth
will come out.
Other experimenters will repeat your experiment
and find out whether you were wrong or right.
Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree
with your theory.
And, although you may gain some temporary
fame and excitement, you will not gain a good
reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried
to be very careful in this kind of work.
And it's this type of integrity, this kind
of care not to fool yourself, that is missing
to a large extent in much of the research
in cargo cult science.
An example of cargo cult science is an experiment
that uses another researcher's results in
lieu of an experimental control.
Since the other researcher's conditions might
differ from those of the present experiment
in unknown ways, differences in the outcome
might have no relation to the independent
variable under consideration.
Other examples, given by Feynman, are from
educational research, psychology (particularly
parapsychology), and physics.
He also mentions other kinds of dishonesty,
for example, falsely promoting one's research
to secure funding.
Feynman believed a scientist of integrity
must attempt to give out as much information
as possible about their experiments so others
could accurately appraise their contribution.
== Examples in specific experiments and results
==
Oil drop experiment: The history of published
results for this experiment is an example
given in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!,
in which each new publication slowly and quietly
drifted more and more away from the initial
(erroneous) values given by Robert Millikan
toward the correct value, rather than all
having a random distribution from the start
around what is now believed to be the correct
result.
This slow drift in the chronological history
of results is unnatural and suggests that
nobody wanted to contradict the previous one,
instead submitting only concordant results
for publication.
== Proposed solutions ==
In his commencement address, Richard Feynman
stated his belief that the antidote to both
cargo cult science and pseudoscience is scientific
integrity, which he describes as, "a kind
of leaning over backwards" to make sure scientists
do not fool themselves or others.
According to Feynman an ethical scientist
must make the extra effort to ensure that
their methods and results are transparent,
allowing other people to accurately appraise
and understand the scientist's research.
Feynman uses the case of a Wesson cooking
oil advertisement as an example of an unethical
and deceptive use of science that delivers
nothing of value.
The advertisement made the claim that the
oil would not soak through food.
In reality no oil will soak through food if
it is cold enough, and all oil will soak through
food if hot enough.
Since these facts would not advance Wesson's
agenda, these facts were not made readily
available for consumers.In the eighth chapter
of his book Interpreting Biomedical Science,
Ülo Maiväli presents some possible solutions
to the perceived prevalence of cargo cult
science.
These proposed solutions are as follows: the
integration, or the making whole or of science,
a more philosophical approach to science,
training that instills values of common ownership,
egalitarianism and disinterestedness, and
a system that distances scientists from economical
temptation and scarcity.
This system would reduce the amount of graduate
studies and graduate students to reduce funding
pressures.
Ideally this would give researchers the financial
support to be honest and innovative.
Maiväli postulates that honesty is more important
than methodology, and is the most effective
antidote to cargo cult science.
== See also
