Cargo Cult Science - Examples in Specific Experiments and Results

Examples in Specific Experiments and Results

• Oil drop experiment: The history of published results for this famous experiment is an example given in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - in which each new publication slowly and quietly drifted more and more away from the initial (erroneous) values given by Robert Millikan, rather than all having a random distribution from the start around what we now believe the correct result is. This slow and linear drift in the chronological history of results is unnatural and suggests that nobody wanted to contradict the previous one, instead only submitting for publication "agreeable" results.

• Physician Raymond Tallis describes the psychoanalytic school established by Jacques Lacan as an example of cargo cult science. Tallis argues that Lacan, who was poorly trained in both traditional medicine and psychoanalysis, superficially mimicked medicine and science, and that Lacan's later devotees similarly mimic their guru's confused concepts.

• The Cranfield University report “Aircraft Cabin Air Sampling Study” provides a recent example of cargo cult science. The government-sponsored study purported to measure the concentrations of toxic substances in aircraft cabin air but used such inappropriate methodology the results were of little value. Nevertheless, they were used to make comparisons with domestic environments of dubious relevance in order to assert that “...there was no evidence for target pollutants occurring in the cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines.”