Cargo Cults

Lately I've heard the term 'cargo cult' one time too many without knowing the full background of the term's origins. Here's a WikiPedia article on the subject.

The term cargo cult is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific, especially New Guinea and Melanesian islands, initially in the mid 1800s, but most commonly in the years during and after World War II. There was no one Cargo Cult so this proper name is a misnomer - no one who participated in a cargo cult actually knew that they were doing so.

The vast amounts of war material that were air-dropped into these islands during the Pacific campaign against the Empire of Japan necessarily meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of these islanders as manufactured clothing, canned food, tents, weapons and other useful goods arrived in vast quantities to equip soldiers - and also the islanders who were their guides and hosts. When the war moved on, and ultimately when it ended, the airbases were abandoned and no new "cargo" was then being dropped.

In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders adopted a shallow version of the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors and airmen use. They carved headphones from wood, and wore them while sitting in control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.

The cultists thought that the foreigners have some special connection to the ancestors, who were the only beings powerful enough to spill such riches. By mimicking the foreigners, they hoped to bypass them.
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Eventually, the Pacific cultists gave up. But, from time to time, the term "Cargo cult" is invoked as an English language idiom, to mean any group of people making obeisance to something that it is obvious they do not comprehend.

In this sense, they are perhaps best known because of a speech by physicist Richard Feynman at a Caltech commencement, which became a chapter in the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". In the speech, Feynman pointed out that cargo cultists create all the appearance of an airport - right down to headsets with bamboo "antennas" - yet the airplanes don't come. Feynman argued that scientists often produce studies with all the trappings of real science, but which are nonetheless pseudoscience and unworthy of either respect or support.

The Feynman book mentioned, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, is the funniest and perhaps the most honest autobiography I've ever read. Definitely worth a trip to the library for it. My favourite story in the book is when he decided he wanted to study anatomy and take a break from physics for a while. To get started, he went to the library of the university he was at at the time and asked the librarian for a map of a cat.

Another funny little story is when Feynman went to Princeton and was invited to the tea time they had. Feynman had never drank tea before, and like so many stereotypical brilliant scientific minds, he didn't pay much attention to other people's behavior or even common sense. But he was eager to fit in and was generally agreeable, so when he was asked if he wanted milk or lemon in his coffee he simply smiled and said "both". Hence the title of the book :)

Feynman is absolutely brilliant, though, it goes without saying. I only became familiar with his work from studying reversible logic for a course I took last year. I've been thinking about his speech about cargo cult science and how it applies to writing my thesis and reporting the work I did for it. The text of the speech is here.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never say explicitly what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

One of the toughest things to do is write about the weaknesses in your own work. And it's not something they teach you how to do. The business world is allergic to such practices, and they don't teach it in undergraduate technical writing courses. Being able to clearly say the limits of how far your work goes is the best way to show its true value, but we're taught only to act as salespeople for our ideas. Sadly, this is reinforced in grad school, where everything from applying for grants to defending your thesis lets you get by only talking about the positive selling points of your work without forcing you to thoroughly investigate the weaknesses in your work.

Of course the existence of weaknesses, exceptions and limitations is absolutely a given, no one has ever come up with a theory or system that was absolutely flawless. But the mindset that you must make your own work look as good as you can permeates the culture of Universities, to the point where it feels like just another business environment.

One could talk about funding models and business ties to research institutions, but perhaps the blame for such a lack of self-discipline is human nature. We aren't all as brilliant as Richard Feynman, and perhaps we don't all have the ability to approach our own work with a critical eye the way he could. But knowing which way to head is the key moreso than lamenting the fact that we aren't there yet. Oh well, back to poking holes in my project..