<story><title>Cargo Cult Science (1974)</title><url>https://fermatslibrary.com/s/cargo-cult-science</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>lutusp</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a better copy of this classic Richard Feynman address, rendered in text instead of graphics (meaning it can be copied in whole or in part), without any advertising: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;calteches.library.caltech.edu&amp;#x2F;51&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;CargoCult.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;calteches.library.caltech.edu&amp;#x2F;51&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;CargoCult.htm&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Cargo Cult Science (1974)</title><url>https://fermatslibrary.com/s/cargo-cult-science</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>wolframhempel</author><text>I love this article as it speaks to one of the most overlooked aspects of modern life: There are a lot of fundamental things that we take for granted and practice every day - a lot of things with lots of experts and powerful institutions around them - that simply do not work.&lt;p&gt;And once you have such a thing, and you&amp;#x27;ve build your reputation, your power base, your institution around it, it is absolutely paramount to carry on with it, deepen it, and extend it - regardless of whether it works or not.&lt;p&gt;But continuing the thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t work doesn&amp;#x27;t require some malicious intent or ulterior motive. Quite often, it&amp;#x27;s just a question of &amp;quot;well, what else would we do?&amp;quot;. And the answer to that is often &amp;quot;nothing&amp;quot; - or &amp;quot;we don&amp;#x27;t know&amp;quot; - so it&amp;#x27;s better to do something and feel like we have agency and are doing something about it than just carrying on with our lives.</text></comment>