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Cargo Cult Science

calteches.library.caltech.edu · 3,843 words · saved by 1 readers

Some remarks on science, pseudoscience, and learning how to not fool yourself. Caltech’s 1974 commencement address. During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. (Another crazy idea of the Middle Ages is these hats we have on today—which is too loose in my case.) 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, a

Cargo Cult Science Public Relations Normal Public Relations 2 1 2003-08-01T20:22:00Z 2003-08-01T20:22:00Z 3 3097 17653 Caltech 147 35 21679 10.2418 0 0 Cargo Cult Science by RICHARD P. FEYNMAN Some remarks on science, pseudoscience, and learning how to not fool yourself. Caltech’s 1974 commencement address. During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. (Another crazy idea of the Middle Ages is these hats we have on today—which is too loose in my case.) Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas—which was t

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