“Cargo Cult Science”

The term Cargo Cult Science can be described as the phenomenon that involves cult-like following of a scientific work without the scientific basis. The strategies that Richard Feynman uses are by pointing Millikan’s experiment in which the actual values were in fact erroneous and the phenomenon of what a “cargo cult” actually is. He gives the example of people who pretended to make an airport, but without any scientific work; hence, no plane landed on that airport. On the other hand, he described how people create semblance of scientific society by mimicry (Feynman). The example of which is the society where some scientists follow the foot print of others and are thought to be more intelligent without any scientific reasoning behind it.

In the case study, “Why Should my Conscience Bother me”, the writer reveals the extremely unethical behavior of the employees of BF Goodrich Co. The writer describes the case of A7D aircraft’s brake order given by LTV whose design project was given to a narcissistic senior engineer who has given a design of 4 plate lightest brake. Unfortunately in manufacturing process, the prototype failed manufacturing tests resulting in dismantle of wheel due to overheating observed by junior engineer Lawson who then gave a new 5 plate design which the senior engineer refused. As time passed, the delivery date for the brake came nearer and they had no time to implement the new design as well so they end up delivering the fault brake system passing all qualification and military tests using fraudulent data. This case study is a good example of Richard Feynman’s term Cargo Cult Science in which despite of knowing that the brake was going to fail, they pretend that they had followed all the scientific method, but in fact they have followed what Feynman has termed pseudo-science. Although this is a good example of Cargo Cult phenomenon, but there was also bad politics involved behind the scene. If the company has accepted the five plate design which later worked perfectly, this would have been an example of an authentic science. Therefore, it is distinguishable from authentic science because all the methods followed in the process were non- scientific. Because they had followed this intentionally with bad politics in the company, it can be termed as pseudo-science.