Cargo cult science refers to practices that have the semblance of being scientific, but do not in fact follow the scientific method. The term was first used by the physicist Richard Feynman during his commencement address at the California Institute of Technology, United States, in 1974. Cargo cults—the religious practice that has appeared in many traditional tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures—focus on obtaining the material wealth (the "cargo") of the advanced culture by building mock aircraft, landing strips, and the like.
Read more about Cargo Cult Science: The Speech, Examples in Specific Experiments and Results
Famous quotes containing the words cargo, cult and/or science:
“Nitrates and phosphates for ammunition. The seeds of war. They’re loading a full cargo of death. And when that ship takes it home, the world will die a little more.”
—Earl Felton, and Richard Fleischer. Captain Nemo (James Mason)
“A cult is a religion with no political power.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible. Our science has always desired to monitor, measure, abstract, and castrate meaning, forgetting that life is full of noise and that death alone is silent: work noise, noise of man, and noise of beast. Noise bought, sold, or prohibited. Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.”
—Jacques Attali (b. 1943)