On Jun 4, 2012, at 12:07 AM, Henry Baker wrote:
As in everything else, Feynman was prescient when he talked of "Cargo Cults":
I looked up the Wikipedia "cargo cult science" article and found that its selection of examples is quite poor. Feynman made two points in his famous commencement address: (1) that just because something has all the trappings of science doesn't make it science, and (2) true science must "bend over backwards" to make its case. Cargo cult science refers to (1) but the Wikipedia examples include the drift in oil-drop charge values over time, which is really an example of (2). So here is a fun idea. Let's come up with a list of true examples of cargo cult science within Wikipedia itself, and then revise the cargo cult article accordingly. At the top of my list is: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_model_of_trade Can you beat that one? -Veit