Cargo Cult Science

This is the subject of an oft quoted commencement address given by one of my favourite scientists, Dr Richard Fenyman. An article I was reading on programming style lead me to it and I realized that some of the "cargo cults" he talks about in 1974 and prevalent in society till this day.

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas--which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact, that we have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when nothing that they proposed ever really worked--or very little of it did.

But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a conversation about UFO's, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And I've concluded that it's not a scientific world.

Read on for more on science, scientific methods and scientific integrity...